Students first take this test in grade ten. If they do not pass the test in grade ten, they have more chances to take the test. In grade eleven, they can take the test two times. In grade twelve, they have up to five times to take the test.
- What are the guidelines for sensitive topics on the CAHSEE?
To keep the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE) free from potentially biased, sensitive, or controversial content, the following topics are avoided on the examination:
- Violence (including guns, other weapons, and graphic animal violence)
- Dying, death, disease, hunger, famine
- War
- Natural disasters with loss of life
- Drugs (including prescription drugs), alcohol, tobacco, smoking
- Junk food
- Abuse, poverty, running away
- Divorce
- Socio-economic advantages (e.g., video games, swimming pools, computers in the home, expensive vacations)
- Sex
- Religion
- Complex discussions of sports
- Slavery
- Evolution, prehistoric times, age of solar system, dinosaurs
- Rap music, rock concerts
- Extrasensory perception, witchcraft
- Halloween, religious holidays
- Anything disrespectful, demeaning, moralistic, chauvinistic
- Children coping with adult situations or decisions; young people challenging or questioning authority
- Mention of individuals who may be associated with drug use or with advertising of substances such as cigarettes or alcohol
- Losing a job, home, or pets
- Rats, roaches, lice, spiders
- Dieting, other concerns with self-image
- Political issues
- Any topic that is likely to upset students and affect their performance on the rest of the test
Now it looks as if many of these issues are designed to avoid disturbing the children (war, loss of life, losing a home), making inroads in issues that shouldn’t be discussed under the First Amendment (religion, Halloween [????]), or to keep kids on the moral straight-and-narrow (no cigarettes, sex, drugs, chauvinism, questioning authority [???].
But there’s also no mention in the tests of evolution, prehistoric times, the age of the solar system, and dinosaurs! That is science, and those are important things for children to know!
There’s only one reason why that list of things in red is prohibited from the test. Guess what it is? (No points for being right—it’s bloody obvious.)
h/t: Peter
They left out acne. That causes quite a bit of upset in this age group.
Also left out was self-disciplined study.
They left out adversity. Life is surely never going to have any obstacles. We’re training ’em to think fails only occur on you tube.
That is crazy on many levels. Besides the obvious, red, example…
High school students, some of whom will no doubt now enter the military, are to be protected from questions about violence, war, and death?
The world has gone insane.
Not to mention, how do you teach or assess a student’s knowledge of history without broaching the subject of war?
???
Or slavery? In a country built on it?
I see on that list nearly everything worth knowing anything about… except human population growth, and I suspect (given the other stuff on the list like hunger, famine, disease) that it was a simple oversight.
“young people challenging or questioning authority” – I guess the 60’s didn’t exists.
P.S. San Francisco is in California.
Not sure why the P.S… but I’ll bite. Are you implying that San Fran / California wasn’t built on slave labor?
P.S. we continue to be a slave state. Snatching it up wherever and whenever we can get away with it.
The list of guidelines included not only slavery, but “young people … questioning authority”. This would imply that covering the hippy movement and anti-Vietnem War of the 1960s should not be included.
As for the Post Script (P.S.). Many people consider the hippy movement to have begun or centered in San Francisco which is in the state of California which is the state where these guidelines are to be applied.
Additional technical note – my post above was supposed to be under musical beef’s comment. This is the second time my browser has put the comment at a lower level than I indicated.
Ah, gotcha… I thought this might have been the case, after I posted, unfortunately.
Is slavery so sensitive that we are willing to perpetrate the myth that the south did not fight the Civil War to protect slavery but rather to protect state’s rights. What specific right do these people think these states were so determined to protect.
Dipped if I know, but it does seem to me that the SE US especially seems hard-pressed to perpetuate slavery, even if it is their own. Hopefully, the ideological ice is finally beginning to crack, but there’s a lot of jarrymandering damage that has to be undone to get anything down there on an even keel. I’m not so sure we’re going to avoid another civil war before the dwindling resources lead us back to it.
