The Truth About National Testing
President Clinton is pressing ahead with his plan to
nationalize public school curriculum through national
reading tests for 4th graders and national math tests for
8th graders. Congressional opposition to national tests
has been led by Senator John Ashcroft (R-MO) and
Congressman Bill Goodling (R-PA), chairman of the
House Education and Workforce Committee.
National testing would do nothing to give children a
better education or teach them knowledge and skills. Its
purpose is to consolidate Federal Government control
over curriculum, bypassing parents, school boards, and
National testing would incorporate all the current
education fads such as Outcome-Based Education,
School-to-Work, Goals 2000, Political Correctness, nosy
questionnaires about attitudes, and inputting personal
information about every student onto government databases. The new mission of the public schools would be
to coach children on how to pass the test. In the end, all
children will get a passing score (so as not to damage
their self-esteem) and none will be permitted to excel.
Why waste millions of dollars developing a new 4th-grade reading test when we already know, as Clinton told
us many times, that 40% of third graders can't read? The
problem isn't that children aren't tested, it's that they
aren't taught how to read, write and calculate. Children
should be reading independently by the end of the first
grade and, if they're not, any talk about "high standards"
is a deception because we've already succumbed to social
promotion and grade inflation.
Clinton argues that math and reading standards should
be the same in New York, Texas or Idaho. Not true!
How to teach math and reading is highly controversial.
Testing for math is no longer as simple as asking what
is 2+2. Will Clinton's national math test be based on Old
Math, New Math, Whole Math, New-New Math, Algebra
Lite, Fuzzy Math, or MTV Math? A bitter debate is
taking place between those who believe that children
should be expected to know the multiplication tables and
those who argue that such skills are obsolete because
students should be taught to rely on calculators.
In an Op-Ed article in the Wall Street Journal, Lynne
Cheney reported that Steven Leinwand, who sits on the
committee overseeing President Clinton's proposed
national mathematics exam, wrote an essay asserting that
it is "downright dangerous" to teach students things like
"six times seven is 42, put down two and carry the four."
Leinwand thinks that, since some are able to master those
computations and others are not, we must throw off "the
discriminatory shackles" of computations. How can we
have a national math test if those in charge think it is
unfair for students to be expected to do arithmetic?
The gulf between the different systems of reading
instruction is even wider and the passion of the two sides
even more intense. Will Clinton's national reading test be
written to test students who have been taught intensive,
systematic phonics, or those who have been taught Whole
"How Johnny Should Read" is the title of an article in
the October 27th Time Magazine. It states that the
National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that
44% of U.S. students in elementary and high school read
below the "basic" level, which means they have "little or
no mastery of the knowledge and skills necessary to
perform work at each grade level." Remarkably, 32% of
fourth graders whose parents both have college degrees
also fail to reach the basic level!
The current scandal of illiteracy is due to the failure to
teach phonics and the substitution of the fraudulent
system called Whole Language.
The Time reporter visited a New York City school
using Whole Language and found that the teacher covers
up words in elementary school readers with Post-it notes
and tells the children to guess the hidden words. Why
does she do this? "So we can practice our skipping
strategy," she replied. "That's your most important skill."
(That may be a skill, but it's not the skill of reading.)
When Time asked the guru of Whole Language,
University of Arizona Professor Ken Goodman, for
research that confirms the value of Whole Language, he
could not think of any. On the other hand, Time reports
that "hundreds of studies from a variety of fields" support
the value and necessity of "explicit, systematic phonics
The Time article does a good job of describing and
illustrating the silliness and failure of Whole Language
and of reporting that the only respectable, replicable
research supports the urgent need to teach children
intensive, systematic phonics. Thus, Time's illustration
from a Whole Language book accurately shows how
children are taught to guess at words from the pictures.
The sentences are insufferably repetitious so that the child
can "practice guessing" and "predict" what comes next;
e.g.: "Green frog, green frog, what do you see? . . .
Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? . . . Yellow
duck, yellow duck, what do you see?"
