If all of this multiple choice testing is so "good" for intellectual development, then why has the SAT needed recentering with ever-increasing frequency?
It isn't because scores have RISEN over time.
`Recentered' Scores Just Another Step Toward Mediocrity Average SAT scores by year since 1952 Average Scores Slip on SAT - NYTimes, 2011National Center for Ed Statistics-- SAT score dataSo when SHOULD we start to see this strategic shift toward testing and "critical thinking" (the new definition above, I mean) paying off?
I mean, if it WORKED... then shouldn't the scores of students who were high school juniors and seniors in, say, 2011-- having been the beneficiaries of a full K through 12 education aligned toward this (IMO dubious) mission be demonstrating a huge JUMP in scores?? Yet that seems to emphatically NOT be the case. If anything, the only real result seems to be in writing, where scores have declined. Big surprise.
Like a lot of other untested "great ideas" in education, this one is actually kind of an epic... failure... when one examines the DATA to see how well it actually works.
Sort of like math instruction via computer. The longer students spend without real instruction, the worse they do. Not a popular result, btw, and therefore one that those pushing technology and automation into classrooms have studiously IGNORED.
Executive Summary:Effectiveness of Reading and Mathematics Software Products 
