Still Hating America.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Spanky
1) I think problems with the test need to be improved upon, but because there are problems doesn't mean they should be thrown out. Although I don't think that is what you are arguing here, it is what the CTA does all the time. The exams are not perfect, so they should not be used anymore. It is like with the theory of evolution, the creationists point to a problem in it and conclude the whole theory must be bunk and not taught.

I didn't say no testing, and I certainly didn't say that the tests should be thrown out. I said this is why I have a problem with the current model of testing.

2) These issues point out while annual testing is so important. If you don't do annual tests you don't know which teacher is responsible for what. If they have the same math teacher for the entire year you know who is responsible, but only if you have annual tests.

I understand that. I also understand that there is a cumulative effect and that teachers are going to end up with kids who don't have a basic grasp of the previous fundamentals. There may not be a single person responsible for a kid's being behind in math or reading. It may be a slew of people, including previous teachers, a change in the way kids are evaluated (look at the second article that I sent you, where they say that they can't compare to previous reading scores because the evaluation criteria changed), parental involvment, and yes, the teacher who has that kid this year.

3) To make an incentive for the students, passing is necessary for them to continue to the next grade. That way the student has a strong incentive to do well. You can also tie the test to their grade. And as far as them just doing enough to pass the exam, if during the exam they are unsure as what is necessary to pass, they will err on the side of doing the best they can instead of risking failure (that is if they are truly looking our for their interest)

Did you ever work hard on standardize tests aside from making sure you brought a number two pencil to school with you when you were in elementary school? I sure as hell didn't. (I also scored in the 99th percentile on most of those tests and considered them a joke. I presume the same for most other people on this board. My school gave the Stanford Achievement Tests.) But I worked my ass off on the SATs and the APs. The former to get in college, the latter because it was tied to my grade. My parents were also much, much more interested in my performance on the latter exams than the ones that were meaningless except for evaluating the school. They were also much more interested in how I did on my spelling test that week than they were in how I did on the standardized test.

4) As far as the Geometry and Algebra issue these exams are there to insure that people are getting a basic education. Once they hit the Algebra/Geometry level, the exams uselessness has really come to an end. The problem is that a large swath of students are graduating that can't do basic math or do basic English. That is what the exams are for. To find out how and where students are moving through the system and not getting a basic education. In order to fix this problem, you need to see exactly where the failure is occurring and why. Tests help you determine that.

Yes, but evaluating the student and evaluating the teacher are two different things. Using a tool to evaluate the student is perfectly fine and acceptable, but it may not be the best tool (as demonstrated with the Algebra/Geometry issue) for evaluating the particular teacher who has the student at that point in time. Again, I'm not at all saying that testing needs to be done away with, but we need to be clear on who we are testing. The student or the teacher?

5) As for grading the teachers, that is why cross comparisons are so important. You don't just look at the overall score; you look at how much the student has improved from the previous year's exam. And since you are testing basic math and English this is not hard to do. In addition, you can cross reference student’s performance from one class to another class, so if this year’s exam is harder than last years, it will be reflected in all the classes taking the exams. Again you are not testing teachers against some random criteria; you are testing them against each other. If you look at how much students improved from one year to the next, taking the same exams, and compare students in similar type of classes, then it will be clear which teachers are good at their job and which teachers are not.

Without these exams, I don't see how you can determine where the system is exactly failing; where it is allowing students to move through grades without learning anything. Before you can fix the system, you have to know where the problems are, and without annual standardized exams, I don't know how you do that. Do you?

Again, I have a difficulty with the above given the conclusions drawn in the second article I posted. Kids grades seem to be doing fine grade wise, but they're not doing well on these exams. I would want to know a little more about what the reasons are behind that before I start throwing the kids back a year or firing teachers. Are they really not learning or are they not performing well on these exams?

And again, I'm not saying do not test. I am saying that incentives need to be aligned so KIDS find these tests to be as important as everyone else in the equation.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Are you saying that the URL http://toohotfortnr.blogspot.com/200...t-and-wet.html ...... is not part of a a blog?

Just how stupid are you?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Because the logic of your position is that if the richest 10% of the population gains a lot from, say, getting rid of a particular tariff and the other 90% loses, but not quite as much, then you would favor getting rid of that particular tariff.

