SUNY Chancellor Envisions More Tests In High School To Track "College Readiness"

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY:

ALBANY—SUNY chancellor Nancy Zimpher wants to pilot a new test in high schools for predicting students’ college readiness she says would offer more useful information than the standardized assessments already offered.

Zimpher was at a Clinton Global Initiative event in Denver earlier this week pitching her idea to investors. She has tentative commitments for $500,000 in in-kind donations, but needs $2 million to make the plan a reality, she said during an interview with Capital this week.

Assuming she secures the funding, SUNY would put out a request for proposals this fall to find a “diagnostic” test to pinpoint early where students are falling behind. Starting in fall 2016, the exam would be piloted in 10th and 11th grade classes in five New York school districts: Rochester and Yonkers, as well as rural districts near Binghamton, Plattsburgh and Geneva.

Partnering with local public and private colleges, high school teachers would use the test results to tailor individualized plans that aim to help struggling students improve and excelling students gain access to advanced coursework.

Zimpher sees these tests as more useful than the state tests so many parents and teachers are hostile too - and hundreds of thousands opted out of this year.

The "diagnostic" test has yet to be developed, so I fail to see how Zimpher's so sure this test will be more useful than the state tests.

Also the funding hasn't been secured for the program - is $2 million really enough to put such an expansive program in place?

We're talking the tests, the resources for the individualized plans that are supposed to help students, the "free" online "college readiness" course she plans to develop in concert with this testing program.

I know she's only looking to pilot this in five school districts, but given all that Zimpher claims this diagnostic test/college readiness program will do, I'm skeptical $2 million gets it off the ground.

I'm also skeptical that no matter how much she gets to run the program it will actually work.

Why not take the money she wants for testing, tracking, et al. and put it into smaller class sizes and other classroom resources?

Ah, but there's nothing "cutting edge" about that and so, alas, we get yet another testing/college readiness program that will cost millions and is doomed to inevitable failure.

You have to wonder, what matters more to educrats like Zimpher - the individuals she's charged with educating or the Endless Testing regime that feeds off all the testing/tracking she mandates?

The End Game For The Reform Data Fetishists

The NY Times reports that one Texas district is piloting tracking students through electronic ID's:

SAN ANTONIO —  For Tira Starr, an eighth grader at Anson Jones Middle School, the plastic nametag hanging around her neck that she has decorated with a smiley face and a purple bat sticker offers a way to reflect her personal flair. For administrators, it is something else entirely: a device that lets them use radio frequency technology —  with scanners tucked behind walls and ceilings —  to track her whereabouts. 

Anson Jones is the first school in San Antonio’s Northside Independent School District to roll out the new nametags, which are part of a pilot program intended to ensure that the district receives all of the state dollars to which it is entitled. 

...

 

But the radio frequency identification nametags have prompted concerns from civil liberties groups and electronic privacy watchdogs, which fear a Big Brother atmosphere in Texas public schools.

Matthew Simpson, a policy strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said the technology was easy to acquire, meaning people outside a school might be able to monitor a student if they obtained the student’s unique tracking number. 

Mr. Simpson said the technology was originally designed for shipping goods and for cattle. “It was never intended for people,” he said.

Oh, boy - think of the data mining possibilities with this "innovation".

It's enough to give Joel Klein, Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch Texas-sized hard-ons without the Viagra pills.

And be sure, this abomination will spread, billed as some "safety" innovation or cost-savings.

But of course we know exactly why the powers that be want ID tags on students (and teachers too.)

It's easier to track everything they do, everything they buy, everything they eat, everywhere they go and, eventually, everything they think and feel.

That's why Gates was experimenting with the Galvanic skin response bracelets that measure so-called student engagement in the classroom.

The boys running the country want to control everything, as much for commercial purposes as for political purposes - and more and more, technology is allowing them to do just that.

It's not a mistake that the ID tags that used to be used for products and cattle are now on people.

We're the product.