Community College Week: The Independent Voice Serving... -
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Published on: 5/12/2003
Last Visited: 7/14/2006
Dr. Frank Madden, a professor and chairman of the English department at Westchester Community College at the State University of New York, said he finds it ironic that the sponsors of the two main college entrance exams have ultimately been the purveyors of current practices in writing education."The motives behind both these reports seem a bit disingenuous," said Madden, who pointed out that while the test sponsors are promoting the findings as news, writing teachers have been trying to make the case for decades about the importance of writing in the curriculum."I've always found that the College Board, in the name of the Educational Testing Service, and the ACT, have been the biggest impediments in the way of improving writing instruction," he said."Their tests are all short answer or multiple choice."Madden said he sees an agenda in the writing commission's recommendation that money be pumped into the development of new technologies to give teachers tools for evaluating student writing.Those technologies, he said, would likely be developed by or would otherwise benefit the testing agencies, he said.Despite the conflicts of interest, Madden said, he applauds the focus on writing and the push for improvements from kindergarten through college.The need to boost students' skills, he said, is well known.