A recent CBS New York news story just has to be seen to be believed, and I quote:
Fearing that certain words and topics can make students feel unpleasant, [New York City Department of Education] officials are requesting 50 or so words be removed from city-issued tests.
The reasons behind some of these give me considerable pause to question whether or not the Department is a drug-free workplace. The complete list, quoting the story (and note some of these aren’t really words as such, but closer to things):
- Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)
- Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs
- Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)
- Bodily functions
- Cancer (and other diseases)
- Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)
- Celebrities
- Children dealing with serious issues
- Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)
- Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)
- Crime
- Death and disease
- Divorce
- Evolution
- Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes
- Gambling involving money
- Halloween
- Homelessness
- Homes with swimming pools
- Hunting
- Junk food
- In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge
- Loss of employment
- Nuclear weapons
- Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)
- Parapsychology
- Politics
- Pornography
- Poverty
- Rap Music
- Religion
- Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)
- Rock-and-Roll music
- Running away
- Sex
- Slavery
- Terrorism
- Television and video games (excessive use)
- Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)
- Vermin (rats and roaches)
- Violence
- War and bloodshed
- Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)
- Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.
Some are admittedly somewhat understandable (bodily functions, pornography, sex, alcohol/tobacco/drugs, cigarettes) but then we go off the deep end. Seriously, no mentions of homes with swimming pools? Rock music? Weapons? Witchcraft? Religion and religious festivals? Halloween?! Birthday celebrations?! Rats and roaches?!
I see a certain parallel with the Kurt Vonnegut short stories Harrison Bergeron and The Sirens of Titan. The more we attempt to shield our kids from the reality that yes, some people will have their own swimming pools and nicer cars, and the real world has things like gambling, alcohol, rats, roaches, and homelessness, the bigger shock they will get when they finally figure out that it does.
The last thing we need to do is set our kids up to fail the biggest test of all, the final examination that is their adult life. And I believe by taking all these things out of standardized tests is a huge step in that direction. As the saying goes, why be politically correct when you can be right?