An article in the Wall Street Journal goes on a rant against critics of standardized testing. It was written by a charter school advocate in Texas and a professor at ultra-conservative Hillsdale College in Michigan. The authors are shocked that so many parents and local school boards in Texas want to reduce the number of tests needed to graduate high from 15 to only three or four.
They insist that American students are really incredibly stupid and the best way to make sure they gain the wisdom of the ages is to demand more of Pearson’s multiple choice tests.
You can see that they really care about the Higher Things because they drop names like Homer, Milton, Melville, and Shakespeare. They also drop some references to the Founding Fathers.
Two things are odd about this article (in addition to the fact that the statistics they cite were based on a telephone survey of 1,200 students, who were asked multiple-choice questions and had no reason to take the survey seriously).*
First, when American students were classically educated, many eons ago, as the authors yearn for, they were not taking any standardized tests. None. Zero. Zip. They were writing essays and examined orally by their teachers. It seems the authors yearn for the good old days of 1910, when the high school graduation rate was about 10%.
And then there is the irony that the authors are the sort who usually rant about the importance of respecting parental choice. Why do they deny the choice that so many Texas parents so clearly and passionately want: an education where more time and resources are devoted to teaching, not testing?
Gosh, with more time for teaching and learning, the students would actually have time to read Homer, Shakespeare, Melville, and Milton, instead of test prep.
*Full disclosure: I was co-chair of the organization that commissioned the survey and co-authored the introduction. The organization, named Common Core, has no connection to the Common Core State Standards. It was created to advocate for the liberal arts and sciences, not for testing them. I resigned from it in 2009.
P.S. a comment below points out that Hillsdale College attracts many home-schoolers who do not take batteries of standardized tests annually.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 