Page 1 of 21
  1. The historical and inherent nastiness of testing
  2. Boiled Frogs' Intestines and the History of the 'Test'
    1. A blast of hot air
    2. Analysis and testing are mutually incompatible
  3. Tainted Terminology
    1. 'Diagnosis' is the wrong term
    2. 'Assessment' has negative connotations
  4. The Dubious Rhetoric of Diagnostic Assessment
    1. “I assess, therefore I am an efficient teacher”
    2. “I am a language specialist, so you need me for specialized tests”
  5. The Grave Flaws of School-Based Tests
    1. Absence of reasoned statements of assumptions
    2. Invalid assumptions
  6. Testing the Tests
    1. False statements: Example 1
    2. False statements: Example 2
  7. Developmentalism: A Widespread Specious Ideology
    1. Developmentalism: a spelling red herring
    2. Kidnapping Piaget
    3. The edubabbling house of cards
    4. Cognitive capacity is not the same as conceptual construct
    5. A spelling 'continuum'
  8. The Malign Influence of the Phonics Fallacy
    1. The term 'phonics' has no linguistic validity
    2. The profound idiocy of 'nonsense word' reading tests
    3. Phonics is not neutral
  9. Consequential Criteria for Orthographic Analysis

Orthographic Analysis

1.4 A Critique of Assessment and Diagnostic Tests

The historical and inherent nastiness of testing

Two of the curses of the twentieth century were the tyranny of ideology and the fallacy that nothing exists unless it can be measured.

The edubabble market place offers a plethora of assessment and diagnostic tests to serve and perpetuate both of these maledictions.

The orthographic analysis that I am proposing has nothing in common with, and owes nothing to, these 'diagnostic' tools for terrorizing students and occupying the valuable time and energy of teachers.

The belief in tests ought to be as dead as the belief in witches. 1906

Unattributed citation in the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933)