Date sent: Sat, 8 Apr 2000 21:39:10 -0600 To: "ClearingHouse" From: Carol Gambill Subject: [education-consumers] Educational Records Bureau Copies to: "ClearingHouse" Send reply to: Carol Gambill ===================================================================== John, I have not been to the Education Record Bureau web site. However, if what you say below is true, it will be a 180 degree reversal from what they have always stood for and provided to schools. While I taught at an rigorous private academy in Pittsburgh for the past ten years my students were given the ERB's each spring. My own students also took the ERB additional Algebra I portion. During that time, I saw the tests annually and was consistently highly impressed with its traditional content and presentation style and its rigor. I would have said for sure that it is the most reliable and valid achievement test available today. I may be wrong, as it is possible the tests could have changed in the past year, but the tests my students took have always been excellent. The Algebra I portion which my students took every year was so traditional, it looked exactly like my Dolciani Algebra I text (the most traditional, rigorous math text available in the US). What do you mean below by the "CTP III"? The tests my students took were not called by that name. They were called "ERB's". Perhaps CTP is a new non-traditional test which has just recently become available through the Education Record Bureau which is offered in addition to ERB's for those schools which have adopted fuzzy math and whole language. I will be very disappointed if traditional ERB's are no longer available. I have been attempting to persuade the principal of my charter school to start using ERB's. Carol Gambill At 12:30 AM -0400 8/4/00, J. E. Stone wrote: >===================================================================== > > >Stan, > >There is nothing wrong with the CAT/5. My guess is that your >superintendent is running the usual sucker play. Change the test, >invalidate longitudinal comparisons, then change again in a few >years. Anything to avoid being pinned down. > >I looked at the Educational Record Bureau and immediately found >reason to avoid it: > >"CTP III has addressed the National Council of Teachers of >Mathematics standards in designing all Mathematics and Quantitative >Ability tests, including end-of-course Algebra I, Algebra II, and >Geometry" > >These folks have already geared their test to the pedagogically correct. > >John >