How the Test Was Won

The day before I have to give my first District Acuity assessment, I show an episode of The Simpsons that challenges the validity of multiple-choice tests. In one scene, Lisa ponders a question in which all the answers can be right. We pause on the close-up of the question and discuss why the question itself is flawed. In another pivotal scene, the principal, who is in charge of taking the most disruptive students out of school for the day, must run in circles on a shipping crate in order to spin it and save a student who has fallen on a barge. The students think he’s crazy. He yells out, while running in circles and causing the crate to turn, that this is centripetal force. All the “disruptors” immediately get it. For the first time, the principal understands that students learn from seeing their teacher run around in circles, not learning tests.

The next day, when I tell my students it’s time to take a District Multiple-Choice test, they all revolt. “But there are questions you can argue multiple answers to!” I calmly explain, this is what we have to measure how good I am at my job and how well you respond. It isn’t perfect. Even if you score well on the test, you may still be placed in remedial English in college, and that says more about the test than it does you. But until you all go and earn your PhD in educational policy, it’s all we have. So I need you to try your hardest so I can continue to run in circles on shipping crates rather than teach you tests like I’m supposed to. They all tell each other to try hard. They’re literally slapping each other on the shoulder to try hard. I have the greatest job in the world.