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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1997)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL P.O.BOX 3159 ode@oregon. uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: darkwing.uoregon.edu/~ode Perspectives EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Doug Irving Universal testing could reveal \J ^ '-wr unequal scnoonng AN EMERALD EDITORIAL Standardized testing could be a valuable tool for improving the education system, but only if properly implemented ton’s latest bold education pro posal is dead. The Republicans seem to have ground standard ized testing out of existence. We aren’t sure what to think. Clear ly, standardized testing had the po tential to be a useful indicator of how well America’s schools were educat ing students. It also had the potential to justify a lot of bad education policy. If used correctly, standardized test ing would have been a source of valu able data. Few efforts have been made to measure the performance of every school in every region of the country by one standard scale. Currently, the closest thing to a uni versal gauge of student performance is the SAT. Obviously, a standardized college entrance exam is not a good measure of how the average student is doing. o, it appears President Clin Not only do many students not take the SAT, but it also measures only the performance of one age group. That group has already received whatever benefit or harm it will get from the school system; the data will serve lit tle purpose now. Additionally, standardized tests like the SAT don’t measure the most important skills. The SAT is designed to measure reasoning ability and scholastic potential more than litera cy or basic math ability. It is also ar gued by many groups that the SAT contains a certain cultural bias that would make a similar test ineffective at comparing minority performance to the national average. Unfortunately, the Republican leaders who opposed the idea of a na tional test have suggested that by sim ply modifying existing private tests like the SAT, the objectives a stan dardized test would fulfill could be met. This would be standardized test ing of the worst sort. In addition, if a standardized test was simply used as a way to gauge student performance without consideration of the many fac tors that go into education, it could prove dangerous. The results could easily be used to condemn certain schools or systems without considering the community in which the school functions. For example, inner-city schools would likely score lower on the test despite spending more money on their students. This doesn’t mean the money is wasted or that the schools need to be stream lined; rather, it is a reminder that students in dense urban areas often face more educa tional obstacles than those in suburbs. More dangerous, if a stan dardized test were used as a sort of universal exam to de cide whether students pass, many children would be dis couraged and even driven from the school system. The idea of the test would be to en sure students had certain nec essary skills, but without ac A companying changes in the school system itself, the effect of the exam would be to lower the educational level of many underprivileged students. Nevertheless, a standard ized test could also prove to be a tremendously valuable tool in reforming the education system. The Republicans fear a stan dardized test would put schools one step closer to federal control, some thing they oppose. In reality, federal restrictions on school programs and standards could prove beneficial. Currently, the local control communities have over their schools leads to dangerous inequali ties in education. We certainly don’t want communi ties to lose control of their children’s education. Different communities have different goals and different needs, and the variety of systems in place allows for increased experimen tation. What we would like people to rec ^ M(L ognize is that a system that relies en tirely on community funding and standards inevitably fails those stu dents who grow up in poor, badly ed ucated areas. Standardized testing could point out these inequalities and force states to boost funding of urban schools. It isn’t enough to ensure that each district gets the same amount of mon ey per student, as is currently the case in Oregon. Rather, districts with stu dents who have fewer opportunities at home or greater educational needs should receive increased funding, something standardized testing could help bring about. The very fact that Republicans op pose standardized testing is a good in dicator that it could benefit students who are at a current educational dis advantage. Those students and then parents aren’t the voters who picked Republican candidates or who donat ed thousands of dollars to the Repub lican causes. Instead of abandoning voters who can’t afford to buy federal support, we should break with history and begin to reform schools in a way that would allow students to break out of the cy cle of poverty in which they are cur rently trapped. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses may be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Drawing Board I T*l GREENHOUSE ima? WE B! UP IN THE MR about our pouCy„ Thumbs TOANEWYORK MAN: A New Yorker is accused of delib erately infecting more than a dozen women with HIV. Such a crime has prece dent, but it is no less horrific. The fact that AIDS has linked death and sex in people’s minds is sadden ing; people who deliberately wors en this associa tion by using sex as a deadly weapon are nau seating. s\ TO THE HOUSE: AU.S. House committee inves tigating cases of so-called “Gulf War Syndrome” recently de nounced Penta gon investigators and called for an independent re view. The com mittee claimed the military was covering up or ig noring the possi bility that soldiers who have com plained about a variety of symp toms since re turning from the Persian Gulf con flict might have come into contact with chemical or biological weapons. The panel felt this was a likely possibility and, because of the reluctance of the military to in vestigate, the possible link be tween chemical weapons and ill ness should be independently ex amined. Because we have almost no trust in the military’s ability to protect its sol diers, we think an independent ex amination is a good idea.