However, the author does not understand phonics or
how it should be taught. This is not surprising since we
now have a whole generation of adults who never studied
phonics and teachers who don't know how to teach
systematic phonics. Time's illustration of a phonics book
published by Scholastic reflects this misunderstanding of
Thus, the Time article falsely says, "In the 1970s, . . .
students filled in endless phonics work sheets and read
inane basals . . ." In fact, phonics disappeared from
public schools back in the 1950s, and the "inane basals"
used in the 1970s were the progeny of Dick and Jane.
Basal readers used the earlier version of Whole Language,
then called the look-say or whole-word method (e.g.,
"Look up, look down. See Dick run. See Jane run.").
Don't be under any illusion that the facts, the research, and the proven failure of current methods will
cause the public schools to change their ways and start
teaching phonics to children. As Time Magazine states,
Whole Language advocates "hold powerful positions in
teachers colleges and educational bureaucracies, [and] are
fighting phonics with determination," accusing parents of
being "pawns of the Christian right."
Much money and many jobs are at stake in the present
failed system. If children are taught to guess at words by
looking at the pictures and to memorize a few dozen
words, then the publishers are able to sell a series of
readers that use those same words over and over again,
adding a few more words at each grade level. If children
are taught to read by phonics in the first grade, the child
can read any book and is not tied to the controlled
vocabulary of one publisher's series.
If children are promoted to the third or fourth grade
without learning how to read, then many jobs open up to
staff the remedial reading bureaucracy. And don't forget
the billions of dollars that have been wasted in Title I
teaching of disadvantaged children, plus the extra cash
that flows to the schools for the students labeled "learning
Parents who want their children to read should teach
them at home -- preferably before they are taught bad
habits at school. Fortunately, First Reader is a wonderful
system for doing exactly that. (1-800-700-5228, $79.95
plus shipping) Parents who want to know whether or not
their children can read should use my First Reading Test
-- it's easy to administer at home and takes only about a
half hour (available from Eagle Forum for a donation in
Clinton's proposal for national tests unearthed one
more hot controversy: whether the fourth grade reading
test will be given only in English or in immigrants' native
languages, too. School districts in Los Angeles, Houston
and El Paso, which have extravagant bureaucracies
spending taxpayer funds for "bilingual education," fear
that a national reading test will expose their failure to
teach children to read English even by the fourth grade.
Control of Tests = Control of Curriculum
There is absolutely no way to have the national tests
and the "real, meaningful national standards" that Clinton
demands unless the students who take the tests have been
taught the subject matter to be tested. That's why national tests inevitably require a federal curriculum, plus
federal standards for textbooks and teachers.
National math and reading tests would become the
control mechanism by which the federal Department of
Education would determine the content of local school
curriculum. It doesn't really matter whether the feds
actually prescribe the content and the methodology, or
whether the feds just write the tests and then the local
schools "teach to the test." Senator John Ashcroft is
correct when he says, "Once the Federal Government is
using tests to shape curriculum, parental control through
local school boards will be doomed."
"The National Standards for United States History"
published in 1995 are a good example of how politics can
control both standards and tests. Financed by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S.
Department of Education, these "standards" turned out to
be so anti-American that they were denounced by the US.
Senate by a vote of 99 to 1.
These "standards" replace historical fact with multiculturalism (i.e., a downgrading of Western civilization),
leftwing political correctness, and radical feminism.
George Washington is mentioned once, but Senator
Joseph McCarthy 19 times (all unfavorably, of course).
Paul Revere, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers, and
General Robert E. Lee do not rate any mention, but MTV,
Madonna, Murphy Brown and Roseanne do. Students are
instructed to study the National Organization for Women
and to read Ms. magazine and books by Betty Friedan and
radical feminist ideologues.
Even though these "standards" were devastatingly
discredited, they are widely used by textbook publishers
and school district curriculum committees.
How tests can be used for political indoctrination is
further illustrated by the latest College Board Advanced
Placement Examination in United States History. It
requires the student to spend 45 minutes writing an essay
based on six reading selections, two pictures and two
cartoons, all of which toe the feminist line about how
badly American women were allegedly treated from 1890
One of the cartoons shows a woman on the ground
chained to a large ball labeled "Unwanted Babies." The
other cartoon depicts a bunch of cigar-smoking, pot-bellied men saying, as they point to a group of women
going to church, "Let 'em sing an' pray -- we got th'
votes and make th' laws."
