[Reading-hall-of-fame] Oops, an error

[ken Goodman]

I've been feeling for some time that the Reading Hall of fame, as an 
elected, diverse group of scholars has a role to play in  shedding some 
light on the current state and federal legal mandates in reading, 
reading education, and reaading research. If our recognition by our 
peers has any validity surely we have, as a group, some responsibility 
to speak out on some issues that our impacting r the future of American 
education As diverse as we are, there are some things being imposed on 
learners, teachers and school decision makers  that we can agree warrant 
our speaking out as a group whose voices ought to be viewed as 
reasonable and worthy of consideration.

Both Tom Sticht and Jay Samuels have raised  such issues. One certainly 
is the misuse of and misinterpretation of tests. From school beginners 
to adults in literacy programs Jay and Tom have pointed out  some basic 
present and potential abuses of tests with dangerous implications.

There are many problems with NCLB on which we as a group could speak out 
as a voice of sanity and caution.

One is the goal that all American learners regardless of handicap or 
other differences could reach a test performance labeled proficient by 
2014 (or any other year) and that that would in fact mean that they all 
were in fact proficient readers. And furthermore that schools could be 
judged as failling if they did not reach this goal.

Another is the loose use of of terms such as grade level, average,  
basic by politicians and the press in discussing sanctions imposed by NCLB.

Limiting definitions of what constitutes research and what therefore is 
evidence based  is another area of shared concern.

I'm not suggesting that the Reading Hall of fame become an activist 
group. Perhaps members individually or together could prepare positon 
papers which we could then discuss and  disseminate. Nor do we need to 
agree. We might take an issue and and dilineate where we agree and where 
we disagree.

I'd like to olear what others think about the role the reading Hall of 
Fame could be playing.

Ken Goodman
Ken Goodman







Jay Samuels wrote:

>I looked over my message and with regard to test materials want to change it
>to the following: If the pretest materials easy the student will do well and
>if the post test materials are harder, the student might do poorly, thus
>leading to a zero or negative gain score, not because of conditions within
>the students but because of an artifact created by the materials, leading to
>an experimental error.
>
> Dr. (S)tanley Jay Samuels
> Department of Educational Psychology
> College of Education
> University of Minnesota
> Minneapolis, MN 55455
>
> Universitiy Phone 612 625 5586
> Fax  612624 8241
>
>
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