Or is that wrong? Do you favor free trade because you think it helps more people than it hurts, regardless of the aggregate effects?

I favor free trade over restricted trade because free trade benefits the economy and the society as a whole more than restricted trade. I favor Capitalism over Socialism because it provides the greatest number of benefits for the greatest number of people.

If you could demonstrate solid evidence that the introduction of socialism would benefit ninety percent of a particular society greatly and would only slightly hurt ten percent of the society, and these benefits would continue over the unforeseen future, and would certainly benefit the society more than the continued use of Capitalism, I would reexamine my support of free markets in that situation, just as if you could show me solid evidence that trade restrictions would benefit this nation as a whole, I would review my opposition to trade restrictions.

A long the same vein, if you could show me that the abolition of the DOD, the DOJ, and the DHS, would improve the national security of this nation, I would reexamine my position that the existence of these departments is beneficial for our national security.

However, I doubt anyone will ever present such evidence to me. And no one has every come close to presenting anything that would come close to the type of evidence I would need to reevaluate my position on these issues on this board.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Is there a new "Eric Rudolph" macro here on the site of which I am unaware?

Besides, as terrorists go, Eric Rudloph was a piker. 3 deaths? 111 injured? That wouldn't even get him in the Palestinian Hall of Fame.

I see your lawyerly chops are still intact. Back/fill, Back/fill.

S_A_M

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Adder
To be fair, I think (in typical Spanky style) he has said this repeatedly.

I was under the impression -- and I'm sure Spanky will correct me whether or not I'm wrong -- that he believes (a) free trade is beneficial for the country, on the whole; and (b) free trade helps more people than it hurts; and (c) supports free trade because of (a). Of course, (b) is nice too. But the question I was raising with the post you just responded to is whether Spanky would support free trade if (a) were true but (b) were not true.

eta: In #1428, two posts above, Spanky suggests that his support is based on (a).

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
I didn't say no testing, and I certainly didn't say that the tests should be thrown out. I said this is why I have a problem with the current model of testing.

I got that. I was just taking another swipe at the CTA.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan I understand that. I also understand that there is a cumulative effect and that teachers are going to end up with kids who don't have a basic grasp of the previous fundamentals. There may not be a single person responsible for a kid's being behind in math or reading. It may be a slew of people, including previous teachers,

That is why I believe annualized tests are so important. That way teachers will only be held resposible for what happens to the kids on their watch. Teachers are not held responsible of the kid screws up the test, they are only held responsible if the kid screws up the test even more this year than they did last year.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan a change in the way kids are evaluated (look at the second article that I sent you, where they say that they can't compare to previous reading scores because the evaluation criteria changed), parental involvment, and yes, the teacher who has that kid this year.

If you change the criteria then you can't compare those tests to tests gleaned from using a different critieria. The only data that will be useful (and therefore data used in evaluations) is date used from tests using the same critiers. As far as parental involvement is concerned, you can't really control that. All you can do is control the quality of education they get. so the parental involement will probably stay constant from year to year, the only thing that will change is the influence of the teacher. If a teacher can get a parent to get involved in a students life in a certain year, that will get reflected in the year end exam. And that is another quality you want in a teacher; getting the paretns involved. it doesn't matter how they do it, you just want the teachers to help the students learn.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan Did you ever work hard on standardize tests aside from making sure you brought a number two pencil to school with you when you were in elementary school? I sure as hell didn't. (I also scored in the 99th percentile on most of those tests and considered them a joke. I presume the same for most other people on this board. My school gave the Stanford Achievement Tests.) But I worked my ass off on the SATs and the APs. The former to get in college, the latter because it was tied to my grade. My parents were also much, much more interested in my performance on the latter exams than the ones that were meaningless except for evaluating the school. They were also much more interested in how I did on my spelling test that week than they were in how I did on the standardized test.

But just because you didn't try as hard, doesn't mean you didn't do better on these exams the more you learned. It is not like you tried to screw them up. And like I said, there would be no harm in trying to incentivize students into doing well on the exam.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan Yes, but evaluating the student and evaluating the teacher are two different things. Using a tool to evaluate the student is perfectly fine and acceptable, but it may not be the best tool (as demonstrated with the Algebra/Geometry issue) for evaluating the particular teacher who has the student at that point in time. Again, I'm not at all saying that testing needs to be done away with, but we need to be clear on who we are testing. The student or the teacher?

