Tom Shuford [email protected] is a retired public school teacher living in Lenoir, North Carolina. He graduated from Duke University (BS, mechanical engineering) and from Emory University (MA, experimental psychology). He taught at the elementary level for 28 years.
This we know: Most students leave high school - and college - knowing little history, less literature. They avoid reading. Few can write. Are the culprits standardized reading tests?
Culture-free tests of reading carry an insistent message: Powerful cultural content is suspect - or, at best, no better than any other text students might read.
Columnist EdNews.org
This we know: Most students leave high school — and college — knowing little history, less literature. They avoid reading. Few can write. Are the culprits standardized reading tests? Culture-free tests of reading, which is what all commercial standardized reading tests are, carry an insistent message: Powerful cultural content is suspect — or, at best, no better than any other text students might read.
After years of culture-free tests, students know nothing much at all. In "Reading at Risk, Culture at Risk," Mark Bauerlein, director of research at the National Endowment for the Arts, summarizes the results of the Endowment's survey on literary reading in America. (1) Highlights:
*In the course of a year barely one-third of adult males will "read a line of verse or a paragraph of fiction for pleasure."
*The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that "in their leisure time 15-24-year-old males spend about 2 hours 17 minutes a day watching TV and 48 minutes playing games and computers for fun. Their reading time? Eight minutes. Young women spend less time on the computer, but they, too, chalk up only eight minutes of reading."
*Historical awareness — particularly among young people — has never been lower: "In a Roper study commissioned by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, seniors at the top 55 colleges and universities took a history test derived from the basic high school curriculum. The result: 81 percent of them received a grade of D or F. 98 percent of them could identify the rap singer Snoop Doggy Dog, but only 34 percent could identify Valley Forge, words from the Gettysburg Address, or basic principles of the U.S. Constitution."
*Literacy — at least interest in literary reading — was once widespread: "Alexis de Tocqueville (French historian of early America) . . . when he toured the states in the 1830s and found an 'ever increasing crowd of readers,'" observed, "There is hardly a pioneer's hut that does not contain a few odd volumes of Shakespeare."
So what's gone wrong?
Sterile tests. Sterile tests produce sterile curricula. Current standardized reading tests are not even true measures of reading ability — because they do not assess or reward mastery of the background knowledge children must accumulate to read advanced content, to sustain an interest in reading, and to write with some flair.
I put these points — and others — to a veteran psychometrician at a large testing organization. Her reply to each point is followed by my response:
1) On Reading Tests' Failure to Measure Background Knowledge:
Reading tests are . . . not meant to measure whether a child has learned a lot of facts that can be integrated into reading a new passage, but instead are meant to measure if a child can read a brand new passage and answer questions based only on that passage. One can argue whether this is how we want to measure reading skills . . .
Response: Let us argue. Background information is crucial in understanding important works. Allan Bloom, in The Closing of the American Mind , a 1987 best seller, reports that the young entering universities know "so much less." "Imagine," he says, "such a young person walking through the Louvre . . . In his innocence of the stories of Biblical and Greek or Roman antiquity, Rafael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and all the others can say nothing to him. All he sees are colors and forms . . ." It's an apt analogy for youngsters attempting to read — without background information — history, biography and classic literature.
This first half of E. D. Hirsch, Jr.'s Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, another 1987 best seller, is a methodical proof of the importance of background information. University freshmen — and seniors — know little because those who run state education systems and the testing companies they employ misunderstand what it means to read.
2) On the Flat, Obscure Character of Reading Passages on Today's Standardized Tests:
Test questions are dry as dust for a reason . . . Content that might provoke a strong emotional reaction could possibly interfere with the test taker's concentration . . . Controversial reading material should be taught slowly and carefully . . . I don't see the benefit in presenting it suddenly . . . in a high-stakes environment.
Response: Dull reading passages also "interfere with a test-taker's concentration." But your point is well taken. There is a solution. A child who encounters a few Greek myths, famous poems and speeches, Biblical passages, etc. during the school year would not be distracted at encountering similar material on a test. We underestimate children. For years, at the end of third grade, I taught a shortened — 35-minute — original language version of the most poetic — and violent — of Shakespeare's masterpieces, Macbeth . There were several stage productions. It's easy to narrate past the worst of the violence, retaining the unsurpassed poetry.
