Letter to the Times

["Sue Allison" <sueallison@comcast.net>]

Took a shot at a letter to the NY Times on Greg Winters piece ...

With regard to the recently delayed California high school exit exam graduation requirement, state board president Reed Hastings rightly admits that anything less than a zero failure rate would pose a "moral and ethical" problem [California Postpones Exit Exam, July 10, 2003].   But can he be that naive?   The corporate backed "testocrats" pushing high-stakes do-or-die graduation exams on unsuspecting families all over the United States would never tolerate a zero failure rate.  If every student who met local graduation requirements in California passed the state exit exam - the logical next step would be to eliminate the test as being a redundant measure and a poor use of government resources.   Parents beware -- just when our children start getting over these new graduation hurdles in record numbers - there will be calls from the thugs with vested interests in the testing industry to "raise the bar!"   This is the cruel joke of high stakes testing -- there must always be some politically acceptable number of losers to justify these obscenely expensive testing regimes.      

Sue Allison, Lusby, MD  
The writer is the Coordinator of Marylanders Against High Stakes Testing.   She maintains the group's website at www.geocities.com/stophsa