Curriculum and Instruction: Justices restore exit exam

The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy

"California's Supreme Court reinstated the high school exit exam as a diploma requirement Wednesday, less than two weeks after a trial court handed the Class of 2006 a free pass."

What is the issue in California? The trial court ruled that the California testing system discriminates against low-income students and students of color. The California Supreme Court held that the temporary injunction issued by the trial court should be set aside as the case moves through the appellate process. The underlying issue is not, however, a legal one rather it is a societal issue deeply tied to the current wave of xenophobia running rampant across our nation.

It is well-known that standardized testing is biased in favor of middle and upper income students who tend to be predominantly white. That tests discriminate is not a matter of controversy. What is controversial, however, is the high-stakes impact that testing has on our country. Nicholas Lehman writes about the meritocracy created and sustained by the testing industry in the United States in The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. Lehman's argument is critical of the testing industry and the political drive to attach high-stakes results to testing at all levels.

Creating high-stakes testing arises out of what Berliner and Biddle call The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America's Public Schools. Here the authors argue that much of what is made of the crisis in American schools is a figment of the radical right's imagination. The statistical analysis that Berliner and Biddle use is important as they unpack each of the myths regarding the failure of American schools and public education.

What is going on in California and elsewhere with regard to high-stakes testing is a blatant attempt to divide Americans one from another. In spite of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement, we are regressing as a nation into one that mandates division along a standard bell curve approach. Using testing to divide is what the late Stephen J. Gould called The Mismeasure of Man.

If we are to be a free society then, it seems to me, we must look for ways to include rather than separate. Inclusiveness is not a matter of homogenizing differences into an assimilationist broth where all diversity is lost through melting everything into a single clear mix but, rather, one that embraces cultural and social differences into a stew where flavors meld into an exciting mix yet the ingredients are clearly recognizable. Acculturation recognizes the contributions of difference rather than trying to erase those differences from the face of the earth.