**facepalm** 50 words banned from NYC school tests inc politics, poverty & religion

[Roto Rooter]

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/03/50_words_banned_from_nyc_schoo.html

Why NYC why? Maybe B-fly can chime in.

The reasoning: The words might be distracting to segments of the city's diverse student population.

• Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)
• Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs
• Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
• Bodily functions
• Cancer (and other diseases)
• Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
• Celebrities
• Children dealing with serious issues
• Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
• Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)
• Crime
• Death and disease
• Divorce
• Evolution
• Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes
• Gambling involving money
• Halloween
• Homelessness
• Homes with swimming pools
• Hunting
• Junk food
• In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge
• Loss of employment
• Nuclear weapons
• Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
• Parapsychology
• Politics
• Pornography
• Poverty
• Rap Music
• Religion
• Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)
• Rock-and-Roll music
• Running away
• Sex
• Slavery
• Terrorism
• Television and video games (excessive use)
• Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
• Vermin (rats and roaches)
• Violence
• War and bloodshed
• Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)
• Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

[johnnya24]

I'll have nothing to say in my Charlie Sheen essay

[johnnya24]

[Nate Berkenstock]

There goes my favorite word problem:

Hammer had Nana's pot roast at 6:30.
It is now 7:15.
He is four flights of stairs down from the nearest bathroom.
Hammer can travel the stairs at 10 mph.
Nana's pot roast is moving at .5 mph

Is Hammer:
- makin' it
- not makin' it

edit: the ghost of Nate Berkenstock strikes again!

[Moonlight J]

There goes my favorite word problem:

Hammer had Nana's pot roast at 6:30.
It is now 7:15.
He is four flights of stairs down from the nearest bathroom.
Hammer can travel the stairs at 10 mph.
Nana's pot roast is moving at .5 mph

Is Hammer:
- makin' it
- not makin' it

edit: the ghost of Nate Berkenstock strikes again!

[Nate Berkenstock]

"Wait a minute — this looks like rock and/or roll."

[Nate Berkenstock]

B-Fly punches someone in the arm.
He then thinks better of it.
If he can run away at 15mph without hair, but his 'fro has a coefficient of friction of 1.7, how quickly will he regret ever telling us that story?
- quickly
- really quickly

[Nate Berkenstock]

FriarFan wants to impress a pretty lady.

Which of the following is most likely to impress her?
A. Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
B. Children dealing with serious issues (specifically, death)
C. Prostitution


(speaking of, Prostitution didn't make the list?????)

[Roto Rooter]

The school chancellor likes him a whore every now and then.

[GwynnInTheHall]

The school chancellor likes him a whore every now and then.

The Chancellor is Lawrence Taylor?

[Judge Jude]

To be fair, banned from tests but not from school.

Still....

[Pogues]

Many of the categories listed would require "knowledge" in the area to make it a fair question. A very simple example is a math problem such as:

Kobe Bryant makes 2 3-pointers, 10 field goals, and 7 free throws. How many points did he score?

First off, trying to figure out who Kobe Bryant is would be confusing to some. But needing to know what a field goal and a free throw is would make it difficult, if not impossible, for some students. Essentially, you can make a test question invalid or unfair if not every test-taker can associate with the topic within the question.

Other categories, obviously, are just not topics that should be on most tests. I'm sure a question on alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are valid and permitted in health class.

It's very difficult to write a test and make all the questions valid and fair. I have some knowledge of writing appropriate questions, and some day want to pursue a master's in testing and assessment. I find the whole field fascinating.

[B-Fly]

I think the last two posts basically get at the point. We would never ban the discussion of such topics in school, but the tests are high-stakes for the kids, the teachers, the principals, etc, so as Pogues notes, you don't want to pick topics that will confuse some kids or cause an emotional reaction in some kids that could distract them from the task of answering the test questions in the appointed time. Tests shouldn't be where kids learn about stuff. They should learn about stuff in the classroom. The test should just be a vehicle for them to demonstrate their mastery of the learning standards for a particular subject. I honestly don't view this as having anything to do with censorship or political correctness. It's just an effort to create vehicles for assessment that are as fair, neutral and uncluttered as we can make them.

[Midnight Otter]

I think the last two posts basically get at the point. We would never ban the discussion of such topics in school, but the tests are high-stakes for the kids, the teachers, the principals, etc, so as Pogues notes, you don't want to pick topics that will confuse some kids or cause an emotional reaction in some kids that could distract them from the task of answering the test questions in the appointed time. Tests shouldn't be where kids learn about stuff. They should learn about stuff in the classroom. The test should just be a vehicle for them to demonstrate their mastery of the learning standards for a particular subject. I honestly don't view this as having anything to do with censorship or political correctness. It's just an effort to create vehicles for assessment that are as fair, neutral and uncluttered as we can make them.

I'm not saying you should "teach to the test", but shouldn't there be discussion in class AND homework assignments where these topics are first discussed without the test being the first place the student encounters the topic.

[Controller Jacobs]

I'm not saying you should "teach to the test", but shouldn't there be discussion in class AND homework assignments where these topics are first discussed without the test being the first place the student encounters the topic.

This affects "some city-issued standardized tests". I assume they would mostly involve unrelated subjects. e.g. you don't want guns, celebrities or gambling mentioned in a math question.

I'll guess it's happened more than once that someone creating standardized tests to assume the students like Christmas, Baseball and The Beatles just as much as they do.