Statewide Tests to Begin in Spring

“State Test to Assess Learning Signed Into Law” (Oct. 8), about Gov. Pete Wilson’s testing program for students in California public schools, neglected to mention a crucial fact that was explained to me and my colleagues at a faculty meeting. No matter what language a student speaks or what country he comes from, all students who have been in our schools for a year or more will be required to take the standardized test in English.

Results of the test will be published and comparisons made between schools on the basis of test results. I doubt that information about how many of each school’s students speak English fluently will be included with the test results when they appear in newspapers, and yet the number of students who are not fluent in English will obviously have great impact on a school’s scores. Currently students who are not yet fluent in English have been tested in Spanish.

I would like Wilson to spend a year in a classroom in Mexico and then see how well he can perform on a standardized test in Spanish. Or perhaps he’d like to try this in China. Come to think of it, the further away, the better.

ANN MALASHOCK

Bilingual teacher, Ocean View

School District, Oxnard

* Tests are blockades to keep out intruders or the unwanted. They are not gates of entrance. In education they are no more valid than the voting tests that used to exist in the various states. Question: How many “tests” did Alessandro Volta make before he succeeded in making a successful battery? How many “tests” did the Wizard of Menlo Park fail at before he effected a lightbulb? How many “tests” must education face before we see the light?

THEODORE W. HOOKER

La Puente