Both. Why can't you test both? You have to test the teacher. And what is wrong with testing the teacher? How else do you find out which teachers are doing a good job and which teachers are not? How does the individual teacher know if what they are doing is working? And don't you want to reward the teachers that are doing a good job, and let the teachers know that are not doing such a good job that they should do better?

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Again, I have a difficulty with the above given the conclusions drawn in the second article I posted. Kids grades seem to be doing fine grade wise, but they're not doing well on these exams. I would want to know a little more about what the reasons are behind that before I start throwing the kids back a year or firing teachers. Are they really not learning or are they not performing well on these exams?

Don't you think life is one big exam? In the real word, they are not going to get extra points for class participation, or trying hard, or being nice to the teacher. Either they can read and write, do basic math, or they won't be able to hold the job. Isn't this what the exams directly test? It seems to me the exams are much more objective than grades.

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan And again, I'm not saying do not test. I am saying that incentives need to be aligned so KIDS find these tests to be as important as everyone else in the equation.

I agree with that.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
But the question I was raising with the post you just responded to is whether Spanky would support free trade if (a) were true but (b) were not true.

Spanky doesn't answer hypotheticals that aren't about the real world (redundant). His time is too important for that. He addresses the portions of a post that he thinks are relevant.

Are you on crack? Have you ever opened an economic book in your life? Give me some of what you've been smoking, you Galbraith-loving m-fer!

S_A_M

S_A_M

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
(in typical Spanky style)

I think you guys would find my style a little less aggravating if you realized that I am the epicenter of the universe and that I am always right.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I was under the impression -- and I'm sure Spanky will correct me whether or not I'm wrong -- that he believes (a) free trade is beneficial for the country, on the whole; and (b) free trade helps more people than it hurts; and (c) supports free trade because of (a). Of course, (b) is nice too. But the question I was raising with the post you just responded to is whether Spanky would support free trade if (a) were true but (b) were not true.

eta: In #1428, two posts above, Spanky suggests that his support is based on (a).

If A were true and B not true, that would mean it is beneficial for the country but that it hurts more people than it helps. It is hard for me to imagine such a scenario. It would seem to me that if it hurts more people than it helps then, it is not beneficial to the country.

One scenario where this might occur would be where the people that were helped were the bottom forty percent and it hurt the top sixty percent. So the people that were helped were the people that really needed it, and the people that were hurt (the upper and upper middle classes) had enough money any way. Then in that case I might think it helped the country as a whole even though it hurt the most people.

The problem with that scenario is that free trade, and free markets, almost always benefit the poor more than restricted markets. The main benefit of free trade is it drives consumer prices down. And no one benefits more from lower consumer prices than the poor. Restrictions on agriculture hurt the poor the most.

Once a specific industry protects its jobs through trade restrictions (like steel quotas), it may help keep their wages up, but the trade restrictions costs more jobs in the society as a whole thereby supressing wages in general. So the specific union in question may benefit, but their benefit comes at the cost of everyone else's wages being reduced.

Every analysis of almost every trade restriction I have ever seen shows that such restriction may benefit a few, but it always hurts the society in general, and mainly hurts lower income people by pushing down their income and pushing up the amount they pay for consumer goods. Both agricultural tariffs (and subsidies) and steel quotas help supress incomes in the lower two quintiles and increase the cost of basic consumer products, so everyone in the lower to quintiles are doubly screwed for the benefit of unionized steel workers and farmers (both who have economic clout).

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
If A were true and B not true, that would mean it is beneficial for the country but that it hurts more people than it helps. It is hard for me to imagine such a scenario. It would seem to me that if it hurts more people than it helps then, it is not beneficial to the country.

Suppose that repealing a certain tariff helps the richest 40% of the country, making them $100,000,000 richer. But it hurts the poorest 60%, making them $60,000,000 poorer. In the aggregate, the country is better off. But more citizens are hurt than helped. What then?