This is not a history test, it’s a writing skills test.
Well, ok.
The name of the test makes it sound more comprehensive.
I suppose that it’s also often enough a test of ones perseverance in responding and conforming to a writing test prompt, the title and substance of which not a few of us, students or otherwise, would find monumentally boring.
Don’t people need to write about something? What is a legitimate subject to write about given these sensibilities?
sorry for the tag fail!
That’s a fair question. One of the links from the page jerry links leads to a PDF that describes the test in more detail and provides a few example questions.
For example, after being asked to read a short story about a hiking trip, here’s the question:
“In the story “The Hiking Trip,” the reader learns about the main character, Jeff. Jeff’s personality and emotions are revealed through the actions and dialogue presented in the story.
“Write an essay in which you describe the personality and emotions of Jeff, the main character. How do his personal characteristics add to the events in the story? How does the
author reveal this information about Jeff in the story? Use details and examples from the story to support your ideas.
Note that the question is a substantive one regarding a story that meats the above guidelines.
“By the time students enter high school, they have learned about many moments in history that have influenced our world today. Think about a moment in history you studied and consider its importance. Write a composition in which you discuss a moment in history. Share its importance in today’s world. Be sure to support the moment with details and examples.”
Not that the student chooses the topic, they are not prohibited from writing about the topics on the list. They are free to choose a moment of history they are comfortable, even enthusiastic about.
The pdf is here:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/documents/studyela08sec6.pdf
No questions about spiders? C’mon, I studied for that one.
They can’t ask that because spiders are scary and they’re really old, which would bring us back to the stuff in red!
I know. But what about questions having to do with being in crowds, tall buildings, or flying?
But those things aren’t old like spiders. See, it just encourages talking about science and evolution and that is too controversial and adds to the scariness.
– ‘Students first take this test in grade ten. If they do not pass the test in grade ten, they have more chances to take the test. In grade eleven, they can take the test two times. In grade twelve, they have up to five times to take the test.’ –
Given the list of excluded content above, what could the test possibly contain that makes it too difficult to pass for any competent pre-school student?
Is this post topic an Onion-style spoof?
Writing. This is a test of writing skills.
They also have a reading test. And a math test.
There many pre-schoolers well aquainted with dinosaurs and Halloween who couldn’t possibly pass this test.
Maybe that’s a hint that knowledge about dinosaurs and Halloween is not what the test is really about.
I failed to read and comprehend that this test is concerned only with writing skills, LatD. I read my e-mail from oldest to most recent, so I’ve seen the other couple of posts you’ve written clarifying this point.
I don’t disagree that students with greater familiarity with particular topics could write more informed essays on the banned subjects than others more ignorant. However, it seems to me that if essays are graded solely on quality of writing, more informed content by the essayist should not make a difference in the grade earned.
A lot of trouble could have been avoided if a list of acceptable topics was provided as opposed to the list above. It would take a hell of a lot less time and effort to read, too. 🙂
Thanks, it’s important to understand that these tests are not very difficult in absolute terms, and they are strictly pass fail. There’s very little utility to giving smart kids additional ways to demonstrate their skills.
The students who struggle with and have to retake these tests are going to be disproportionately kids from lower socioeconimic strata, kids with behavioral or emotional issues that have limited their academics success, and kids whose parents don’t value education, or are suspicious of it for religious reasons, or just provide a crappy home environment.
For kids who are struggling to pass these tests, getting a high school diploma or not is a major hinge factor for how lousy the next phase of their life is going to be. If we are going to put this additional hurdle in their way, we owe it to them to make the test as fair and accurate as possible.
If that makes the test question a little boring and vanilla for the kids who’d like to shine, well that’s too bad. That’s not what this test is about.
pure insanity of political “correctness”
No it’s about avoiding confounding factors in a test of writing skills.
Topics that may be unfamiliar or troubling to some students will introduce a factor that is unrelated to what is being measured.
If this were experimental design, people here would understand this immmediately. Because it involves education, everyone is jumping on their hobby horses.
