Low Test Scores at Columbus

Your Sept. 2 article describing the wonderful learning experiences of children at Columbus Elementary School in Berkeley and the low test scores of minority children in the school draws attention to our national myopia--indifference to the fact that standardized tests don’t measure what is well taught and well learned.

To rely on measures contrived to produce proportionate failures and to discount the judgment of parents, teachers and others about the learning and progress of children will not improve education. Standardized tests with their built-in failure tell us more about the school’s ZIP codes than the quality of programs.

JOHN D. McNEIL

Santa Monica

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Your article presented compelling evidence that the causes for the poor performance of students on basic academic measures cannot always be attributed to a lack of financial support, antiquated facilities or parent indifference.

Two quotes from Columbus faculty members speak volumes. From a fourth-grade teacher giving instructions to her students regarding a writing assignment comes, “Spelling doesn’t count,” while the coordinator of services for at-risk students states, “Even if Reading Recovery doesn’t help their reading that much, they’ve got this one-on-one attention and it’s really helped [students’] self-esteem.”

Those statements represent the philosophy pushed by advocates of whole language, “invented” spelling, social promotion and other misguided methodologies that were preeminent in California classrooms in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The best that can be said of the program and practices at Columbus is that they are anachronisms, which no longer describe most of our schools.

DENNIS L. EVANS

Director of Credential Programs

Department of Education

UC Irvine