As fourth graders, those children would have been challenged by memorable dialogue from, say, A Midsummer Night's Dream, on a standardized reading test. They would not have been disturbed.
3) On the Use of Powerful Cultural Content on a Standardized Test, such as — Let's Push the Envelope — The 23rd Psalm:
The mind reels in trying to imagine the lawsuits if a testing company used a verse from the 23rd Psalm in a standardized test. Please remember that these tests are going to be given to kids whose parents sue the school for the right not to have to say the Pledge of Allegiance . . . These parents would go WILD if their kids had to read this material and be tested on it . . . Changes would need to happen first at the teaching level, and the standardized test modifications would follow from that.
Response: Conceded. Tests with passages of that potency are only possible when a school community embraces such material as academic content. In "Religion in Public Schools," a January, 1999, article in The School Administrator , Charles Haynes, an authority on religious-liberty in schools, provides examples of small districts reaching agreement on teaching about religion by working out differences and respecting all opinions. Success, says Haynes, depends on "policies and practices . . . put in place with the broad involvement and support of the community" and on teachers and administrators "fully prepared to implement the vision."
Small districts, charter schools, and private schools are immediate candidates for a stronger curriculum and better tests. What about the American Civil Liberties Union? There is undue fear. Quoting from an ACLU of North Carolina brochure, God and Country in Public Schools :
The Supreme Court has held that the study of religion is permissible as part of a "secular program of education." Some examples of such programs include comparative religions, the history of religion, and the Bible as literature. The class is appropriate as long as it neither advances religious beliefs nor attempts to teach religion-based morality or ethics.
Hundreds of districts offer Bible-as-literature or world religion courses in high school or junior high school, such as this course at Fallbrook High School in San Diego County. The rationale for the course according to district administrators:
The classics of British and American literature are filled with biblical allusions that would be lost on readers who don't have basic knowledge of the Bible.
But these are in-depth elective courses. What is needed is a more limited exposure to this extraordinary heritage in the core curriculum — a few stories or verses each year at the elementary level, for example. Small districts and schools could use the "Guidelines on Religious Expression in Public Schools" offered by the United States Department of Education as an aid in reaching agreement on a richer curriculum.
'Inoffensive Pap'Reading tests today have dull content, however, for more reasons than a desire for passages that no child has seen (or would want to see), passages that will move no one, or passages free of any trace of religion. Diane Ravitch explains in a splendid chapter on testing companies in The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn (2003):
A top official at the Educational Testing Service told me that his company and the other testing agencies deleted test items whenever anyone complained about them . . . The very fact that someone objects to a topic or a test item can be sufficient to make it 'controversial.' Another ETS official admitted to me, 'It is better to be bland than to be controversial.' By institutionalizing this extreme sensitivity to anything that offends anybody, publishers of both textbooks and tests have been turning their products into inoffensive pap for the past generation. (p50)
Later in that chapter, Ravitch speaks to the first point I made to the psychometrician: Current reading tests fail to reward knowledge vital to becoming a good reader:
The more the tests were criticized as culturally biased, the more the developers reduced their cultural content . . . What was unsafe was anything that required prior knowledge of history and literature, which was culturally bound. Test makers could not assume that students had learned anything other that abstract skills . . . They could not assume that any student had ever read anything in particular before taking the test . . . There was no literature or history that anyone was expected to know, no cultural background that students of any age could be expected to share . (p52)
Even if you have read The Language Police, rereading pages 50-61 will prove a stunning experience. Therein are details on the contortions testing companies put themselves through to make sure no one is offended.
With high-stakes tests like these, is there any mystery as to why seventeen-year-olds — and twenty-one-year-olds — leave schools and universities knowing so little?
Empty Standards
Starting at a different place, high school English/language arts standards — rather than standardized reading tests, Sandra Stotsky, a research scholar at Northeastern University, has reasoned her way to a similar recommendation. In "How to Read Shakespeare or Bus Schedules" (Education Week , December 8, 2004), Stotsky concludes:
[State tests] may be the only mechanism for assuring the continuing existence of a rich and demanding high school literature curriculum for all students, as well as a society that enjoys reading literature. But only if states with empty, uninterpretable, and/or unteachable literature standards replace them with appropriate content-rich standards . . . then assess them on literature tests, not reading tests . . . Otherwise, the high school literature curriculum may ultimately vanish altogether under the pressure generated by the content of most current state English/reading tests.
