E. D. Hirsch, author of several books worthy of mention, provided a column for the page opposite the editorial page of the New York Times on 22 March to which I’d like to call attention. Under the headline “Reading Test Dummies,” Professor Hirsch argues that the problem with contemporary, high-stakes tests isn’t that they test knowledge, but that they test the wrong knowledge.
Professor Hirsch leads by quoting President B. Obama’s expression of concern for developing assessments that “don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on on test.” Then he suggests that instead of discarding the tests, we should change their content.
These much maligned, fill-in-the-bubble reading tests are technically among the most reliable and valid tests available. The problem is that the reading passages used in these tests are random. They are not aligned with explicit grade-by-grade content standards. Children are asked to read and then answer multiple-choice questions about such topics as taking a hike in the Appalachians even though they’ve never left the sidewalks of New York, nor studied the Appalachians in school.
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