Let's Focus Less on Testing and More on Thinking

Joanna Weiss of the Boston Globe explains how an MIT Professor of Composition successfully scuttled a decade-long effort to require an essay as a part of the SAT test.  Turns out scores on the essay, that has been required for the past nine years, correlated highly with number of words written. 

Not all that surprising, as Weiss asks

“How many of us could write coherent deep thoughts in 25 minutes or less? (One student Perelman knows blew the test by taking a precious 10 minutes to collect his thoughts.) And when graders are expected to read between 20 and 30 essays every hour — at a $17-per-hour salary — it’s pretty clear they won’t be delving into content, much less grammar.”

According to Weiss, Perelman “won the battle, but he isn’t finished. There’s more to change about testing, and more to fight.”

“Perelman, now a research affiliate at MIT, has set his sights on ‘robo-scoring’ software, under development, that would take humans out of the essay-grading process altogether. (Could machines do any worse? Probably, yes.)

He also wants to knock the five-paragraph essay off its pedestal. You know the format: topic paragraph, three supporting paragraphs, a neatly wrapped conclusion. It’s a staple of what Perelman calls ‘McLearning’ — easy to evaluate and master, and not especially compatible with actual thinking.

‘You need to train students that the universe doesn’t nicely divide,’ Perelman said. ‘Everything is not three different things.’”

We should write more, teach writing seriously, and support teachers who teach writing.  Robo-scored SAT essays send all the wrong messages.

The Daily Show helps us see more clearly...these are not the three points you were looking for...