Exam Angst

From kindergarten to college, no one hates tests more than the students forced to take them, with the possible exception of the schools forced to administer them.

School administrators have reason to dread tests: The scores frequently show that they are not doing their job. For example:

“Less than a year after the state postponed until 2006 a controversial requirement that seniors pass an entrance exam, more than a third of California’s high school districts applied for waivers of a requirement that 2004 graduating seniors pass an algebra class,” The Education Reporter found. “Some 14,000 students would not have graduated if the legal requirement had been enforced.”

“We were perfectly ready to accept responsibility,” Carl Del Grande, an assistant superintendent of schools in Santa Cruz told Education Week, “but we didn’t want to unfairly deny students their diplomas because of the errors of adults.”

The ACT college entrance exam: “Out of nearly 1.2 million students who took the exam, only 40 percent demonstrated an understanding of math that would get them through a college-level algebra class,” Education Week reported. “On the science test, just 26 percent of test-takers showed a readiness for college-level biology.”

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) administered under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Education (DOE), is a test taken by fourth-, eighth- and twelfth-graders. “Because an NAEP reading list had been given just last year, National Center for Education Statistics administrators had said few gains should be expected,” School Reform News reports. “And indeed, only one of 50 states showed a one-year improvement in fourth-grade reading scores: Florida, where scores jumped 4 points to 218.”

The NAEP results for the past decade show that less than a third of fourth graders are proficient readers. “It’s important for people to understand that ‘basic’ is a pretty high standard—and ‘proficient’ is a pretty high standard,” Bella Rosenberg of the American Federation of Teachers said.

The teachers’ union official is looking at a very rosy scenario indeed. “The number of corporations and law firms with remedial writing classes for new employees continues to grow, as does the amount of money spent nationally to make up for the lack of academic expository writing in high schools, colleges and even graduate education,” Will Fitzhugh of the National Writing Board writes. Fitzhugh founded and presides over The Concord Review, a journal of academic writing by high school students.

By way of contrast, last summer the Education Reporter ran a copy of a test that was given to 8th graders in the state of Washington in 1910. A look at the questions should make us question current notions of educational “progress.” Here are a few samples:

“Name the four kinds of sentences as to use and the three kinds of sentences as to structure.

“What were the three objective points of the Federal forces in the Civil War?

“Name ten wild animals of Africa.

“Divide 304487 by 931.

Remember, that last question had to be answered without a calculator.