Fellow evaluators & court buffs: anyone else notice the unique cant on the
split decision regarding UMich's affirmative action decision, yesterday?
Underneath this *split decision* is a unifying theme, IMHO, that is a golden
lining in this *political decision* and which holds immense implications for
our evaluation science and the research concerning the flesh-based citizens,
we human beings:
*The US Supreme Court affirmative action decision in
the UMich case(s) recognizes the ascendancy in evaluation
of holistic (aka *qualitative*) ontologically-based evaluations
concerning merit among applicants to post-secondary schools
as one superior and constitutionally more justified than
those represented by industrial efficiency designs prevalent
in so many schools and other measurement-based decision-
making ontologies, which are, at face value, themselves,
as paradigms: now UNCONSTITUTIONAL!*
RAParkany, 2003
I am impressed and--though, right now--a lone voice in the wilderness...
...BUT a soon to be _recognized_ voice that sees in this decision PROMISES
(aka premises) for a general realignment of thinking, especially in academic
and political scenes, against decision-making protocols primarily intended and
designed as industrial efficiency devices in high-stakes decision-making
concerning the human being and other such citizens-of-the-flesh over against
those other corporate citizens who, because they have no a** to kick, are
immortal, and presently socially unaccountable as institutions in this great
American scene (a scene that holds a significant AmeriKKKan component within
it as an ever-present sub-culture, speaking of *semiotic content* and other
symbolic evaluative moments in our science, harking as I do, now, to another
thread on EVALTALK, recently).
These new discussions demand individualized and situated decision-making,
hallmarks of the fourth generation style evaluations and social constructivist
paradigms...the Supreme Court so instructs the corporate and state
institutions by these decisions, it demands this of those Olympians who
oversee and (often in quite peculiar ways) undermine, as well, all our mortal
efforts at amelioration of the human condition, such as it is.
More on the constitutional ascendancy of fourth-generation (aka constructivist
paradigms of evaluation) in these USofA in a later post. Please excuse
X-postings, as well... ;-} rap.
>REF>:
GUIDELINES AND CHECKLIST FOR CONSTRUCTIVIST (a.k.a. FOURTH GENERATION)
EVALUATION by Egon G. Guba & Yvonna S. Lincoln; November 2001
http://www.wmich.edu/evalctr/checklists/constructivisteval.htm
--
"Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust!
Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit
Hat dir selbst das Feld bereit',
Auf dem du bluehen musst." JS Bach: Bauern Kantata
Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany
Prometheus Educational Services
http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/
Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA
