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December 16, 2009
New YORK PUBLIC SCHOOLS VS GED TESTING
By Profesor Martin Danenberg "El Quijote del GED"
PAY PAL NOTICE
Something new in 2010. You can now order the GED program. It is so simple! Click on the word clic above my article (in the white section on the right). By clicking you can go to my website and find "Services" to order the GED program in English or Spanish. See the Pay Pal there. Thank you for taking this important, powerful step in your life. I really hope that a job or higher education awaits you, even induction into the military. Your future is important!
I have been hearing for years that the testing in New York City has been made easier and one of my close associates told me that her daughter told her that the last test she took was harder than the previous one. Both sides may be right. It could be that the youth just did not know a couple of the answers and that memory sticks out in her mind. Permit me to intervene in discussing the potentially explosive articles by Diane Ravitch, Diana Senechal, and Meredith Kolodner of the New York Daily News that have been published recently.
Diane Ravitch and Diana Senegal have brought forth something that may indicate that the testing has been invalid for all New York City school children and the progress that has been made has been limited. There are several things that should be considered. First of all, a student may have read and realized that he knew the answers to the questions he got right, resulting in a score of 2 or higher. That student deserves his mark, because there was no guessing. The student that passed who guessed a little clearly knows less than the first student. That passing score is attributed to luck and this does happen on tests all the time. Now based on what I read there were four choices for each multiple choice question , meaning that on those questions there is a one in four chance or twenty-five percent chance to get questions right; however, the fact that some answers were not filled in on the test tells me that that there was a greater than twenty-five percent percentage for guessing. If all of the questions had been multiple choice on the test, there could only be a twenty-five percent percentage. On the GED OPT or Official Practice Test there is a one in five chance or twenty percent chance to get questions right. So the GED is tougher by its format. It very well may be that the Department of Education bought into a product that was invalid and if the people who bought it knew that in advance, this is a great scandal for New York. I would look more deeply into this matter to see if there was influence by people who were close to Department of Education officials because it may lead to some kind of corruption and fraud or even a payoff. Did anyone know about all of this? Were other tests that preceded it just like it? And in fairness to everyone, is this typical of tests around the country and therefore not perceived as a problem? Mayor Bloomberg has led a campaign to inform people in New York City all the way to the White House and President Barack Obama about the success of New York City's school children. If an investigation determines that most or all of my conclusions and speculations are correct, New York City has suffered a serious educational setback and the accomplishments by Mayor Bloomberg are not worthy of discussing.
I have never seen an actual GED test, but I did the same thing with its Official Practice that Diana Senechal did with the real promotional tests when I was teaching over a decade ago. When the GED OPT had 30 questions, students were expected to get an average of 6 right or one in five right. Sometimes guessing resulted in coming close to passing by one question, but there were times that guessing resulted in one or two correct answers. So it was possible to get that extra answer right to pass the practice test, but that did not assure passing the entire test because the passing score was 40 and the average needed was 45. Teachers all over our nation know that typically most people in class would test below 45 and even much, much lower on GED practice tests because they have low levels of learning and forty percent of high school students who are expected to graduate on time do not pass the GED test because it is constructed that way. So four or five more answers were really needed to get that average. GED testing may be easier in other ways than the kind of test that the children take, but that is because it is a test that includes things people have learned from elementary school though high school.
That is not all. The writing part could not be passed by only doing the short answer or multiple choice questions. There would be no score given and the test had to be retaken if someone did not pass the composition or take the composition. Again the GED OPT is harder to pass and the real test was constructed the same way. Take into account that guessing one in four is easier than guessing one in five or more when you do not know the answer. Moving in the opposite direction means that guessing one in two answers is much, much easier. Let me give you a demonstration right now so you can see for yourself.
1. The causes include alcohol, gaseous drinks, cold showers, eating excessively and emotional tension.
Which is the best way to express the underlined expression in the paragraph? If you agree that the original version is the best, select option (1).
(1) eating excessively
(2) cold showers. Eating excessively and
(3) cold showers and eating excessively and
(4) Cold showers and Eating in excess
(5) eating excessively, and emotional tension
We also have to know the difficulty of the questions to determine the validity of the test for students who get 3's and 4's. If the questions are really the same from year to year, as it has been indicated in an article that I have read, that is not really fair or proving much. I would like to know if the testing format has changed because we could not really compare the current scores from the scores of the previous year's students. How was this test actually tested in New York State to assure its validity?
WHAT I HAVE WANTED TO KNOW FOR YEARS AND TAKING INTO CONSIDERATION THE FACT THAT A STUDENT COULD MAKE LEVEL 2 BY GUESSING, HOW MANY HOURS OF INSTRUCTION ARE REALLY ANTICIPATED FOR EACH STUDENT TO BRING THE STUDENT TOM LEVEL 2 AND THEN THE SAME FOR LEVEL 3 OR EVEN LEVEL 4. ANOTHER THING THAT I LEARNED MORE ABOUT RECENTLY IS THAT STUDENTS HAVE THE RIGHT TO TAKE THE TEST WITH EXTRA TIME ALOTTED TO THEM. WE CAN TAKE A LOOK AT THE GROWTH OF EXTRA TIME FROM PRIOR YEARS AND SEE HOW THIS HAS IMPACTED. THEN FIND OUT HOW OTHER FAILING STUDENTS COULD BENEFIT FROM IT AND SEE THE RESULTS. SCHOOLS THAT LAG BEHIND IN MAKING SURE STUDENTS HAVE EXTRA TIME DURING THE TEST MAY BE AT THE BOTTOM IN THE CITY.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
www.ahorre.com
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg December 16, 2009 03:50 PM