The test booklet makes it clear that "high scores" will
depend on the student citing what the instructions call the
"evidence from the documents." It is obvious than any
student so foolhardy as to advance an opinion contrary to
this so-called "evidence" would not receive a good score.
Widespread cheating is another problem connected
with national testing. Recent big front-page spreads in
both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times
revealed that cheating on tests is a national scandal, and
that cheating is rampant not only among students, but
The nation's biggest testing company, Educational
Testing Service (ETS), confirms that large-scale cheating
is going on but doesn't make any big deal about it. The
New York Times reported that a 145-question test, with
answers, had circulated freely among teachers ahead of
time for several years, and ETS knew it.
In the face of widespread illiteracy, grade inflation,
the teaching of self-esteem rather than knowledge and
skills, and the dumbing down of the curriculum through
Outcome-Based Education, Clinton is demanding that the
federal taxpayers put up the funds for every student to
have two years of college. Clinton makes emotional pleas
on television about his goal of sending every teenager to
Yet, the Department of Education reports that about
29 percent of freshmen take at least one course in remedial reading, writing or math. Shockingly, 78 percent of
all two- and four-year colleges offer remedial courses.
Why are we forced to pay the bills to send teenagers
to college who can't do college work? One easy way to
address this, as well as the testing problem, is for colleges
to require entrance exams and refuse to admit students
until they are ready to do college work. But colleges are
not about to forfeit the immense revenue they get from
federal student loans to students who must take remedial
courses and then spend five or six years in college.
Federal aid to colleges has resulted in a dumbing down of
colleges just like federal aid to elementary and secondary
schools has corrupted their curriculum.
National Tests Allow Brainwashing Students
President Clinton used veto threats to try to browbeat
Congress into accepting national testing of schoolchildren
because he knows that whoever writes the tests controls
the curriculum, and his Administration's goal is, indeed,
national control of classroom curriculum. Part of the
curriculum plan has already been published by Clinton's
Council on Sustainable Development in its 1997 Task
Force Report called Public Linkage, Dialogue, and
This report is explicit and straightforward. It calls for
a "purposeful refocusing of the nation's education system," not merely to teach sustainability, but to use
sustainability as a catalyst for the "restructuring of
educational institutions, curricula, and teacher training."
Schools are to be refocused in order "to integrate the
tenets of sustainability into our education institutions,"
which is defined as "a specific vision of environmental
education." "Tenets"? Is sustainability some new
The Council's plan for "curriculum development"
calls for an "increased number of curricula, material, and
training opportunities that teach the principles of sustainable development." Students are to be taught to deal with
the "international factors" that affect our "transition to a
And what are those international factors? The
premise of "sustainability" teaching is that Americans
should feel guilty because we consume 25 percent of the
earth's resources even though we are only five percent of
the earth's population. We are expected to be embarrassed because one American uses as much energy as
three Japanese, or six Mexicans, or eight American
To achieve "sustainable development," Americans are
supposed to reduce our "resource consumption." And,
since 35 percent of our resources is consumed in the
home, households are expected "to make changes in the
way they live."
"Resource consumption" is what makes American
homes such pleasant places in which to live and work.
We enjoy single-family dwellings that are heated in the
winter, cooled in the summer, and equipped with electric
lights and a dozen or more electric or gas appliances.
We achieved this high standard of living through hard
work in a free society. It is outrageous to make schoolchildren feel guilty about it and believe that we should
submit to taxes and regulations in order to redistribute our
wealth to the rest of the world, but that's the aim of
The report traces the lineage of its sustainability
notions from the 1972 Earth Summit in Stockholm,
through the 1975 Belgrade conference that defined the
goal of environmental education, and Agenda 21, which
was adopted at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Agenda 21 commits all nations to set national goals to
conform to exotic global plans for protecting the environment.
The Council lays out three specific objectives for its
"sustainability" curriculum: to ensure that its notions
about sustainability "become part of the mainstream
consciousness," to ensure that its "dialogue" produces
"consensus"(predetermined by the Council, of course),
and to "organize groups to act on issues related to
sustainability." As the report says, "education for
sustainability must involve everyone."