Stotsky's contention in a nutshell: States' pretentious — yet vacuous — English/language arts standards exert a baleful effect on English/reading tests. Literature tests are the only way to preserve a literature curriculum. Her reasoning is apparent from these few of my notes on "How to Read Shakespeare or Bus Schedules":
CURRENT TESTS IMPLY STUDENTS SHOULD BE READING BUS SCHEDULES: "To judge from test blueprints for English/reading in the 50 states, most state tests at the high school level imply that students should learn how to read a bus schedule, not 'Julius Caesar,' in their English classes."
CULPRIT: ENGLISH STANDARDS DEVOID OF SUBSTANCE:"It [the problem] can be traced in large part to the very source used for designing state tests in the English language arts and reading: the states' high school standards. Most states provide absolutely no content-rich literature standards and/or selective reading lists to outline the substantive content of the high school English curriculum . . . Few states offer sample titles or authors to suggest the level and the literary quality parents should expect in their high schools' English classes."
TEST-MAKERS PLAY IT SAFE WITH PRACTICAL SELECTIONS: "It is much safer to emphasize informational and practical reading on a state test than to try to figure out what is being taught in the English class." EXAMPLES OF TEST CONTENT: "trade manuals, instructions for assembling computers, post office forms, or campaign literature."
Tests that Fire the Imagination
Reading passages on standardized tests are dull, self-referential or obscure. They belabor safe themes: for young children: animals, space, environment; for high school students: practical/how-to selections. There is no cultural content.
What if — on standardized tests — children met timeless stories such as Prometheus — Bringer of Fire, Perseus and Medusa, Helen of Troy, Odysseus and Penelope, Noah and the Ark, Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, Solomon and Sheba? What if they encountered stirring speeches — Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, Sojourner Truth's Address to the Ohio Women's Rights Convention, Chief Seattle's Oration, King's "I have a dream"? What if they confronted vital documents — the Declaration, the Constitution — and famous poems, songs and letters: The Concord Hymn , The Ballad of John Henry, Letter From Birmingham City Jail?
Putting cultural content in reading tests could be done in ways that respect many cultures. The standards for inclusion: beauty, diversity, power, significance. Because there is an immense store from which to choose, passages could change frequently to avoid prepping for specific content. If what is tested is what is taught — and it certainly is, why not test the ability to understand the best, most important, most beautiful prose and poetry ever written?
Youngsters must know this powerful content to make sense of Western history, literature and art, to write well and to want to read beyond their time-bound world.
Testing ability to read forgettable material is standard practice. It has been standard practice for many decades. What have we to show for it?
Tests with absorbing, important content would drive continued enrichment, expand our common cultural vocabulary, improve communication and knit us together as a people. Interest in reading would grow. Reading would become easier and more enjoyable.
Endnote
1) "Reading at Risk, Culture at Risk" (1750 words) by Mark Bauerlein, Teachers College Record, Feb. 2, 2005, is available online for $7. Capsule summary: Young and old, Americans do not read and know little, and that includes college graduates. See "Graduated But Not Literate," on the declining literacy of college graduates — as revealed by a survey conducted by the National Assessment of Adult Literacy in 2003. Excerpt from the New York Times report:
"The average American college graduate's literacy in English declined significantly over the past decade . . . When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills."("Literacy Falls for Graduates From College, Testing Finds," Dec. 16, 2005)
Follow-Up
*Good one-page summaries of Ravitch's The Language Police and Sandra Stotsky's "Losing Our Language: How Multiculturalism Undermines Our Children's Ability to Read, Write and Reason" (1999)
*Diane Ravitch on National Public Radio interviewed by on Terry Gross of the "Fresh Air" program (33-minute audio, Apr. 29, 2003)
Tom Shuford [email protected] is a retired teacher living in Lenoir, North Carolina.
Published February 21, 2005