Education: Does Texas Make The Grade?

Pop quiz. Name and locate the following: Hekla, Monrovia, Manitoba and Orinoco. Now for a math problem: If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is the worth at 50[cents] a bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. for tare? (Hint: a bushel of wheat weighs 60 lbs. You're on your own for tare.)

O.K., pencils down. These questions, which percolated through e-mail chains over the summer, are not meant to prepare you for the hot seat on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Rather, they're drawn from an oral exam given to seventh- and eighth-graders in Saline County, Kans., back in 1895. Students who mastered the five-hour exercise gained admission to high school. And if enough of the kids performed well overall in their studies, their teachers could win a pay raise of 25[cents] a week.

As school reforms go, standardized exams certainly have staying power. But the stakes are a good deal higher on the tests of today. As kids head back to class, they'll embark on what some educators have dubbed the Year of the Test, sitting for state exams that determine everything from high school graduation to school-funding bonuses. Not to mention whether your kindergartner will have nap time (schools in Mobile, Ala., have grabbed that time for test prep) and where you'll buy your next home (real estate agents in Arizona and Virginia now tout high scores in school districts where they have homes for sale).

Both George W. Bush and Al Gore advocate statewide-testing regimens to boost academic standards. It's a message that resonates with voters, who consistently back testing in national polls, and with policy-makers, who use tests to gauge the success of other school reforms. Recent studies detailed soaring test scores among black students who used vouchers to enroll in private schools, and among California immigrants after that state required they be taught only in English. Despite noisy protest rallies in Massachusetts and Virginia last spring, support for high-stakes testing remains strong. In a new poll for the Business Roundtable, 68% of those surveyed say students should pass statewide tests to graduate; 75% think that even those in elementary schools should do so to progress to the next grade. Said Bush last week on a six-state tour promoting his education agenda: "Measurement is the cornerstone to reform."