The Council unabashedly plans to use the schools to
recruit and energize activists for sustainability politics.
The report makes no secret of the political objectives of
its so-called work in the schools: "Mandates such as
Agenda 21 must trickle down and be incorporated into
formal and nonformal educational institutions through
curricular and operational changes."
The sustainability curriculum has little or nothing to
do with teaching science or factual information. The
report makes clear that "environmental education
departed from science education by calling for a strong
The "social component" means teaching "attitudes,
motivations, and commitments to work on problems."
"Citizenship skills" are redefined as "skills to organize
groups to act on issues related to sustainability."
The report makes clear that the goal of all this
refocusing and restructuring of the schools is to
indoctrinate students, "kindergarten through higher
education," with the Council's views about "social
equity." The benchmarks for how the sustainability
curriculum interrelates with "social equity" involve setting
so-called "voluntary standards," which would then serve
as models for subsequent "requirements."
This Council report lays bare one facet of the federal
curriculum which the Clintonian liberals are determined to
impose on America's schoolchildren. It is blatant
brainwashing in the classroom to promote Clinton's
political agenda such as, for example, the implementation
of Agenda 21 by the Climate Control/Global Warming
Treaty he plans to sign in Kyoto.
Sleight-of-Hand by Semantics
The jargon used by public schools administrators is
usually unintelligible to parents. Many expressions are
deliberately used by educators to convey one meaning to
their associates and a very different meaning to parents.
A prime example is "Outcome-Based Education," the
most avant-garde public school fad during the last ten
years. Don't we all want schools to identify outcomes
and move forward to achieve them? The trouble is that
parents expect outcomes such as being able to read
independently by the end of the first grade and being able
to recite the multiplication tables by the end of the third
grade. The schools, on the other hand, project such
controversial outcomes as "being an environmentally
responsible person," "accepting diverse lifestyles," and
When parents try to find out what their children are
being taught, the schools respond with, "We're teaching
understanding rather than facts" because "mere facts are
soon outdated." A variation of this line is, "We're
teaching children how to learn rather than what to learn."
Or, we're teaching "learning to learn."
But a lot of facts are not outdated at all. Children
need to be taught a great many essential facts if they are
to develop understanding of the world around them.
The schools' curious animosity toward teaching
subject-matter is further revealed in the slogan "We're
teaching the child not the subject." Is there some secret
difference, known only to people with degrees in education, between teaching Jimmy arithmetic and teaching
arithmetic to Jimmy? Many parents have reasonably
concluded that, under the prevailing ideologies, Jimmy
won't learn any arithmetic at all.
Other buzz words that disguise the avoidance of
teaching facts and subject-matter include "critical
thinking" and "higher-order-thinking" skills. But how
can one engage in critical thinking until one knows some
facts to think about? "Developmentally appropriate" is a
slogan used to allay parents' concerns and conceal the
fact that children aren't learning what they should be
expected to learn at given grade levels.
"Progressive" is the word used to describe the philosophy that originated with John Dewey and the Columbia
Teachers College at the start of the 20th century and has
held sway ever since. Outcome-Based Education is
completely consistent with the Dewey philosophy of
making socialization the goal rather than individual
achievement. How can something be "progressive" that
has been in place for 90+ years with obviously declining
Those who want to learn more about how the public
school system has failed disadvantaged children and
thereby fostered social inequalities should read E.D.
Hirsch Jr.'s book, The Schools We Need. The author of
the best-selling Cultural Literacy has produced an
impressive critique of our public educational system
which, he says, is "among the worst in the developed
Hirsch explains and defines the public schools'
deceptive vocabulary. He makes a broadside attack on
the prevailing pedagogical fads that "process" should take
priority over the acquisition of knowledge, that teachers
do not need to know the subjects they teach, and that it is
unnatural and unfair to challenge children academically
through content-based curricula.
Hirsch argues that requiring children to learn a core
curriculum, using methods that emphasize hard work,
learning facts, and passing tests, is the best and probably
the only way to reduce social and economic inequalities.
Neither more money nor "school choice" will do the job.
The children from disadvantaged families need a core
curriculum with real content if they are to become
successful citizens in the information-age civilization.