Unwillingly to school

National Review, March 2, 1992 by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

Mr. Finn also insists standards embodied in voluntary national tests--tests you don't have to pass to graduate--will make our kids work hard enough to restore our lost competitiveness. That's fantasy too, and the cleareyed all see it--Wilson, Samuelson's, and the editors of The New Republic (December 16). Voluntary standards offer realistic hope. They make most kids work harder and, as minimum-competence testing proved, when they do, 90 per cent succeed. Does Education Secretary Lamar Alexander share Mr. Finn's fantasies? Or does he endorse them only to sell educators, counting on friends in the business] world to make his voluntary tests mandatory by denying jobs to kids who can't pass them? I think the latter, and that many businesses will go along, hoping for better workers. They'll get worse, and pay more. New gibberish is costly; old math and reading skill tests are cheap and effective.

Back to my idea of what else we should require of all our kids--other than Shakespeare. Mr. Finn faults me for not requiring the Federalist Papers too and is sure Congress will laugh. I consolve myself with good company: Aristotle also thought politics required maturity, and Congress can surprise.

Mr. Finn is a professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University and director of the Educational Excellence Network.