h:\doc\web\2003\06\solsci.txt

This is from Susan Ohanian's piece. Unfortunatley she places the blame
only on conservative think tanks rather than the real culpit, Marc
Tucker's NCEE, and just about the entire constructivist Education
reform movement, but you can't have everything. The WASL is almost
entirely devoid of any scientific content, what content there is, is
probably within what maybe 10-15% of kids might actually cough up if
they're lucky.

SOL is truly goofy - some of this stuff is college level biology or
earth science.

http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k0306oha.htm

Maggots, Mosses, and Other Misfortunes

Items from the Virginia Standards of Learning Assessments: Spring 2001
Released Test in science -- for fifth-graders -- offer a glimpse of test
insanity. I haven't met any teachers who, if they wanted to figure out what
fifth-graders know, would ask them where maggots fit in the life cycle of
horseflies. The little quiz that follows could be a provocative item of
conversation in communications with politicians, corporate CEOs, media
pundits, and other Standardistos.

1. What is the correct order to show the complete life cycle of a horsefly?
[A sketch of each item is provided.]

A. Horsefly
B. Maggot
C. Pupa
D. Eggs

a) D, B, C, A
b) D, C, B, A
c) A, D, C, B
d) C, B, D, A

[Do all those letter combinations confuse you? How do you think
fifth-graders felt?]

2. Sound waves travel best through

a) gases
b) liquids
c) solids
d) vacuums

[Political sound travels best through stacks of money. "Follow the money" is
becoming the mantra of the people trying to figure out what the U.S.
Department of Education is up to.]

3. Which of these belong to the kingdom Monera?

a) Ferns
b) Mosses
c) Mushrooms
d) Bacteria

[For adults fortunate enough to have attended school in low-stakes days and
who don't have a fifth-grader handy to ask, the kingdom Monera includes
prokaryotic cells without nucleus or membrane-bound organelles. It is
divided into two subkingdoms: eubacteria and cyanobacteria (blue-green
algae).]

4. Tornadoes are most likely to be produced from which type of cloud?

a) Cirrus
b) Stratus
c) Cumulus
d) Cumulonimbus

[If you get stuck, substitute Vaseline, Mentholatum, Listerine, and
Oleomargarine.]

5. The internal parts of a cell are suspended in a jelly-like liquid called
the _?_.

a) nucleus
b) cell membrane
c) cytoplasm
d) chloroplasts

[If you get stuck, substitute Cirrus, Stratus, Cumulus, Cumulonimbus.]

6. Which instrument could tell you that conditions are right for flying a
kite?

a) Anemometer
b) Barometer
c) Hygrometer
d) Thermometer

[Virginia testing experts liked "anemometer" so much that they offered it on
several items. Are they sure humidity might not be important?]

7. [The item pictures four bookshelves.] Which picture shows the book with
the most potential energy?

a) book on floor by bookshelf
b) book on fourth shelf up
c) book on second shelf up
d) book on table by bookshelf, apparently at same height as second shelf up

That last question requires some extended commentary. I was sort of bemused
to realize that I'd spent so much time trying to figure out if that book on
the table was at the same height as the one on the second shelf. Then I
watched as my husband, a physicist, got sidetracked by that same concern.
There he sat, eyeballing that book on the table, forgetting for a moment
that it doesn't matter if it's the same height when there is obviously a
book that's farther from the ground.

If a professional physicist gets distracted, what's a fifth-grader to do?
And just what is the point of these distractors? Are they a test of one's
resolve to hold firm to Plato's caves? Are they red herrings stuck in just
to sort out the gullible from the resolute? Ask a fifth-grade teacher to say
what percentage of her students are highly distractible. Then think about
how many fifth-graders will spend 15 minutes daydreaming about the nasty
yuckiness of maggots instead of moving on to the next 37 test questions.

These seven questions are just a small sample. Many questions, such as the
one showing a penny with a tick next to Lincoln's nose, require responses to
diagrams, graphs, and so on. One shows a girl facing a flagpole early in the
morning. By studying the shadows cast, students are to figure out what
direction she's facing. There are questions about magnetic fields,
chlorophyll, invertebrates, kinetic energy, moon revolutions,
photosynthesis, watersheds, periscope construction, the Earth's tectonic
plates, the parts of a plant, pulleys, levers, fossils, and on and on. It is
staggering to consider the curriculum required to teach all this disparate,
disconnected piffle.

If you want evidence of why students in Virginia are vomiting on test day,
go look at 12 pages of similar questions
(www.pen.k12.va.us/VDOE/Instruction/2001sol/science_5.pdf). And then check
out what fed-up parents are doing about it. Here's the website of Parents
Across Virginia United to Reform SOLs (PAVURSOL): www.solreform.com.

One can only wonder why, in the face of this blatant child abuse, so many
are so silent. Daniel Ellsberg, probably the most famous whistle-blower in
recent decades, the fellow who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, has just
one regret: he wished he hadn't waited so long to blow that whistle. It is
also of interest that, while Ellsberg was indicted for his deeds, the case
was thrown out because of government misconduct.

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