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State of California June 8, 2010 Election
Smart Voter

It's time to eliminate the California Standards Tests (CST).

By Daniel M. Nusbaum

Candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction

This information is provided by the candidate
It's time to get rid of the California Standards Tests which intrude upon and disrupt the education program in thousands of California schools every year.
The California Standards Tests in math, English, biology, etc. are a time-consuming, pedagogically unnecessary, disruptive and increasingly demoralizing burden upon faculty, staff and students in California public schools. The CST are of no practical value to students seeking admission to a college or university, as are the SAT's (Scholastic Aptitude Tests), for example. Students have no real incentive to do well on the CST; for example, there is no such award as a "California Regents Scholarship" given to students who excel on the CST.

One more reason to get rid of the CST is that the nation's 2nd-largest school district, the LAUSD, appears ready to begin using students' CST scores as a measure of teacher effectiveness. Doing this would scorn the expert advice of three major professional scientific organizations: the American Psychological Association, the National Council on Measurement in Education, and the American Educational Research Association, who all caution against using test data designed for one purpose (measuring student achievement) for another purpose (measuring teacher effectiveness).

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ca/state Created from information supplied by the candidate: May 3, 2010 08:19
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