The fact that the educated adults here are latching on to the topics list and speaking out emotionally without understanding the situation is, to me, a sign that there is a good reason to avoid these topics on writing tests for adolescents.
It’s 2014 and the age of the solar system and the existence of dinosaurs are subjects that the State of California considers too controversial for a writing test. You may not consider that indicative of a larger problem, but I do.
It is a problem, but why make kids suffer for some nonsense their parents taught them, when it isn’t even the point of this particular exam?
+1
I understand your point, although I object to your use of the word “suffer” in this context. If introducing kids to new ideas is equivalent to making them suffer, then it should never be done.
By “suffer” in this context I meant “fail a crucial test they might otherwise have passed” not “experience feelings of emotional distress” (though the latter can cause the former, which is why troubling topics should be avoided. The concern about raising a troubling issue is that it unfairly confounds test performance for students in already vulnerable populations.
There are appropriate contexts and methods for handling the above topics.
A test of writing is not such a context, and in any case, a test is never a good place to introduce students to a topic. That’s not what tests are for.
Then why not take out any possibility of favoring a child of wealthy parents over a child of parents that don’t have wealth? Neither circumstance is in the child’s control. Wealthy parents are able to buy technology and circumstances that are conductive to a better learning environment, in the home, that are prohibitive to parents lacking wealth. So, if the concern is to provide a fair testing ground on a test that is important to the student’s future success, why not remove social and economic stresses? Social and economic stresses seem to me to be more pertinent and more difficult to overcome than needing to admit that christian teachings are not in accord with the known factual evidence of evolution, dinosaurs, and the factual workings of the solar system.
Reply to Notagod. Socioeconomic advantages are another topic that’s on the list to avoid.
Remember this topic list is to avoid topics that may stress some students in a way that might interfere with answering a test question to the best of their ability.
Avoiding these topics is not intended to set the bar lower for disadvantaged students, it’s just a way to avoid tripping them up unnecessarily. The tests aren’t easier because of these guidelines; the example questions I linked to elsewhere show that questions can adhere to these guidelines and still be substantial and challenging.
Lastly, public education cannot perfectly level the playing field for all students; IMHO that’s unattainable, unnecessary and probably undesirable. But fairness in testing is important.
As a whole public education is one of the great socioeconomic levelers in our society, and that is a great contribution.
I think this “tripping them up” argument is pretty weak. By this argument there should be no mention of math because some kids are naturally better at math, and others, naturally worse. So bringing up math might cause stress for the kids who are not gifted in math, which might have a negative effect on their writing ability. It’s a little insane.
Just like kids should know that 2 + 2 = 4 they should know that all life on earth evolved from a single celled organism. If this information disturbs them, the solution is not to shield them from this information but to fix the problem by which children are rained to be disturbed by scientific facts.
Speaking of kids, how old are they when they’re expected to take this test?
A lot of voters who do not oppose efforts by religious & libertarian social deconstruction/reconstruction forces in society [Scott Walker] will be unable to afford the type of private education that is the equal of current public education, and more importantly spares their children and society from the likes of …
http://www.alternet.org/education/10-insane-history-lessons-private-religious-voucher-schools-are-teaching-americas-kids?akid=11635.156328.6k7pid&rd=1&src=newsletter973618&t=4
Reply to Tim.
The test writers don’t worry about how kids “should” react to a topic, they worry about how they do in the world we live in today.
If you can’t see that evolution, where a kid is hearing one message from school, and another from home, is more emotionally fraught than 2+2=4 then nothing I can say will convince you otherwise.
I lived through that experience, and while I fully support the teaching of evolution as a dominant and unapologetic strand of science education, I can completely understand including evolution on a list of topics that may provoke a strong emotional reaction that could undermine student performance.
The value of this test is in question in the first place. It’s nothing that we can’t live without. What I am saying is that the issue of children being raised by parents to believe things that make the very mention of a scientific fact like “evolution” something that would disturb their child so much that it would render them incapable of concentrating on a test, is a much bigger issue, and one that is much more important and imperative to address. Choosing to shield children from important educational information as a response to parents miseducating their children is not only the wrong approach, it shirks the responsibility we have to address the REAL problem.
