Class Status and Tests
The Stephen Krashen dialogue in Sunday’s NY Times was good. Here is the link, though you may need to have purchased online access to the NY Times to view. If you have the paper itself the dialogue is in the Letters section of the Review section, it was on page two for me.
Below is my letter–which didn’t make it in the NY Times. But never has the idea of innate meritocracy been more powerful–if you aren’t rich and famous it’s either a genetically inferior brain or perhaps laziness, poor values, etc. that account for it. At least once upon a time you could be famous and not rich. But they are strongly-linked today; the top 1% have largely closed the loop-holes that might have once existed in more open times in our recent history. And tests help the elite 1% out by justifying their elitism!-even though they were once promoted as a way to pick out the rare ad talented amongst the unwashed poor. Read below.
“What if it’s even worse than Krashen argues. Could that be? What if tests are not measuring even superficial knowledge, but something else entirely–which may also correlate with social class, race, native language and
Below is my letter–which didn’t make it in the NY Times. But never has the idea of innate meritocracy been more powerful–if you aren’t rich and famous it’s either a genetically inferior brain or perhaps laziness, poor values, etc. that account for it. At least once upon a time you could be famous and not rich. But they are strongly-linked today; the top 1% have largely closed the loop-holes that might have once existed in more open times in our recent history. And tests help the elite 1% out by justifying their elitism!-even though they were once promoted as a way to pick out the rare ad talented amongst the unwashed poor. Read below.
“What if it’s even worse than Krashen argues. Could that be? What if tests are not measuring even superficial knowledge, but something else entirely–which may also correlate with social class, race, native language and
