Tests schmests. From USA Today: Most students unable to write respectably. (Welcome to "How not to write a headline 101")
I'm not surprised by that, but not so much in a "kids these days" sort of way as much as the fact that I've never seen one of these government surveys turn out positive results. While I'm more than willing to believe that kids don't write as well as they once did, or should, I'm more than a little bit skeptical of highly subjective, government sponsored tests that tell us as much, but offer scant solutions. As the final paragraph notes:
Education expert Gerald Bracey of George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., said the test's proficiency levels have been rejected by many researchers as setting expectations that are too high. He also criticizes the way standardized writing tests are graded. They are ''scored by $7-an-hour temps who spend, at most, 30 seconds on an essay,'' he said.
8:18:23 PM 
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