By DR. LARRY MOSES

No one asked me but… My son who has moved to Denver has kept in touch through phone calls, e-mails, and facebook. He has suggested the reading of a number of books which evaluate the emphasis on standardize testing in the public schools.

I have completed the book Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools? by Kathy Emery and Susan Ohanian. I also have read Diane Ravitch’s, The Death and life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education.

The most interesting thing about these two books is that they reach the same conclusion even though the authors come from the exact opposite political poles. Emery and Ohanian are left-wingers while Diane Ravitch was a major player in the Bush Administration’s development of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Ms. Ravitch has had a “Road to Damascus” style conversion coming to realize the harm that has been caused by NCLB.

I enjoyed these books probably because they confirm what I have been saying for years and that is always good for one’s ego.

What started out as a movement to identify standards for education has turned into a drive to make every American child a member of the intellectual elite. This has been done not in the name of the value of being educated but in the name of making the child employable.

While I find no harm in any knowledge and find an intrinsic value in being able to answer the weird questions on Jeopardy, most of the standards now set have little to do with the needs required of most occupations in America.

Let me lay out a conspiracy theory as to why American corporations have invested so heavily in the drive to require all high school graduates to be qualified to enter their local colleges. Only 22 percent of the jobs available in America today require a college education. But the more people qualified for those jobs, the less corporate America will have to pay them to do those jobs. If the American job market is flooded with qualified candidates, corporations can lower the wage demand of the American college graduate. This would lower the cost to do business and raise the profit margin for the company.

In a like manner, as more and more American students cannot reach the ever-increasing standards of the American school system and, therefore, cannot receive a high school diploma because they become frustrated and drop out or fail the test, there will be an ever-increasing supply of low paying non-college applicants as well.

Since many of the college educated will not be able to find jobs traditionally reserved for them, they will drop down into the high school educated jobs arena. This will raise the educational standard of those who have traditionally filled medium level jobs. But it will also raise the frustration of this group. It will further limit the possibilities for those who have been forced out of high school without a diploma and ensure corporations a large supply of minimum wage employees.

Even the old standby of the military will not be available for the non-high school graduate, as Uncle Sam is not accepting anything less than a regular high school diploma for those who will become non-electric pop up targets in the name of making the world safe for democracy.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with standards. But I do object to standards that are more than standards. A standard, by definition, is an object that is regarded as the usual or most common size or form an average or normal requirement. What started as a drive for standards has become a demand for extremes. The bar has been set far above the average. What has happened is the equivalent of saying the best time an athlete ever ran the mile is 3:43:13 so that now becomes the standard that all Americans must obtain. That is not a standard that is a record. A standard is something that some would be above and others below, but the average individual might obtain.

Folks, we don’t all live in Lake Woebegone where all children are above average.

Let me give you a couple of examples of where the extremes of this movement have gone. The Virginia Department Education (VDE) released Standards of Learning tests on its website, along with parent tips to prepare their fifth grade kids for the tests. These are the things the VDE suggest a parent do while connecting with their children after a long day of school for the child and a long day of work for the parent.

While tucking a ten year old into bed, a good parent will: Have the child write a verbal statement for an algebraic expression. Have the child identify pictures of organisms that belong to each of the five kingdoms: monerans, protists, fungi, plants, and animals. Have the child identify functions of cells by drawing a diagram and describing the role of each part of the cell. Have the child give a heading to a paragraph from a story being read to him/her or he/she is reading.

What happened to the quiet bedtime story and a goodnight kiss?

If you don’t find that amazing, try the kindergarten standards established by North Carolina. 1.04 Acknowledge ownership of an idea; 1.07 Follow acceptable use of AUP/IUP for electronic resources; 2.01 Identify published criteria of excellence for resources; 2.05 Recognize the power of media to influence; 3.03 Identify bias and stereotypes; 3.05 Describe how information and ideas are influenced by prior knowledge; 4.02 Describe several research models; 4.03 Develop a search strategy which includes the continuous evaluation of the research process; 4.06 Comply with the Copyright Law; 4.07 Credit sources of information.

I am not sure how any five years old survives without this knowledge.

If any of this is of interest to you, let me recommend the two books mention. As for me, my son has tasked me to read, In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization by Deborah Meirer. I rue the day I demanded that boy learn to read.

Thought of the week…No Child Left Behind …Parents don’t like it, administrators don’t like it, and kids don’t like it; but politicians and bureaucrats in Washington love it – which should be the first indication to you it is a troubled program.

– Bob Schaffer