Students Learning To Be Republicans While Taking Assessment Tests

Students must follow lots of rules when taking the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), as they did this week. They must pack away cellphones. They can't consult dictionaries for most of the test or calculators for some of it.

But when it comes to the writing section, there's one rule they can break: They can make things up. Statistics. Experts. Quotes. Whatever helps make their point.

The state's education office, to the dismay of some teachers, recently announced that making up facts is acceptable when writing nonfiction, persuasive essays on the WASL — something that on class assignments would mean a failing grade.

"Statistics in a WASL paper can be made up by you, the writer!" says a PowerPoint presentation that the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) created to be used this summer for students who fail the WASL this spring. And, a little later: "On the WASL, you can invent an important expert and have that person say something to bolster your opinion."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2002870594_writingwasl17m.html

I personally contacted Dr. Craig Balfour at the University of Kalamazoo, who said ethics like this can lead to a political life in the GOP.

Ethical debaters can't refute what doesn't exist; therefore, rightwing
debaters are taking over the academic debate world.

It isn't actually April first is it? This is truly unbelievable! It's one thing after another, after a while the old outrage gland just runs dry...