Standardized Testing Needed to Combat Marks Inflation/Attenuation

But woke education leaders will fight it tooth and nail

Standardized Test in Ontario. (Photo by Postmedia Network files)

Woke Watch Canada is a reader-supported publication. Please consider becoming a paying subscriber or making a one-time or recurring donation to show your support.

Igor Stravinsky (Teacher; commentator)

According to media reports, the University of Waterloo, one of Canada’s leading universities, and thus one of the most competitive in terms of admissions, can no longer distinguish between applicants because there are just too many “straight A” students.

This problem has been around for a while and was highlighted a few years back when the university rejected two applicants who both had 100% averages, as well as having demonstrated that they had jumped through all conceivable hoops presented to them such as volunteer work, extra-curricular involvement, student government, etc. etc. These two kids happened to be Asian males, but we will set that aside for this discussion.

For its most competitive programs, such as engineering, math and aviation, Waterloo is presenting yet another hoop: A form called an Admission Information Form (AIF). These forms will be reviewed by an army of volunteer alumni as well as an AI. If those two assessments don’t agree, another human will review the AIF in question.

This is all a great deal of time and effort, as over 20,000 applicants will have to complete the AIF, not to mention it’s just one more stressful obstacle for prospective students to overcome (as if everything they accomplished in high school wasn’t already enough evidence to judge their worthiness to be accepted to a university program).

So how has it come to this? In short, there is a total misalignment between the educational philosophy at play in high schools, which is derived from what evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker has dubbed “the blank slate”, and the way of thinking in leading universities which is a meritocracy based on an acceptance of the reality of human nature, which is that people are born with different abilities, and no amount of modification of the world can erase that. The latter view has been under intense attack by activists at universities recently, but for the time being at least, the ship, while listing, is still afloat.

The University of Waterloo knows that they cannot just accept anyone with an interest, in, say, computer engineering, via a random lottery. The result would be catastrophic as the vast majority of the resulting students would crash and burn in short order in a program which perhaps 1% of students have what it takes to be successful.

It is obvious to most people that few of us can be an Olympic athlete, brain surgeon, rocket scientist, etc., but not to the ideologue edu-crats at our teacher training institutions. They attribute differences in academic achievement almost entirely on external factors, systemic racism being at the top of the list.

As a result, there is intense pressure on teachers to ensure that all students are “successful” in whatever classes they take, regardless of whether the student in question actually has the ability to grasp the concepts involved.

Like most responsible adults, I am well aware that I am simply too dumb to understand the nuances of astrophysics, although I find it very interesting. I read popular science books and articles which are essentially “science for dummies” and still struggle to follow what is being discussed. Luckily for me, no one ever told me I could be an astrophysicist back in high school. My science marks were middling.

As a result of this pressure on teachers, students are given multiple opportunities to raise marks. Projects or assignments on which a student does poorly are often disregarded. If a student elects not to take a test, they don’t get a zero, that test is simply not included in the calculation of the final mark. There is absolutely no expectation that students enrolled in the same class be evaluated based on the same criteria, quite the contrary. Teachers are told to have “conversations” and make “observations” which must be factored into the final mark calculation.

At the end of the process, that final mark is, at best, a rough approximation of how capable the student was in that class. Two students with similar, or even the same mark may be miles apart when it comes to doing what it takes to succeed in an ultra-competitive program like the ones described above at the University of Waterloo.

Waterloo’s registrar’s office is well aware of all of this, and has a few tricks up their sleeve to better differentiate between students, such as a rating of Ontario high schools based on historic rates of success of students at Waterloo from different schools. But no such system is even close to perfect. What they really need is some kind of objective measure of what kids know and can do. They need standardized testing.

Standardized tests are evil in the eyes of Faculty of Education professors and have fallen out of favour with School Boards and Teacher Unions because, you guessed it, they are “racist”. Yes, it’s true, Asian kids blow away others on those tests. I guess Canada is Asian Supremacist? If you’re reading this you probably know the systemic racism charge is baseless and I don’t want to dwell on that here.

I am not suggesting that College and University admissions should be based entirely on one standardized test, but these tests need to be part of the mix. School Boards and schools that are churning out kids with high marks in university level courses who in fact do not have what it takes to succeed in a high-calibre post-secondary program need to be identified and their pedagogic practices need to be changed.

School, like it or not, should be a separator. We should not be telling kids “you can do anything”. We should be telling them “you can try to do anything, and you’ll never know what you can do until you try”. Failures are some of our best learning experiences, IF we have the right attitude about them.

Part of growing up and becoming a functional adult is learning who you are and what role you can play as a productive citizen. Almost every kid can ultimately make a positive contribution and find their place in this world. But for that to happen, they need adults who are being honest with them and helping them on that journey, not propping up their delusions (or those of their parents).

The University of Waterloo would not need an AIF if Ontario had effective standardized testing. Those tests, along with school marks and information about kids’ school activities would be more than enough information for them to make a wise and informed decision about whom to accept into their programs.

But as long as we have woke edu-crats calling the shots at the Ministry of Education and in School Boards, it is unlikely that will happen.

---

Thanks for reading. For more from this author, read School Boards Ordered to Allow Police Officers Back in Schools

Follow Woke Watch Canada on X - @WokeWatchCanada

Or, by contributing to our Donor Box: