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11 tweets,
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Note the false choice between measuring 1. "whether your are good at the test" or 2. "human worth, character, and virtue." Gee, Andrew, which bucket does academic capability and college readiness fall into? You say it isn't related to #1. I hope you don't equate it with #2.
This is not just silly strawman politicking, it is a dangerously wrong message that gets sold as "progressive" but harms less academically talented students who we set up for failure by pretending there is no such thing as academic aptitude.
It's simply untrue that standardized tests are "a terrible measurement of anything other than whether you are good at the test." The SAT, for instance, is a really good measurement of whether you are academically prepared for and likely to succeed in college.
People who tweet things like "I believe in science" shouldn't then tweet things that reject the available evidence suggests, simply because they feel a different narrative would be more politically popular.
Interestingly, Andrew has on his website a strong condemnation of the college-for-all mentality that fails most students, and an endorsement of vocational education and a call to destigmatize it. Great. But incompatible with the bumper-sticker tweeting. yang2020.com/policies/promo…
Here's what he says on his website: "Too many students invest in college when it’s not the right investment for them." Correct. But how would they know that? Just a gut feeling? Just a question of what they "want"? Or might there be some objective criteria to consider?
A test result isn't the be-all and end-all. And I firmly believe that a choice of educational track should be the family's. But surely it should be _informed_ by things like test results. The last thing we need is politicians saying "that test can't tell you anything."
By the time you're in your late teens, if you perform poorly on standardized tests, college is likely not the right next step for you. Not in every case. But in most. Pretending it's somehow insulting to say that is exactly what reinforces the stigma of alternative pathways.
Setting up the argument as "if you care about standardized tests, you're saying they measure human worth" accomplishes nothing except to send the signal that "we must not consider or discuss academic aptitude, because doing so automatically implicates people's inherent worth."
Message should be that different people are good at different things, and knowing what you're good at should help guide the pathway you choose. Any pathway can lead to a good and meaningful life, providing for a family, earning respect in your community... Not that hard to say.
Anyway, here's my new @CityJournal essay on America's screwed up approach to education, the importance of being honest about differences in academic aptitude, and how to establish a sensible system of tracking. The @AndrewYang tweet would've fit well. END. city-journal.org/vocational-edu…
