Capitalism, Caculus and Conscience
Susan Ohanian,
Phi Delta Kappan,
Jun 02, 2003
We begin today's somewhat long newsletter (after Friday's email fiasco I have a bit of catching up to do) with this scathing indictment of the U.S. system of standardized testing. The argument, in a nutshell, is that the tests are rigged to ensure that disadvantaged children fail. "In writing the New York Appellate decision, Justice Alfred Lerner explained why city children must be treated differently from children living in more affluent areas. 'Society needs workers in all levels of jobs, the majority of which may very well be low-level.' That's a direct quote. Thus does the global economy engulf the schoolhouse, and the children are discarded as so much refuse." It's one thing to have standardized tests, but it's quite another to give some children the means to pass them while withholding those means from other children.
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