First we have a bill to hold back 3rd graders if their reading scores are too low. It exists because of a misrepresentation of the benefits of 3rd grade retention in Florida pushed by Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute.
Now we have a bill to make high school students pass a version of the U.S. Citizenship test. It exists because of a multiply flawed survey commissioned by Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute and publicized last July 4. The press loved Ladner's report, because adults love "Today's youth aren't as wonderful as we were when we were young" stories. Adults loved those stories back when Socrates was "corrupting the youth of Athens," and they love them today -- though instead of feeding our teachers hemlock, we just take away their tenure protections.
It's amusing, in a depressing kind of a way, that research which wouldn't pass muster with a demanding professor in an undergraduate class is driving the Arizona legislative agenda when it comes to education.
It's time for me to remind G.I. once again that the company it hired to "survey" Arizona high school students about their knowledge of U.S. civics most probably just made up the results without bothering to call any students. Ladner is aware of the problem. He says he's looking into it. But he's too busy making stuff up ("Bus drivers are bureaucrats!") to do the work necessary to find out he was chumped by a bogus survey, then he passed the chumping along to a gullible media.
Meanwhile, the "Research Report" lives and breathes in a world where Gotcha! results talk and careful research walks.
The Citizenship Test provision is a single paragraph at the end of a HB2734, which is about driver's license tests.
In addition to the other requirements prescribed by this chapter, before the department issues a driver license to a driver license applicant who is under eighteen years of age, the applicant must pass an exam consisting of at least ten questions from the United States citizenship and immigration services item bank.
I read this to mean, people under 18 who want to drive have to study the citizenship questions given to immigrants who want to be citizens as well as the driver's manual. And I understand the test will be added to the increasing number of standardized tests students have to take in high school.
I wish to hell the media would put G.I. to the test instead of acting like obedient students taking notes at the "University of Goldwater," then parroting the notes as fact in their reporting.
Does Mr. Ladner have any education in research or is his background politics?
Posted by: D | April 06, 2010 at 12:57 PM