Denial goes on in Louisville

This time, a Courier-Journal article indicates the Louisville League of Women Voters is involved with the process of educational denial as discussions continue about what the city wants in its new school superintendent.

The most interesting comment in the article:

“Blaine Hudson, dean of the University of Louisville's College of Arts and Sciences, said standardized tests tell him ‘absolutely nothing’ about incoming college students.”

Really?

Maybe he is talking about our soon-to-be-discarded Kentucky Core Content Tests, the last vestiges of the old CATS assessment program. Those test results definitely were not useful for any decisions about individual students.

However, if we are talking about the ACT college entrance tests, as I recently wrote, the public university system across Kentucky finds the ACT useful as a first step in determining which students will need remedial courses if they are admitted to college.

As a more selective school, the U of L does not admit many students in need of remediation, so the ACT may not appear so highly useful to the dean, but that does not mean the ACT isn’t very important in other colleges around the state, or to the many Jefferson County students who are not going to be admitted at the U of L.

And, members of the League of Women Voters, many of whom have children, will only do themselves and their kids a disservice if they believe otherwise.