This essay discusses how the tiering of campuses alters expectations for student writing. This is explained through the discussion of the division of Miami Oxford campuses and how this created a double standard for student writing goals. While the overall institution claimed to value liberal arts and higher level writing skills, and students at the branch campus were supposed to be able to work to transfer to the main campus, it began to appear that the students were at the branch campus for a different reason. The two year college, funded by outside agencies, was gearing more towards a vocational school,focusing on preparing students for the workforce. While this can be seen as a negative thing, Wahlrab used it as an opportunity to create a student centered classroom where students questioned their learning and analyzed exigencies.
Throughout this discussion, the authors make several claims about universal standards and standardized testing. While they do not agree with tiering of campuses and the lowering or shifting of expectations that can follow, they also feel that analyzing a student's writing sills or potential cannot be achieved "by basing assessment on a single text taken out of its rhetorical context" (173). They advocate assessment practices that require "more than reading and scoring discrete texts against a concept of a universal standard" (173).
What I see here again is a very general or vague proposed solution. They propose the idea that the evaluation of college-level writing is contingent on rhetorical context but give no basis on how to apply this. How are we supposed to measure this, especially since they are against a universal standard? If there is no standard, how can we ensure the transfer of skills and preparedness from one campus to another, one area of the country to another, if there are none? I am noticing that this question is summoning even more questions as opposed to answers.
Something of interest to me is the last line: Pursuing answers to these questions will lead to different kinds of assessment practices requiring more than reading and scoring discrete texts against a concept of a universal standard.
ReplyDeletePart of the reason for taking a stand against standardized assessment is that standardized assessment is often driven by institutional needs, allowing Them to place students in advanced or regular tracks - just take a look at public schools and how they determine what students should be in a Pre-AP class. This mirrors the overall struggle of two year courses between vocationalism (regular classes) and professionalism (advanced classes).
This leads us to the purpose of a public education: to prepare workers for the corporate market or to prepare students with the necessary tools to face and question life? The author's stance is obvious and clear and cliched of a college faculty member - college ought to prepare students with the necessary tools to face and question life.
But allow me to ask this - if a student can't pass a standardized test, which is a product of the system (ergo, there is a discernable pattern), what makes you think that said student can face and question life, which exists outside the system and has no discernable pattern?