Teresa Glenn was suspended for five days for paraphrasing one oddball test item on a listserv set up by the state as a place for teachers to discuss educational concerns. Independent experts have declared these tests unprofessional, simplistic, and error-ridden, but Schmidt, not the testmakers, is on the firing line. This does not mean we should shut up. It means more of us must speak out. It means we must speak louder.
Silence is our enemy.
Here's more evidence of why the tests are kept so secret. Last spring, a family-law attorney whose daughter was one of 8,000 Minnesota high school students who failed the math section of the state test asked to see her test. He was told this was impossible. Finally, after months of delay and only through the intervention of the governor's office, a testing specialist reviewed the test and discovered scoring errors. These errors kept hundreds of students from graduating and forced hundreds of others into summer school.