Reply to Jesper Both Pedersen
10th graders are about 16, though emotional age can be significantly younger than chronological age.
As I said earlier, this is a pass fail test of baseline writing competence. The students who are at risk for failing this test are not the best students, and may have emotional issues holding them back from academic success. This test can be a very stressful situation for such students. It’s important, IMHO, to not add additional stress to the experience.
We are not talking about the best or even the typical student here. Arguing about how most 16-year-olds could or should react to a topic misses the point. The goal in restricting topics is to let borderline students show they have the required skills without unnecessary, irrelevant obstacles.
Latverian Diplomat, March 22, 2014 11:56 am:
Some children have an aversion to studying history. Why is it OK with you to have that stressor included in the test? You think history should get a pass while scientific facts are set aside?
The facts about natural processes are important. More important than the sometimes one sided reconstructions of human events that are taught to students.
I believe, Notagod, that the response is this: Any student can be expected to know something about history. The response provided by the student would be evaluated on the basis of writing characteristics but not on the basis of whether the understanding of the events used for the essay were themselves accurate. IOW, it would be possible, at least in principle, to get full points for a response that had Abe Lincoln identified as the first president and George III as a warrior king from the Second World War. Since it is up to the student to pick a historical event, there would presumably be no disadvantage based on the quality of the History part of the kid’s education.
Hi gbjames, 🙂
That isn’t to the point I was making though. If there are stressors related to a student’s ability to write about evolution, dinosuars, solar system, etc. then those same stressors could be present for a student that has some aversion to how they were taught history.
Your point is that the student’s writing need not be accurate regarding historical fact but, the writing need not be accurate regarding the science either. I don’t see that you have made a case for the excuse of religiously founded stress above history founded stress. And as I noted in the previous comment, facts about the natural workings of our planet and solar system are at least as important as some possibly one sided rendition of human events.
Notagod…. The bottom line is that the subject should measure the target skill and no other factors. “Write about something from history” is considerably different from “Write about evolution” or “Write about the life of a tennis pro”. Any 16 to 18 year old can pick a un-stressful subject from history. Some people, due to unfortunate life experience will have trouble discussing evolution (because Jesus objects) or (because they have lived in a place where tennis is an unknown activity) have trouble writing about the tennis circuit.
You need to design tests to measure specific skills. Test for understanding evolution on the biology test, tennis skills in the sports section. This isn’t a question of whether high school students should understand evolution (they should). It is whether your writing skills test is biased with regard to that particular skill.
Reply to Notagod:
You’re using a slippery slope argument to say that if some topics can be stressful, then hypothetically any topic can be stressful.
Most people would agree that at least some topics should be avoided (e.g., selections from Mein Kampf or from the Penthouse Forum.) Given that, people who live in the real world have to draw the line somewhere, between topics that could affect the performance of measurable numbers of real students, and those that could only bother a hypothetical student in a strained hypothetical scenario.
We can argue about where the line is drawn, but the fact is that there are real students whose religious upbringing makes evolution an extremely uncomfortable topic (I’ll bet almost every CA biology teacher can point one out to you), and the idea that we should empathize and cut those students a little slack in an area has NOTHING to do with the science curriculum or the teaching of evolution and everything to do with whether they get their diploma seems to me to be a small concession to the real problems that real students have to deal with in their adolescent years at this moment in this country.
Given the CA science curriculum these students will be taught about evolution in an appropriate and less stressful context. A properly taught science class can win students over instead of turning them off. Do you really think a test can do that?
