Last June, the parent of a high school senior in New York City examined reading passages on the state's high-stakes Regents exams and discovered that somebody was sanitizing literary excerpts - doctoring the reading passages by literary greats to make sure that nothing offensive was included. After the story ran on the front page of The New York Times, state officials promised to stop tampering with famous literary works. In January, however, the Times reported that the state was at it again, this time altering passages by Franz Kafka and Aldous Huxley on the exam administered in August. Last week, the state was caught altering yet another excerpt, this one on the test given in January 2003. This time, state officials blame an anthology that, they say, misquoted the poem "Dover Beach," by Matthew Arnold. Commented one English teacher "Don't they have anyone making up the exam who can recognize one of the most famous poems in the English language?"
"Ah, Love, Let Us Be True, or at Least Be Accurate," editorial, The New York Times, January 30, 2003
"How New York Exams Rewrite Literature (A Sequel)," by Michael Winerip, The New York Times, January 8, 2003