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necessarily indicators of future academic success but may be indicators of the ability of students to cope with everyday “life skills,” such as balancing checkbooks and following directions listed on a product label.
Opinions for and against tests of basic skills vary widely. In general, says Editorial Research Reports, the pressure for the tests has come from outside the education establishment.
The pressure has been supported by one national research organization which estimates that 13 per cent of 17year-old high school students are “functionally illiterate”—that is, “they are not able to perform tasks necessary to function in American society, such as reading instructions,” not even those on drivers’ license tests.
The tests are seen as a “guarantee” that high school graduates will have acquired minimum reading, writing and mathematics skills.
Those who have opposed the tests are teachers and officials of teachers’ unions who resent any implication that schools have failed to educate. They also charge that the tests will measure only a fraction of what students learn in school.
The Rappahannock News publishes here sample questions from high school graduation proficiency tests given in other states.
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