At Best, Silly, At Worst, Racist

The Massachusetts 10th-grade world history test is a Eurocentric exercise in travel pursuit.

The difference between a diploma and doomsday cannot possiblycome down to a Byzantine trivial pursuit. That is, unless youcan make the implausible case that six or seven years from now,when these students are trembling job applicants, their bosseswill look them dead in the eye and actually ask:

"Hmmm, your resume looks interesting, but to get this job youmust tell me why King Henry issued the Edict of Nantes, the purposeof the Treaty of Tordesillas, and the function of the lord ofthe estate in medieval Europe."

Those are real - or surreal - requests of students from last month'sMassachusetts Comprehensive Assess-ment System (MCAS) 10th-gradehistory and social sciences test. Some educators let me read thefull test last week.

Many parents, educators, and business leaders are already concernedabout the more subjective aspects of the MCAS. Some have calledfor any high-stakes testing for graduation in 2003 to be limitedto basic literacy and math.

The 10th-grade history test should call into question the politicalintentions of the entire test. At best, it is silly. At worst,it is racist.

The test, which focuses on "world" history, has 57 items. Thereare 12 slightly different forms of the test. Of the 57 items,about 40 refer to Europe, from the Byzantine Empire to the ColdWar. Five are questions about capitalism. Only 12 are about therest of the world.

For Europe, students needed specifics on wars, innovations, cities,and individual writers, economists, and artists. They had to know,"In 1429, which military commander led a French army that defeatedthe English at Orleans? A. Joan of Arc; B. Catherine the Great;C. Napoleon Bonaparte; D. Charlemagne."

In fact, the MCAS really should be renamed the Mutual CharlemagneAdmiration Society. The founder of the first empire in westernEurope after the fall of Rome was also in this question: "Manyseparate groups attacked Charlemagne's empire. The fiercest ofthese groups came from the north and was known as the A. Magyars;B. Visigoths; C. Huns; D. Vikings."

Students were given detailed maps of Eurasia and asked if thedotted routes represent the Crusades or the spice trade. Aboutall students got for Africa was a bare outline of the continentand asked to point out the desert - where there are no peopleto have a history. Asians are reduced to shoguns, samurais, andthe split between China and Taiwan. Latin America is but a colonialappendage of Europe, and women, other than Joan of Arc and Catherinethe Great, are almost invisible.

One teacher told me the heads of black and brown students of colorslumped lower and lower during the history test. "We work so hardat teaching them useful information and critical thinking skillsand then we give them a test that tells them that their peopleare nothing," she said. "It's crushing."

Telling African-American and Latino students their history isworth nothing is having a crushing effect. The failure rate forAfrican-American and Latino students on last year's 8th-gradehistory test was 77 percent and 85 percent, respectively, higherthan even their well-publicized failure rates in math. The effectis so crushing that questions must be answered before the statecan proceed to the 2003 deadline for any section of the test.It is not enough to can the history part, for it may also be aFreudian slip about math and English. Is it a mere coincidencethat the same state that so easily renders people of color nonexistentin world history also has no plan to give failing students thecourses they need to pass the 10th grade math test?

A test that shows if students are literate is fine. A test thatis mired in a trivially narrow vision of yesterday is cruel. Americanthinker William James said, "Things learned thus in a few hours,on one occasion, for one purpose, cannot possibly have formedmany associations with other things in the mind. Their brain-processesare led into by few paths, and are relatively little liable tobe awakened again. Speedy oblivion is the almost inevitable fateof all that is committed to memory in this simple way."

Speedy oblivion is where the MCAS history test should go. On Friday, you can decide for yourself with questions from the 10th grade MCAS history and social sciences test (see the related article).

Derrick Z. Jackson is a columnist for The Boston Globe. The above article appeared in the June 7, 2000, Boston Globe and is reprinted with permission.

Fall 2000