English Scores Up, Literature Down
Last week, newly released test scores in middle school English went up on average in New York City. While skeptics suggest it could just mean the tests are getting easier, both Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein were publicly pleased. On the very day the scores came out, they were both in Washington chatting school reform with the president.
I have seen the middle school English Language Arts test. It is comparable to what high school students take on their ELA Regents exam. It worries me. So much emphasis is put on test results and too little is said (or perhaps heard) about what is lost in such exams–especially when it comes to English and literature.
As quoted in the NYTimes,
“This is confirmatory of the fact that results continue to grow and increase,” Mr. Klein said in a telephone interview while he was on his way back from Washington. “I think we have multiple data points now that show that we are making that progress.”
When it comes to English, what constitutes progress? Test scores? My concern is that the reading of literature is experiential, aesthetic, and private. You can’t test it authentically. In a strange twist, to the credit of the State, they don’t even really try to test literature. Most of what is tested is reading comprehension and argumentative essay writing. When students do encounter literature, it isn’t in any literary sort of way: At a desk, in a stuffy room, clock ticking, questions awaiting response might spawn the writing of literature–some sharp societal satire–but not the reading of it.
As school reform becomes synonymous with test scores and achievement, literature will continue to become less and less literary in schools. And as more emphasis is put on teaching into new literacies, literature awaits the settling of falling dust as it fades into its bookshelves.
