Crack education journalist Jay Matthews reacted to anti-testing articles in a thoughtful column appearing only in the electronic version of the Washington Post. He wonders why parents of schoolchildren in Scarsdale didn't ask their principals and teachers why they let state-mandated tests scare them into test prep activities that reduce time for inspired teaching when the test would surely have been a cinch for their kids. He observes that ending the state testing system could mean returning "to the days of baby-sitter schools, when low-income kids were kept as comfortable as possible until being handed a meaningless high school diploma and dumped on the job market."
"Trying to Clear Up the Confusion," by Jay Mathews, Washington Post online