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We support congressional action to curb the Imperial Judiciary by refusing to confirm activist judges and by withdrawing jurisdiction from the federal courts over areas where we don’t trust them, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Boy Scouts, and the definition of marriage. [/SIZE]
We oppose the feminist goals of stereotyping men as a constant danger to women, while at the same time pushing women into military combat against foreign enemies.
Eagle Forum successfully led the ten-year battle to defeat the misnamed Equal Rights Amendment with its hidden agenda of tax-funded abortions and same-sex marriages.
We oppose and deplore the dumbing down of the academic curriculum through fads such as Outcome-Based Education and courses in self-esteem, diversity, and multiculturalism.
We oppose liberal propaganda in the curriculum through global education and Political Correctness.
There was a similar 1895 8th grade test that was debunked by Snopes
Was it debunked by Snopes? I saw something about an 1895 test, not a 1910, and even so, it wasn't declaring it false, but rather claiming that one shouldn't expect to know the answers to a test, unless one prepares for it.
To the topic of Phyllis Schlafly and her Eagle Forum. I do dislike the woman intensely for the first class hypocrite she is. The little right wing freak spent her life proclaiming that women belonged at home as housewives, that feminists were destroying society, and meanwhile she was the very antithesis of a housewife, working, making a huge salary, organizing right wing think-tanks and the propaganda they disseminated - a total feminist in that no one kept her at home as a little hausfrau. Problem was she was an anti-feminist feminist, and a fascist one. Phyllis Schlafly lived her life as a very a radical feminist, but wanted to deny that right to all other American women. She was either mentally ill, or just evil. Don't know which.
But with regard to the test, the Eagle Forum, and Phyllis. These were shooting themselves in the foot by presenting a 1910 test that proclaimed kids knew more back then. After all, that 1910 test was allegedly given at a public school. Aren't public schools deemed the very devil by right wing extremists like Phyllis and her right wing Eagle Forum think tank?
I couldn't pass the grammar section of that test. I've never been good at the academic structure of language...though I'm capable of communicating what it is I want to say acceptably well.
The history of America section would have given me problems as well..though I chalk that up to never actually studying it formally.
The physiology section would have required some study on my part...I'm sure if I knew what I was expected to know, I would have known it.
Everything else is pretty basic...stuff I knew when I was a child.
I'm in college so this is alarming to me...I'm sure at one point in time I knew all what was being tested for though. Most of it has been long forgotten...I blame google.
I think I'm going to set some time aside to study grammatical structure.
agreed, I'm entering college and I would not be able to answer a majority of the questions in the grammar section. Part of the problem is I'm not familiar with most of the terms that they use
In addition, I would fail the geography portion of the exam. Despite 8th grade geography, I was never taught the course in high school and I honestly don't remember one bit from what I learned in 8th grade.
And just wondering, wouldn't these students need a calculator to complete many of the exercises in the arithmetic section? How would they be able to find the square root of a decimal (unless they were taught the algorithm method)?
A lot of such testing is designed to verify "rote" learning. Examples:
"How many board feet in a piece of timber 14 inches square, and 12 feet long?"
There are at least a couple of answers, depending on who is doing the asking. For the teacher, there is 144 cubic inches in a board foot. Twelve feet long means each inch on an end of the timber represents a board foot, so 14 x 14 = 196 is an easy answer. A 14" x 14" x 12' timber is short for use in a trestle and too big around for most home or barn construction, which means it is meant for further sawing as a cant. Take that cant to a sawyer, and he will determine the kerf he'll need to cut for each plank, other wastage, and come up with an answer around 150 bf +-.
"What is the cost of enough lumber to floor a room 24 feet long and 16 feet wide, at $32 per thousand feet? "
That assumes a floor of a single layer of 1" boards. 24 x 16 = 384 sf $12.29 will get you a grade, but anyone who has done flooring knows that you have to allow for a minimum of 10% excess, with 20% being better on a small job to allow for scrap, bad cuts, angled cut shorts that can't be reused and so on, so the real cost is going to be about $16, because you don't go to a lumberyard and ask for 460.8 bf of flooring lumber unless you want to be called a dweeb by every other carpenter in the place and be laughed out of the coffee shop.
People pass off such stuff as nit-picking, but the school which has students go out into the real world and try to build based only on what they learned, and passed on a test, is a poor school.
My first thought was to post this in the Education forum, but then I decided the debates forum would be better suited. By posting it here, I sure hope the teachers/educators on CD respond as I would like to hear their opinions.
