standardized testing

In my essay, No Controversy Allowed, I shared a story about having an assembly program canceled at a middle school because in my first assembly presentation that morning I agreed with a student that war was a problem and because I mentioned a few apparently "unacceptable" words in my talk (such as healthcare and illegal immigrants). That the students left my presentation with an understanding that it was their responsibility to make connections between their everyday choices and the effects on others; that service to others leads to joy, and that modeling a message of compassion is a good thing, didn't seem to matter. Those dreaded words, and the potential backlash from angry parents (there was none), sealed the deal. I was not permitted to offer my second scheduled middle school assembly program that day. I had hoped this experience was simply a one-off in my 25 year career as a humane educator and not prescient about the future of schooling.

So when I first read about the New York City's Department of Education effort to ban 50 words from city-wide tests, I thought that I'd better corroborate the source. It sounded too much like a satirical piece in The Onion. I thought that this couldn't possibly be true - my home town, New York City, banning words? Alas, it was not satire. Here is the list of words that NYC Department of Education chancellor, Dennis Walcott, believes should be banned: