Marko's Stanford-Binet

Evidence of Marko's language skills comes from the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale: Fourth Edition that British Columbia education authorities administered when he was 10:06, and from whose five-page report the uppermost five scores in the excerpt below are relevant, indicating as they do that TBT had not been neglecting the development of language skills.

Marko's Stanford-Binet scores are understood here to be measures of the achievement that had been produced by TBT methodology, serving simply to reinforce what the array of UBC exams has been saying above.  As TBT students participated in a very broad assortment of intellectual exercises, one may conjecture that they were ready for anything that could be thrown at them.  Almost anything, as Marko did receive a single "average" score, the 60th percentile for "pattern analysis", whatever that is.

The alternative interpretation that Marko's performance, whether academic or Stanford-Binet, is indicative of innate giftedness is not borne out by the three most pertinent observations:

(1)  Marko's parents' academic records bear no resemblance to his.

(2)  During conventional schooling in Kindergarten and Grade 1, Marko was never singled out by teachers as being gifted or precocious or a model student, and neither were Kirsten or Alexa during their longer conventional-schooling exposures.

(3)  During the two consecutive academic years that Kirsten and Alexa were in TBT along with Marko (only the first year of which was sampled on video), their achievements tended to exceed his (as was to be expected from their being older), from which it is reasonable to expect that they would have continued to outpace him in the years to come had resources permitted the TBT pilot study to continue including them, and that they would have accumulated the same testimonials of university-level learning that Marko accumulated.

The evidence, then, points to the conclusion that the indications of superior performance discussed on this page can be credited to TBT methodology, which future twelvebytwelve.net publications will disclose, and cannot be credited to innate or inherent or genetic giftedness.

Kirsten's and Alexa's Canadian Achievement Tests (CAT)

After the first nine months of TwelveByTwelve, British Columbia educational authorities measured Kirsten and Alexa on the CAT, the key results being reproduced below, and a quick glance at which gives the impression of admirable performance.  One highlight is that both girls scored in the 99th percentile on all three of the Mathematics scales on their reports: MATHEMATICS COMPUTATION, MATH CONCEPTS & APPLICATIONS, and MATH TOTAL.  Perhaps if the CAT gave out the percentile rank to two decimal places, Kirsten and Alexa would have registered 99.99 the way Marko did on all three of his QUANTITATIVE REASONING scores on his Stanford-Binet.

And the two highest peaks were as follows.

Kirsten, nominally in Grade 6.8, performs at the Grade Equivalent of 12.6 in MATH CONCEPTS & APPLICATIONS.  As we can see on her report that a Grade Equivalent of 10.2 got her into the 99th percentile on another scale, then this Grade Equivalent of 12.6 may well have placed her into the 99.99th percentile in MATH CONCEPTS & APPLICATIONS if calculation to two decimal places had been allowed.

And Alexa, nominally in Grade 5.8, performs at the Grade Equivalent of 12.2 in LANGUAGE EXPRESSION.  And as we can see on her report that a Grade Equivalent of 9.2 got her into the 99th percentile on another scale, then this Grade Equivalent of 12.2 may well have put her into the 99.99th percentile in LANGUAGE EXPRESSION if calculation to two decimal places had been allowed.

Kirsten summary of results from her Canadian Achievement Tests

Alexa summary of results from her Canadian Achievement Tests

Let's look now for weaknesses.  Kirsten scores abysmally on LANGUAGE MECHANICS, and which pulls her TOTAL LANGUAGE down to barely above average.  LANGUAGE MECHANICS also happens to be Alexa's lowest score, suggesting that the deficit is less personal than caused by TwelveByTwelve neglect of that area of study.  The girls' detailed reports show that of the five topics which comprise LANGUAGE MECHANICS, the two lowest scores for both girls were awarded for COMMAS and BEGINNING WORDS/TITLES.  Admittedly, during the first nine months of TwelveByTwelve studies, commas had received no coverage whatever.  As for BEGINNING WORDS/TITLES — I cannot imagine what that skill might consist of, and wonder whether it deserves a place on any list of fundamental skills.

REFERENCE SKILLS is the next-lowest score in each of the two above CAT reports, and my examination of the detailed results indicates that if TwelveByTwelve had taken a few minutes to point out to its students the features of a LIBRARY CATALOGUE CARD, and of a DICTIONARY PAGE, then the REFERENCE SKILLS score would have risen to the level of the girls' stronger performances.

The CAT weaknesses documented above, then, lie in four areas that had been omitted during the first nine months of TwelveByTwelve study, but three of which measure skills which seem to be neither fundamental nor demanding: BEGINNING WORDS/TITLES, LIBRARY CATALOGUE CARD, and DICTIONARY PAGE, and the fourth of which, COMMAS, might be brought up to CAT 99th percentile level by, say, reading Strunk and White's pages 1 through 7 (in the 1959 edition that I happen to find at hand), followed by some drill, both of which might be managed within a couple of hours.

Two considerations must be kept in mind while evaluating the above CAT scores.

First, the stellar performances are not the result of a lifetime of TwelveByTwelve study; they are the result of only nine months of TwelveByTwelve study following comparatively unproductive years of conventional schooling — five in Kirsten's case, four in Alexa's, and one in Marko's.  Had TwelveByTwelve training been practiced throughout each of the three academic careers, performance would have been proportionately better.

Second, the CAT is biased in favor of students in conventional schools.  First of all, it tests only the conventional curriculum, which of course places students following any other curriculum at a disadvantage:

And teachers in conventional schools also have access to materials designed for the sole purpose of raising CAT scores:

And copies of the CAT have not only passed through the hands of innumerable teachers, but can be freely purchased by a long list of other people:   www.canadiantestcentre.com/~

With respect to security gaps that creators of recycled exams are obligated to attempt to plug, CAT creators seem naive, as for example with respect to who may be allowed to supervise a student's test taking, and who may be allowed to handle a student's answer card, and whether unauthorized copies of the CAT can be expected to leak out through security gaps and be put into illicit circulation.  An example of all three issues being handled negligently is CAT manufacturers warning homeschoolers who have purchased the CAT for their own children as follows:

Therefore, students in conventional schools, and some others, appear to have an immense advantage over students like the TwelveByTwelve duo whose teacher had not known that they would be tested on the CAT, and being unconnected to conventional education had never even heard of the CAT.  The result: the CAT tested COMMAS which TBT students had not studied, but did not test the Lewis diagrams distinguishing 1-Propanol from 2-Propanol which they had; the CAT tested LIBRARY CATALOGUE CARDS which TBT students had not studied, but did not test the identification of abductor pollicis longus and extensor pollicis brevis which they had; the CAT tested DICTIONARY PAGE which TBT students had not studied, but did not test the playing of major, minor, and diatonic scales, which they had; the CAT tested BEGINNING WORDS/TITLES which TBT students had not studied, but did not test the drawing of cumulative records distinguishing fixed interval reinforcement from variable ratio reinforcement which they had.  Given the CAT's testing of some insubstantial topics that the conventional curriculum teaches, and its failure to test some of the substantial topics that TwelveByTwelve taught, Kirsten's and Alexa's scores might be considered even more remarkable than they might have initially seemed.

The Last Word

The conclusion to which the TwelveByTwelve Pilot Study points is that the vast majority of children, including ones who in the conventional classroom are considered recalcitrant or unpromising, can accomplish all the skills described on the instant TwelveByTwelve Pilot Study page, and a great many more, and while experiencing a reduction in strain as compared to what they had been experiencing in conventional schools, as well as a boost in enthusiasm.  The American standard of No Child Left Behind is among the many educational goals that as yet have only been set, but which TwelveByTwelve would be able to realize.