ON THIS D.C. SCHOOL SYSTEM QUIZ, NO ONE SUCCEEDS

Okay, teachers. It's your turn. The back-to-school pop quiz is not
just for kids today. Here are six multiple-choice questions. Answer
them correctly, and you'll also be able to answer the one question
that boggled the best minds on the D.C. Council this summer: What is
a "high-quality" education -- and how do you get one free?

Question One: In July, the D.C. Council considered placing on the
November ballot a referendum on giving public school students the
legal right to a "free, high-quality" education -- "with the term
high-quality to be defined by local law enacted by the Council of the
District of Columbia." But the idea was scrubbed because:

A) Council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) didn't know what
"high-quality" meant. "What's this going to do for kids?" he asked
his colleagues, sounding dumbfounded.

B) Council Chairman Linda W. Cropp (D), a mayoral candidate and a
former school board president, became paralyzed with multiple-choice
anxiety: "If I had everyone in this chamber write down what a
high-quality education means right now, I bet we would get a hundred
different answers," she fretted.

C) The council feared that if voters actually legalized high-quality
education, some kids might get hooked, and the next thing you know,
other kids would be filing lawsuits so they could get high on learning, too.

D) All of the above.

Question Two: Maryland, Virginia and the District have adopted
"social studies standards," which require every high school graduate to:

A) Explain how a U.S. president managed to lie about why he took the
country to war -- and how he got away with it, to boot.

B) Psychoanalyze a country that allowed him to continue sending
Americans to die for nothing.

C) Ponder what social justice could mean -- if it means anything at
all -- in a country where millions go without health insurance while
the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, especially in the
nation's capital, where the richest families have incomes that are
roughly 12 times as great as the poorest ones.

D) None of the above.

Question Three: With high-quality education, a high school senior in
the District will be expected to:

A) Explain how laws are made in the city.

B) Describe the role of the Board of Education in setting educational
policy and school funding.

C) Die trying.

D) All of the above.

Question Four: A reliance on standardized tests as a measure of
educational achievement, as mandated by the No Child Left Behind law,
has resulted in:

A) Students memorizing factoids instead of learning to think for themselves.

B) Teaching to the tests.

C) Schools that produce people for existing slots in the nation's
economic structure -- with corrupted urban school systems reliably
turning out thousands of candidates for prison factory jobs each year.

D) All of the above.

Question Five: Because a high-quality education helps students cope
with change and contradictions in the real world, public schools in
the Washington area require all graduates to know:

A) Why they can't smoke marijuana but their teachers can get drunk as a skunk.

B) Why a drive-by shooting in the District is wrong but a flyover
bombing in Iraq is all right.

C) Why African Americans convicted of drug possession are more likely
to be sent to prison than whites.

D) None of the above.

Question Six: All of our school systems subscribe to the notion that
providing a high-quality education is essential to the nation's
survival. The District's educational manifesto states: "Devotion to
human dignity and freedom, equal rights, justice, the rule of law,
civility and truth, tolerance of diversity, mutual assistance,
personal and civic responsibility, and self-respect must be taught,
learned and practiced." To show they mean business, District
officials provide students with:

A) High-quality textbooks and school supplies, including equipment
for physical and vocational education.

B) High-quality teachers and learning opportunities that take
advantage of all that the nation's capital has to offer.

C) Safe and comfortable classrooms as a way to encourage students to
attend school.

D) None of the above.

So, how did you fare? If you answered D for each question, you
certainly aren't clueless. But so what if you are?

Suppose you, like the D.C. Council, haven't the foggiest idea about
what high-quality education means. Relax. Adults don't fail tests;
they only fail the kids.