Without some form of standardized testing, there's no way to ensure that students are learning what they should. Yet some argue that state testing programs unfairly limit the educational choices of schools and communities. John Katzman and Steve Hodas, CEO and executive vice president of the Princeton Review, propose that states embrace a third way, one between tests and no tests: allowing schools to choose among several different state-sponsored curricula and then give their students tests linked to those curricula, tests to be created by the curriculum designers. The authors assert that independent evaluators will create ways of comparing scores across different tests (though it is hard for us to imagine how states can create real accountability systems based on multiple tests). To those who argue that all children should learn the same thing, the authors reply that 1) Americans have already rejected the idea of a single national curriculum, 2) requiring all children to study the same thing causes the curriculum to become both politicized and "a mile wide and an inch deep," and 3) insisting on one curriculum for all drives away teachers who think creatively and replaces them with people who like textbooks. But requiring students to know certain things and testing them on this core knowledge need not cause these harms or squeeze out all curricular choices. "No More One-for-All, Let the Curricula Compete," by John Katzman and Steven Hodas, Newsday, October 7, 2001.