+ 2
Well, if that’s the case, I can understand why certain topics should be avoided (and I agreed with the avoidance of stuff like religion from the get-go), so perhaps my ire about omission of evolution was premature. That said, and taking into account the statement of some commenters that evolution education is prescribed in California, I still don’t understand why that topic is omitted in the standards. If it’s taught, it’s taught to children who come from homes who reject it; nevertheless, the kids still must understand the principles. For such children, then, why is the topic, as Latverian Diplomat notes above, “unfamiliar or troubling”. Unfamiliar it won’t be, at least if the question is asked write. And if it’s “troubling,” well, it’s a troubling truth that is important to know.
Still, I can see an argument for avoiding things that might make kids perform worse on a writing test alone, but I’m not sure that I agree that omitting evolution is a VALID argument rather than just pandering to religion. Still, as I said, my ire may have been a bit premature!
I am convinced by Latverian Diplomat’s argument.
Tests are kind of like experiments. If you introduce subject matter that to some (many?) people is emotionally laden, you muddy the experimental water when you are trying to measure something that has nothing to do with the skill in question.
There is a place for testing students for their understanding of evolution, as there is for testing them for their math competency. But the writing skills test isn’t it.
They forgot “climate change.” I shall have to write them and ask that they correct this.
HAHAHA! You know, elderly are kinda oogie. Add that too.
That’s probably an OK topic for a test question from them. …as long as the question doesn’t also involve war, hunger, famine, disease, death or natural disasters.
Halloween. We can’t possibly discuss Halloween.
I think most of those things should be tested – how else are you going to know how to think about things from all perspectives and angles? And of course, the stuff in red not being discussed is absolutely shameful.
My cousins in California took some equivalency test instead of going to class. When I was in highschool (albeit in another country), I would not have been able to just sit a test and pass. You really had to be in class to learn and pass the exams. It speaks to the quality of education my wooish cousins received.
Hrm – when I was in high school out attendance was part of our GPA – meaning if you missed enough classes it lowered your GPA. Hence my 1.8 GPA in my senior year yet I aced every single one of the finals. I was 17 and living in my own apartment and working – I failed to juggle all that to my benefit. My biggest regret is not going to college. Anyway – it would have been nice to have my actual knowledge of the subjects count towards my grades rather than attendance and homework.
*our* …*out attendance*
I give up. California educational system at its finest here.
My cousins are younger – late 20s and early 30s now – maybe someone made a bad decision and allowed that. I’m not sure if they got their grade 12 or not either so maybe it was for grade 10? They learned the hard way anyway, later admitting that they had no idea how the real world would treat them and they both ended up going back to school for things and getting their high school completed. If I lived there I would’ve kicked their asses right back into school early!
Aww! good for them for getting their act together! Where do you live again? I always think you are a fellow Californian.
I actually thought you were bay area – close to me.
I’m in Canada – Southern Ontario. 🙂
Is it too late?
Well, I’m 42 – there are some amazing people that could juggle a family, a full time job, and school – I am not one of those. I am taking a course from the Graduate Gemologist program from the GIA but it is spendy so I am going very slow. My short term memory is also getting alarmingly poor – I actually am going to talk to my doc about that. So it’s not optimal for me to go to college later in life like this – not saying it’s impossible…just not…realistic I guess.
My memory is messed too but I find it happens with over work. Hopefully it’s that you’ve been stressed and have a lot on your mind. My aunt and uncle in CA are gemologists and have had their own store for a long time. It’s handy to have jewellery folks in the family.
I can relate. I’m 36 and plan on spending the next two years on finishing the danish equivalent of high school and after that moving on to college.
I guess I’ll be 47-47 before I get a degree if all goes according to plan. 🙂
*46-47.
Congrats Jesper! You’re plenty young to do that. My cousin took a couple years to do her equivalency & now she’s in school studying to become a nurse.
Thanks!
My motivation for studying appears to increase with age, so I can hardly wait to get going.
My daughter once got in trouble for giving literature to a Jehovah’s Witness.
It was a Halloween coloring worksheet from kindergarten and she saw that a girl at her Montessori didn’t have any, so she shared. The girl was the daughter of JW’s, and her parents were not happy to have paganism brought home.
Such is the irony that pervades my life.
“The girl was the daughter of JW’s, and her parents were not happy to have paganism brought home.
