Thanks to the actions of this Congress last year, we will soon have for the very first time a voluntary national test based on national standards in fourth grade reading and eighth grade math.

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Examiners will struggle too, to produce a single test that measures the same level of ability in children of different ages. (In music tests all candidates for a given grade play the same pieces: in an English test, quite different reading texts and writing topics would suit an eight-year-old than an 11-year-old.) The changes might even have the perverse effect of making children sit more tests.

ECONOMIST: School examinations

The recent improvement, he speculates, may be the welcome byproduct of a upturn in math and reading skills, as measured by test scores, among minorities in the years before the students reach ninth grade.

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