I had to post this link to this story by E.D Hirsch Jr. in the NY Times Op/Ed section today. As the mother of two children, neither of whom is an outstanding reader, this makes so much sense to me.
My son often has trouble with test questions that require background knowledge outside his curriculum. They distract him by offering irrelevant scenarios and he misses the point of the question entirely. It is grossly unfair to ask questions requiring knowledge of a specific sport, or game, or hiking trail. My suburban/country kids are sometimes confounded by questions involving subway trains and “blocks” walked. In our neck of the woods it’s more likely to be miles than blocks.
We need to test our children on what they’ve been taught in class, in their curriculum. Anything else is grossly unfair.
Is common sense finally going to return to education so that we can quit raising a generation of test takers? I can only hope that it is.