Such is the irony that pervades my life.”
Well, perhaps you can take some minor satisfaction in my having tested the endurance and impatience of a couple of them. They came back again, woke my wife who had worked all night, and had to bear up under and retreat in the face of her baleful gaze.
patience, not impatience.
Keep treating children like they are special little snowflakes too fragile to live in the big, bad, controversial world of evil out there, and you will start encountering generations of people who really can’t cope with the slightest adversity.
On the other hand, I think that schools only have minimal influence over their students knowledge and experience of the world. And thank goodness for that.
” . . . schools only have minimal influence over their students knowledge and experience of the world. And thank goodness for that.”
I agree that the influence of schools is minimal compared to other non-school influences, over which schools have no control but the consequences of which schools – specifically teachers – have to endure.
A substitute teacher recently spoke of his frustration, while trying to clear a path through the quadratic equation jungle, in dealing with a 7th grade girl repeatedly blurting out “Penis!” when the teacher wasn’t looking. I guess the teacher didn’t have the requisite “influence” with that student.
(Of course, that’s better than being cussed out, or physically assaulted and as a result being “blessed” with a permanent physical disability, which itself in turn is better than being shot and killed by an assailant in the classroom).
No doubt, some Romneyesque MBA/JD master of mankind type – refulgent with worldly knowledge, experience and influence – needs to come into the classroom and show poor proletariat teachers the errors of their ways.
You pretty much encapsulated why I stayed out of public school education, and went into public health instead: street outreach among pimps, prostitutes and IV drug users tended to be much less risky.
Not really sure what Romney has to do with it.
Actually, I used to be a teacher myself. There are a number of reasons why teachers have trouble in the classroom. Substitute teachers have a particularly tough time because they are by definition the “outsider” and pupils can be relied on to act on their worst primitive in-group out-group instincts, even in “good” schools. It’s a fairly universal phenomenon.
All of that has absolutely nothing to do with schools trying to avoid all potentially controversial triggers in exam questions.
“Not really sure what Romney has to do with it.”
Romney, Gates, Louis Gerstner and their private corporate tyrant ilk claim to be smarter than the rest of us regarding public policy, especially regarding education.
“Actually, I used to be a teacher myself.”
I gather that you got your fill of it. (The “it” being not the subject matter but student oppositional defiance?)
“Substitute teachers . . . are by definition the “outsider” and pupils can be relied on to act on their worst primitive in-group out-group instincts . . . .”
I grant that that’s a realistic explanation of the phenomenon. As Darwin said, “We bear the stamp of our lowly origin.” Too many adults retain these instincts, undermining the flourishing of civilization. Whether student or adult, shall we resign ourselves to accepting this as an excuse for irresponsible behavior? There are those students who buck peer pressure and admonish classmates to behave. Occasionally they pay a price for so standing their ground. Obviously, they have some positive, non-school influences (beyond the occasional teacher who makes a difference in their lives?) and have taken to heart higher standards.
“All of that has absolutely nothing to do with schools trying to avoid all potentially controversial triggers in exam questions.”
Agreed. My previous response was directed to your “thank goodness” statement:
“. . . schools only have minimal influence over their students . . . thank goodness for that”
which itself also has nothing to do with controversial exam triggers.
Well said! Snowflakes, I love it. I am using that from now on to describe what I think is pervasive in American education culture. Lets not forget all the snowflake parents who hide their little snowflakes in thermoses to keep them from melting. Good grief.
These are English composition themes, are they not? As opposed to a test biology or physical sciences proficiency? I can see where controversy or upset would be something to avoid; the tragedy is that science is considered upsetting.
The point, I would think, of the thesis-point1-point2-point3-conclusion high school essay is to form, express, and support an opinion. I realize the 70’s were a different time, but I recall specifically writing themes on at least five of the banned topics.
What else is there to bother having an opinion about … ?
I assume this exam is to test the student’s readiness to leave high school and enter the big world (college, work or living in your parent’s basement). If a student can’t function after seeing the word “spider”, then they’re probably not ready to be an adult.
