Willomwist's Wanderings

So starting in second grade, the U.S. has these statewide tests to make sure schools are actually teaching something to their students and prove that my tax dollars are being used wisely.  Seriously, I pay nearly $3000 in property tax for the fine, upstanding school to which I send my son.  I always expect the floors to be tiled in gold or something when I visit the school, but school floors haven’t changed much since I was a kid.  What do educators have against a little colour anyway?

The tests are called Terra Nova (which is latin for new world, thank you Mr Lynde!) and I just got Vaughan’s results in the mail.  Vaughan is under the impression (from which I have never disabused him just because it amused me so,) that all of the tests were sent to the president of the United States for marking.  Actually, I might have hinted at the truth by telling Vaughan that I didn’t think the president of the United States could write the second grade Terra Nova tests, much less grade them.  Nonetheless, Vaughan believes George W marked his tests.  He’s a bright kid.  He tends to ignore my sarcasm.

And now I can prove that he is a bright kid because the Terra Nova people say that he is smarter than roughly 91% of Pennsylvanian second graders.  His Cognitive Skills Index is 122 to the national average of 100 — better, even, then two-thirds of the all the seven-year-olds in the whole state who score between 84 - 116 on the CSI. 

Interestingly, his lowest scores were in analogies and contextual verbal reasoning.  Analogy, for those lacking in test-taking terminology, refers to the ability to transfer information from one subject to another.  You know, understanding relationships:  A is to B as C is to __.  Contextual verbal reasoning is the ability to draw conclusions based on ideas.   He still scored higher in both areas than about 65% of Pennsylvanian second graders but, let’s face it, the kid is just too darned literal.  What was his highest score?  Quantitative reasoning of course.  He scored in the 97th percentile.

Happy July 2 everyone.