SC's PACT Replacement & Knowledge

Sometimes it pays to read the State. Monday's P & C version of an AP story on development of the new state test to replace the PACT [Educators, Parents Worry About Replacement Test ] was truncated before some important information (important to test-watchers, anyway). The State's article ends with

"The new test also will line up more closely with federal education standards and provide more detailed information about whether a student is performing at the appropriate grade level.

"That’s because the new test will include enough math, science, social studies and English questions for the Education Department to statistically determine a student’s knowledge level.

"For example, students will answer enough algebra questions that the state will know if the student’s math knowledge is at their grade level. That was not the case with PACT.

Signs of hope: The new test promises "to statistically determine a student's knowledge level [italics mine]." That is the right direction to take.

In fact, what South Carolina needs most is a knowledge curriculum, as most foreign countries already have. If it had one starting in Pre-K, the

"Hundreds of people [. . .] involved in creating the new tests, from teachers who are reviewing questions to see if they can be easily understood and address the subject, to a sensitivity and bias committee charged with making sure the exam doesn't include material children from disadvantaged groups might not be familiar with"

could eliminate its worries that those children would be confronted by unfamiliar material. It's the best way to solve the cultural deficit faced by many children. An added benefit would be that the scores could lead to measuring how well the teacher has taught core knowledge.

The push for IB in elementary schools is a push for core knowledge through the back door. Didn't know that? Look at what its proponents tout as its strengths. American schools of education have made "core knowledge" a dirty word in educrat circles.

Americans can construct their own core knowledge; they don't need IB's. South Carolina really wants to improve its schools? Let's see it construct its own.