LOL.
Hilarious.
Wouldn’t it be great if some company, agency or group could put together a series of modular tests, with each topic designed and adjudicated by the experts in that field? Then students are taught and allowed to test on any subject they wish?
I think maybe they call this college… but anyway, the idea is that students could present their “diploma” with hole-punches indicating which areas of study they had mastered sufficiently to test out of.
You could continue offering the “core” (aka squeamish, sub-standard grouping of topics with actual education eliminated out of fear of offense) but an employer would thus be justified in selecting a new-hire with 20 holes punched vs. the individual who only had the 8 “core” holes punched.
yeah, yeah, I know…education is not just about employment and job skills; teaching to the test, all that… but if we have to have standards of measurement and certificates of completion, they might as well be reasonably meaningful AND teach the best knowledge we have available to date.
Proof again that sociopolitical insanity doesn’t exist on a line so much as on a circle. Crazed post-modern academic incompetence meets crazed right-wing religiosity on the far side of the thinking circle.
Not that this annoys me at all.
This explains the results Jay Leno got when asking questions of random Californians on his “Jay-Walking” segments.
Those were oh so painful.
I had to wonder whether they really were random. I suspect they were subject to a lot of selection.
NOTHING you see on TV is random. Even “reality TV” is scripted and heavily edited to achieve the result the producers want. I have been interviewed twice by local TV news reporters and both times they had already decided what they wanted me to say, and when I failed to parrot back the answers they wanted, they just kept asking the same questions over and over. In both cases, my footage never made it to air (surprize, surprize).
Re: the young atheist mother tornado survivor interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.
Re: reality shows: I wonder what are the terms of the contracts these participants sign. I subjectively perceive that they are borderline indentured servants, and speculate that the contract terms reflect the “freedom” that conservative capitalist types seek to achieve by “privatization.”
Even leaving evolution aside, these young people are going to learn about U.S. history and not learn about slavery? Well, I guess that is OK, since we are forgetting to tell them about wars, including the Civil War.
I am sure they will learn about slavery and evolution, etc., but it will not be on this particular test.
In such an essay question, I would be sorely challenged to resist writing phrases/sentences like, e.g.:
– “the evolution of (topic name) . . . .”
– “The driving force behind (topic) is analogous to that of the theory of evolution, natural selection.”
– “Thought on (topic) has evolved over time, its equilibrium occasionally punctuated with new discoveries, just as organisms, according to Darwin’s theory of evolution, reflect descent with modification as their lines (assuming non-extinction) have proceeded since the creation of the universe approximately 13.8 billion years ago.” (That would get their drawers in a knot.)
“◾Complex discussions of sports” As compared to what – SIMPLE discussions? (re: Bill Cosby’s “Athlete and Kid” sketch: “Throw it to me, the ball – pick it up first.”) The “bread-and-circuses” crowd/populace control/pacification,” “substitute-for-war,” and “give-meaning-to-ones-life,” purposes of sports?
“◾Slavery” What’s controversial about that, unless someone somehow still thinks it is or ever was a wonderful thing [for someone else] to have to endure? Of course, slavery still exists here and there; is it that these California folks don’t want to somehow “offend” the delicate slaveholder sensibility?
“◾Any topic that is likely to upset students and affect their performance on the rest of the test” Who presumes to possibly know that before the students take the test? I see math is not on the list, but surely having to write about math would be most upsetting to not a few students.
I see that “American Exceptionalism,” individualism, narcissism, hubris are not on the list.
I wonder if the topic would ever be “Critical Thinking,” or “Free Inquiry.” The first is allegedly a “21st-Century Skill.” The second no doubt remains a bugaboo for the masters of mankind.
They can’t learn about natural disasters, in California???
“Hey, Mabel, why is the house shaking?”
“Gee, Freddy, I dunno.”
L
Teensy quibble: the First Amendment does not prohibit *discussion* of religion in school, it only prohibits the school promoting religion. A comparative-religion class, taught from a neutral viewpoint, would be entirely constitutional.
Indeed, there’s a whole website devoted to how to !*properly*! discuss religion in the classroom in California.
I’ve been working on a high school curriculum on humanism and I consulted it many times.
No rock music!?!
Wouldn’t it be easier just to make a list containing whatever they are allowed to know about?
I reckon it would go something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI9ImScQGAo
No, seriously, what’s up with the spiders?
And rock concerts? And roaches? Do they mean cockroaches or the fish?
I’d like to know what led to the creation of this list…
Californian here. When I traveled to DC years ago I was pretty surprised that we are all viewed as homosexual pot smoking liberals. Many of us are of course, but not all of us – and this just goes to show yet again how conservative CA is in reality.
I think every one of these subjects SHOULD be tested! I mean, how else would you learn how to find good drugs at a rock concert?
Or which spiders you can safely eat
Or which drugs can be safely administered to said spiders.
I’ll just leave this oldie but goodie on drugged spiders, here. At least Ottawa has their shit together.
That is hysterical. Never saw it before.
Nice web you got there, crack cocaine spider. 😉
I note that the exit test only tests reading, writing, and math. It is not meant to test science, history, knowledge of government, etc.. Now whether this should be considered the equivalent of a High School diploma is another matter.
This is exactly right. This is a skills test not a knowledge test. The topic is irrelevant to demonstrating the skill.
Topics that may be unfamiliar or troubling to some students disadvantage those students and interfere with an accurate, fair assessment of a topic neutral skill.
A question about taking a vacation to Hawaii would disadvantage students whose family’s are too poor to travel. A question about Halloween is problematic for a kid who’s parent’s whack religious beliefs mean it is a suspicious and unfamiliar holiday for them. (Ditto evolution and dinosaurs).
So, yes, if you’d like to give kids who have less than ideal backgrounds another kick in the teeth, by all means let any topic be up for grabs without any consideration of topics some students might be troubled by or ill prepared for, topics which could interfere with a fair assessment of such a student’s writing skill.
The educators who drew up this list have it right because they understand what the test is for and how to conduct it fairly.
But music, for example. Isn’t that a basic human concept almost regardless of age, or would it be considered unfair towards the hearing-impaired?
Some styles of music are considered to be the work of the devil by some parents.
It’s silly, but why put a question on a writing test that will trip up a kid from a family like that. Through no fault of their own it will throw them for a loop, and they will have enough problems coming from a family like that.
I’m not really sure that makes pedagogical sense because in the process of singling out rock music you discriminate against a certain genre. On what grounds?
The fair thing to do if we’re being this sensitive would be to ban music entirely, imo.
Just don’t ban dancing because Kevin Bacon will go Footloose on you!
😀
Pardon?
…UNFAIR TO THE HEARING-IMPAIRED.
[gesticulates furiously]
If you should need to know that 2 + 2 = 4, you should also need to have a basic understanding of how evolution by natural selection works. These things should fall into the same category of things every high school student should have learned by now.
If all these topics are avoided, how is a young adult expected to cope with the world?
Absence of these subjects make one suspicious that critical thinking is being actively avoided.
Reblogged this on danieltrump and commented:
education is influenced by politics all over the world, this is one of the worst examples of political influence that I’ve seen.
It’s a conspiracy to make Californian geologists extinct. How are we going to recruit Californian geologists if we can’t mention dinosaurs to them?
Can I mention birds to them? For, as has been said before, “Birds are not dinosaur descendants ; birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of “birds”, “are”, and “dinosaurs”.
Maybe it’s a conspiracy by Oregonians to kill off the population of California (by extinction due to insufficient numbers of geologists in a seismically active area), prior to their invasion? Or possibly it’s the Seattle-onians? They’ll need somewhere to live after the Cascadia SZ lets rip, and Mt Rainier relocates it’s summit into down town Seattle.
Putting on my pedant’s hat…
Birds are descendants of dinosaurs just as you and I are descendants of humans.