Re: Henry Chauncey, Founder of the Educational Testing Service -- Rest in Peace

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 ]

Subject: Re: Henry Chauncey, Founder of the Educational Testing Service

Author:
David Lloyd-Jones

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: February 26, 2003 1:01:28 EDT

I was a member of the professional staff of the US Congress during the early 1970's, and my boss, John Brademas (D. Ind.) was a Governor of Educational Testing Service for some years. On one occasion he had conflicting duties, a Visitors' meeting at Harvard and a Governors' meeting at ETS in Princeton, N.J. With the agreement of the Chairman he sent me to the Governors'meeting with his proxy.

Being a sceptic of all things test-ish or tinged with authority, I did a good deal of research on the whole place, and went loaded for bear -- though impressed by the fact that ETS did not in fact aim to separate the world into the fortunate and the unfortunate, as might have been my initial bias.

I did not get a chance to fire a shot: the Board already contained a number of academic researchers representative of the excellent staff, and their critical attitude toward all questions involving intelligence, education, attainments, ability, and so on and so forth, was more sceptical, better informed, and more corrosive in its critical content than anything I could bring to bear.

Clearly what Chauncey had creeated over his career was a very finely assembled machine -- with the astonishing quality that it kept itself running in part by trying very hard to tear itself apart.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]