Wednesday, March 27, 2002

MSNBC: What digital divide? The argument is that the gap between computer haves and have nots is closing rapidly, so the rhetoric over the digital divide as a national crisis is overblown. Here's the numbers they cite (showing the change in percentage of people that used computers at home or at work from 1997 to 2001): Annual income from 15-25k: 37% (in 1997) to 47% (in 2001); income over 75k: 81-88%. Asian-Americans: 58-71%; whites: 58-70%; blacks: 44-56%; Hispanics: 38-49%. 12:37:02 PM     This week, Frontline takes a look at the increased role of high-stakes testing in American schools. Such testing is expensive, and if you're going to do anything other than multiple choice testing, it gets even more expensive. So there's a bias to easily quantified kinds of questions, which themselves tend to focus on regurgitation of knowledge, rather than the ability to think and reason about issues and ideas. It's particularly interesting to note that the SAT is planning to move away from a multiple choice format, in part because that the University of California has decided that it is not a good predictor of performance. So why will K-12 testing be any better? 12:30:13 PM

© Copyright 2002 Eric Baumgartner . Last update: 11/5/02; 3:29:27 PM . This theme is based on the SoundWaves (blue) Manila theme.