Completely off topic, but I'm not so sure of the wisdom of getting away from testing. I've heard a lot of people over the past decade poopooing testing as an evaluation tool. I understand the objections, but I think consequential testing is essential to the process of retaining information, since delayed recollection is a tried and true method for memory retention. And it is understood from a neurological perspective. Maybe a change of perspective on testing is needed, but I don't think such a powerful tool should be marginalized.
Imo there needs to be a balance. Testing most definitely has its place. But it is also at its core fundamentally flawed, requiring constant work and retooling to keep standardized tests relevant and meaningful in broad terms, and has been shown to be racially and socio-economically biased in many instances. This was a huge problem with intelligence testing (as much as there can be a problem with something entirely made up like IQ) until just the last decade maybe, where IQ tests were biased toward the a "norm" that really represented white affluent test-takers over people of color and lower economic and minority status. This was a topic of lots of conversation when I originally joined Mensa. There are more now that are better at addressing this, but it has been a long time coming, and will take a lot more work to even the playing field. Same goes for a lot of testing in academia, especially standardized testing and placement testing. I think we are making strides, but they are slow going. However, the most basic flaw of all testing is that it is biased by whomever is creating the test. As stated in the atlantic article below
To grasp how culturally contingent our current conception of intelligence is, just imagine how well you might do on an IQ test devised by Amazonian hunter-gatherers or medieval European peasants.
These biases exist in every test you have ever taken or ever will take, on some level and obviously depending on the subject matter, etc. (less bias in a math operations test, e.g. 2+2=X, than in a story problem test where social settings are used to test grasp of concepts, i.e. the more straight-forward the information being tested, generally the less bias inherent in the test). It is devilishly hard to eradicate bias, if it is even possible or if the test-makers even care to make the attempt.
https://www.fairtest.org/racial-bias-built-tests
https://www.theatlantic.com/nationa...ng-the-connection-between-race-and-iq/275876/
However largely I agree we cannot discount testing entirely and it should not be marginalized. It has to be part of a balanced measure of potential/performance and simply to assess knowledge. I think the push to completely eliminate standardized tests reeks too much of the "participation trophy" social movement that has evolved over the last couple of decades. Make things touchy-feely rather than deal with the harsh realities that at some point in our lives the vast majority of us will be expected to actually *gasp* produce something tangible. I know in my career I am judged far more on whether I met my hard financial targets year over year than if I tried hard or made a lot of friends or was nice to all my employees and, I don't know, participated in 80% of the pot-lucks for the year. That last part matters in how I get the job done, but it is not the ultimate measure of actually, you know, getting the job done.