The problem with that scenario is that free trade, and free markets, almost always benefit the poor more than restricted markets. The main benefit of free trade is it drives consumer prices down. And no one benefits more from lower consumer prices than the poor. Restrictions on agriculture hurt the poor the most.

As consumers, yes. Because the poor spend more of their money on things like food. But as workers, free trade tends to hurt the working class more than the upper classes, because the former is more vulnerable to competition from unskilled labor in foreign countries than the latter is. We lawyers can (imperfectly) protect our jobs through restrictions on the unlicensed practice of law, etc.

I agree with you about agricultural barriers, many of which our government supports for fear of pissing off politically influential groups like the sugar lobby. What do you think about that flavor of free trade, Tables?

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Suppose that repealing a certain tariff helps the richest 40% of the country, making them $100,000,000 richer. But it hurts the poorest 60%, making them $60,000,000 poorer. In the aggregate, the country is better off. But more citizens are hurt than helped. What then?

That would suck. But as far as I know free trade does not work that way, and even if it did, I don't know what trade restrictions could do to fix the problem.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
As consumers, yes. Because the poor spend more of their money on things like food. But as workers, free trade tends to hurt the working class more than the upper classes, because the former is more vulnerable to competition from unskilled labor in foreign countries than the latter is. We lawyers can (imperfectly) protect our jobs through restrictions on the unlicensed practice of law, etc.

I agree with you about agricultural barriers, many of which our government supports for fear of pissing off politically influential groups like the sugar lobby. What do you think about that flavor of free trade, Tables?

I think where you analysis is wrong, is that the poor and lower middle class do not hold manufacturing jobs. Especially not unionized manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are a small part of the economy and they do not represent the two bottom quintiles of society. The poor and lower middle class generaly have low end service jobs like waiter, fast food, cleaning, security guard, janitor, landscaping etc. all of which are not exportable. The amount these jobs pay is also very vulnerable to the economy in general. If the economy is doing well there is more demand for these jobs, and if it is not doing well there is less demand for these jobs. The more disposable income floating around the economy (which trade restrictions directly eat up) the more these jobs pay. So these non exportable service job holders are benefitted the most by the efficiencies created by free trade, and benefit the most by lower consumer prices created by free trade.

The problem is that these people have no organized political force. It is only the old industry manufacturing jobs that have the political clout in the Democrat party, and they are the ones that can benefit from these restrictions. The people whose jobs can be protected by trade restrictions are a very limted sector of the economy. And every protection these people get through hurts the bottom two quintiles the most.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
The problem with that scenario is that free trade, and free markets, almost always benefit the poor more than restricted markets. The main benefit of free trade is it drives consumer prices down. And no one benefits more from lower consumer prices than the poor.

Your more or less say this later on but it also helps people who work for a living by (1) creating export markets for our goods thus creating jobs, and (2) freeing capital to create jobs elsewhere in the economy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
That would suck. But as far as I know free trade does not work that way, and even if it did, I don't know what trade restrictions could do to fix the problem.

I take it then that you would be in favor of repealing that tariff even where it's effect would be to hurt more people than it helped, even if in the aggregate the effects were beneficial. I mean, it's a choice: You could leave things alone, and not hurt the 60%.

I think where you analysis is wrong, is that the poor and lower middle class do not hold manufacturing jobs.

Do you disagree that free trade tends to steal more jobs from the poor and middle class than from the upper class?

I agree that jobs at McDonald's tend not to be moved overseas, except in the case of the people who take the drive-in orders. But even the U.S. workers in those jobs will find that their wages are impacted if unskilled workers in other countries can compete for some -- though not all -- unskilled jobs. That's just basic economics. When the factory in town closes down, wages at the McDonald's will go down.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Do you disagree that free trade tends to steal more jobs from the poor and middle class than from the upper class?

Overall, trade creates more jobs than it "steals."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky

The problem with that scenario is that free trade, and free markets, almost always benefit the poor more than restricted markets. The main benefit of free trade is it drives consumer prices down. And no one benefits more from lower consumer prices than the poor.

workers who were making $28/hour at Delphi and now are making $10 somewhere might say "thanks" now that they are poor, but question whether some home cooking might have kept them middle class instead of becoming poor.