Richard Ham, a third grade teacher in Poulsbo, Washington, wrote the following dystopian science fiction (education fiction?) about the aftermath of the Presidential election of 2028. It is frightening and hilarious.
April 17, 2028
The Associated Press
The American public education reform wars are finally over. President Arne Duncan took the oath of office in January as this nation’s 49th president and in his inauguration speech he praised the efforts over the past 30 years of big business, corporate testing corporations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and all the others responsible for what, in his words, amounted to a “cleansing of wishy-washy liberal teaching practices, unionism as an obstructive force in public schools and of incompetent, overpaid public school teachers doing great and terrible damage to this fine Nation’s school children.” He pledged that his newly appointed Secretary of Education, Michelle Rhee, will finish the job started so long ago and fine-tune and perfect the few rough spots that remain in bringing “rational public and pedagogical policy-making” into American classrooms.
In this spirit Secretary Rhee held a major press conference to herald the completion of the reform movement’s final masterpiece of high-stakes testing and accountability. The Secretary proudly presented the Pearson Corporation’s new third grade test as an example of this brave new world that American education has entered. Below is the third grade test, titled the SimBA, in its entirety.
The SimBA
THE SMARTASS (IM)BALANCED C.C.S.S.* ASSESSMENT for 3rd Grade
*Common Core Corporate Standards
MATHEMATICS: The Reimann Hypothesis dealing with prime numbers is one of the unsolved Millennium Prize problems, first posited over 150 years ago and as yet unsolved despite the best efforts of some of this past century’s finest mathematical minds. You are not expected to prove or disprove this hypothesis per se, but nevertheless do establish the initial parameters of the structure of such a proof (or disproof). Construct such parameters with enough mathematical sufficiency so that the next three steps in such an analysis can be logically and empirically demonstrated. Then do both of your multiplication and division facts in a 2-minute timing for each.
Time: 25 minutes
MUSIC: Write a concerto for a 4-piece chamber string quartet. Provide a final, clean copy of the sheet music for your composition, free from any stray notational errors. Finally, perform your composition in real time in front of a live audience.
Time: 40 minutes for composition; 10 minutes for performance
ART: Develop a new school of art, melding both traditional and modern elements using multi-media in such a design paradigm. Create at least three examples from your new art school, and host a gallery showing of your creations.
Time: 20 minutes for creation of new art form; 15 minutes for creation of examples; 10 minutes for gallery showing
[Break: 23 minutes total; 3 minutes for potty visit, 5 minutes for snack, 15 minutes for recess]
HISTORY: The Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana is famously credited with saying that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” In a 20-25 page essay argue either pro or con for this thesis, citing at least three eras in both ancient and modern history where this proposition can be proven to be either true or false. Note: The essay is to contain appropriate cites in standard citation form.
Time: 20 minutes
READING: Read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and the complete works of William Shakespeare. Then write a report comparing and contrasting how the authors handle the structural themes of tragedy and comedy in their respective works.
Time: 40 minutes
WRITING: Write a novella of no more than 80 pages from any of the following genres: mystery, general fiction, Western, historical, romance or fairy tale. Extra credit will be given if you also write a play in the dramatic tragedy tradition of ancient Greece (see the works of Aeschylus or Euripides for guidance in how this might be done).
Time: 25 minutes
SCIENCE: Sketch a timeline of the history of the quantum dynamic elements of the universe from the inception of the Big Bang until the present day era. Extra credit will be given if you can provide correlational elements of such a quantum history with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, especially noting how gravity unites both the quantum and relativistic worlds. Further extra credit will be given if you build a table-sized cyclotron to test your hypothesis using yellowcake uranium. Such yellowcake uranium is available from the Atomic Energy Commission for a small fee; please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery before the testing date.
Time: 20 minutes
Congratulations! Your testing for this year is over. Please go to lunch. And have a great day!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
You really should issue a trigger warning on any piece that contains the phrase “President Arne Duncan”. 😉
LikeLike
At the rate things are going there won’t be anybody left in 2028 capable of actually writing the questions.
LikeLike
Best belly laugh of the week. Thanks!!
LikeLike
Well, never fear, because they’re addressing the complaints of the rabble at the US Department of Education.
They’re hiring better PR people:
“Former D.C. public schools spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz has a new gig across town at the U.S. Department of Education: She is heading up strategic communications for John King, who acts as the department’s deputy secretary.
Department officials also recently announced the hire of a strategic communications adviser for Secretary Arne Duncan: Matt Lehrich, formerly of the White House press shop and PR firm Porter Novelli.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/personnel-changes-at-us-department-of-education/2015/06/05/50c91182-0b8d-11e5-a7ad-b430fc1d3f5c_story.html
LikeLike
It sounds like they finally realize that letting these two jokers loose without a script is bound to result in repeated attacks of “foot in mouth” disease.
LikeLike
You neglected to include Physical Education, now a part of the ESEA. Certainly 3rd graders should be able to do a bio mechanical analysis and comparison of the two primary styles of long jumping and be able to demonstrate with 95% accuracy each. Welcome to the brave new world kids. :By the way, YOU don’t matter one iota.
LikeLike
Whoa! Good catch here, Joseph. Tho’ it never even occurred to me that P.E. could ever be included in a “one size fits all” curricular assessment paradigm. I mean, just looking at a bunch of children’s physiques should categorically demonstrate to even the logically challenged that every child is different than every other child, & their resultant athletic abilities are also probably different, too. Surely these “reformist” clowns are not contemplating this? (Or are they…?)
LikeLike
Having just been essentially forced out of teaching by my edureformer admins, I found this post to be simultaneously hilarious and horrifying. I am so sad for our children, and so relieved for myself……..
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
LikeLike
One of my students created a dystopia about testing. Her response is in rough draft form. Maybe the most ironic thing about her story is that her state test scores place her in remedial reading classes. https://marysgotclass.wordpress.com/2015/06/09/one-student-responds-dystopia-standardized-tests-and-failure/
LikeLike