I ran across this article the other day and was impressed by the questions ask on this test for 8th graders. The student had to pass this test in order to move up to the next grade level. I cannot say for sure if this was the actual questions ask for these students, but I have found several links on the web to the same test.
My debate issue is .. do you think the educational system today is providing real substance to their classroom curriculum that challenges the student as in the older days as shown in this 8th grader test of over 100 years ago..? Or is there something else going on in the schools today and if so, why are not these kids getting a real education..?
IMO I believe the educational system in parts of our country are very lacking on the material and grading of students today from grade school up to the high school level. I also believe that many of the teachers out in these schools are not qualified to teach.
Please, let's hear your feedback on this issue.
I suspect highly that this is not true. It is very similar to the 1895 test that is on Snopes.com here: snopes.com: 1895 Exam which debunks that "test".
While I will certainly agree that education has dumbed down the population DRAMATICALLY in the past 100 years, I don't need a test to tell me that.
Be careful when drawing comparisons between education today and 100 years ago.
Compulsary education through the end of high school is a relatively new concept. In 1910, only 35% of 17 year olds were in high school, and a full half of the population didn't get past 8th grade. (A Short History of United States' Education)
Only 13.5% of students *finished* high school and a miniscule 2.7% of the population graduated from college. (Educational Attainment)
Students taking this test likely would have been the "elite," college-bound kids. In terms of today's kids, it'd be like the students taking AP classes versus those in trade school.
As to whether today's kids could pass that test? Perhaps not the section on diagramming sentences (does anyone do that anymore?), but 8th grade students in my state have to pass lengthy End-of-Course exams in math, science, social studies, and reading. These tests are required of ALL students except for a few that are exempted because of intellectual disabilities. I don't think they'd have any problem with the majority of the questions.
My mom was born in 1910: there were 6 kids in the family, none of them went past the 10th grade I think it was. My husband's mom came from a family of 8 kids, two made it to high school. On the other hand, my dad's side of the family had people going to college clear back in the mid 1880s. I agree we can't read too much into things like comparing what was and is and will be.
A lot of such testing is designed to verify "rote" learning. Examples:
"How many board feet in a piece of timber 14 inches square, and 12 feet long?"
There are at least a couple of answers, depending on who is doing the asking. For the teacher, there is 144 cubic inches in a board foot. Twelve feet long means each inch on an end of the timber represents a board foot, so 14 x 14 = 196 is an easy answer. A 14" x 14" x 12' timber is short for use in a trestle and too big around for most home or barn construction, which means it is meant for further sawing as a cant. Take that cant to a sawyer, and he will determine the kerf he'll need to cut for each plank, other wastage, and come up with an answer around 150 bf +-.
"What is the cost of enough lumber to floor a room 24 feet long and 16 feet wide, at $32 per thousand feet? "
That assumes a floor of a single layer of 1" boards. 24 x 16 = 384 sf $12.29 will get you a grade, but anyone who has done flooring knows that you have to allow for a minimum of 10% excess, with 20% being better on a small job to allow for scrap, bad cuts, angled cut shorts that can't be reused and so on, so the real cost is going to be about $16, because you don't go to a lumberyard and ask for 460.8 bf of flooring lumber unless you want to be called a dweeb by every other carpenter in the place and be laughed out of the coffee shop.
People pass off such stuff as nit-picking, but the school which has students go out into the real world and try to build based only on what they learned, and passed on a test, is a poor school.
Actually word problems are to teach logic, and how to breakdown a question. It's also to ferit out the actual question. All those math questions asking how many apples you'd sell if for a two dollar order with apples one price and oranges one price when they also bought two oranges are not about rote math, but how to tear down the parts of a problem and repersent it. This has real applications in life for most people because it teaches how to think.
Of course a carpenter wouldn't buy 460.8, but its important to tell that 480 won't do it and you'll have to cut 481.
I think schools should make kids take a semester of German. Not to speak it so much as to HAVE to learn the parts of speech since its position oriented and uses word endings. It does get you past the having to think about what part of speech a word is since you know you have to.
I probably would've passed the main parts of this test in the 8th Grade, I doubt I would've did well on the entire thing though, especially the Physiology & U.S History portions. I didn't get U.S. History until the 11th Grade and geography was never a subject, a lot of what I know is self taught (geography included), I remember we were given this worksheet where we had to name all 50 U.S. States, I did it with ease and was accused of cheating. As far as the physiology part of the test goes, half is common sense and the other half is something that was never covered in school. The reading portion just seems unnecessary, I would've failed it.
The test isn't hard, some of these things just aren't really taught.
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