上个月，纽约州教育局宣布，计划取消将州立考试作为该州毕业要求。
Last month, the New York State Education Department announced that it intends to nix the Regents Exam as a graduation requirement in the Empire State.
该政策变动受到广泛谴责。前州长乔治·帕塔基（共和党）抨击此举“极其愚蠢”。《华尔街日报》社论板块批评称，这是美国教育走向平庸的又一个可悲里程碑。他们对这一变动的嘲讽是正确的。完全有必要通过考试来确保毕业生在阅读、写作和数学方面具备基本能力。虽然受到的指责较少，但同样值得批评的，是将取代考试本身的方案。
The policy change received widespread condemnation. Former Gov. George Pataki (R) ripped the move as “incredibly stupid.”The Wall Street Journal editorial board criticized it as “as one more sorry milestone on America’s educational march to mediocrity.”They’re right to heap scorn on the change. It’s entirely appropriate to test and ensure that graduates leave high school with basic competencies in reading, writing, and math. Receiving less opprobrium, but equally deserving of it, is what will replace the exam itself.
教育专员贝蒂·罗莎解释说，州政府不再依赖州立考试，而是构建一个“基于纽约毕业生画像的毕业体系”。该项目让学生通过基于表现的评估和作品集来展示学习成果。毕业生画像要求学生通过“多种衡量方式”展示自己是“批判性思考者”和“全球公民”，而不是仅仅通过基本能力测试。此类空洞口号表面上颇具吸引力——毕竟，谁会反对批判性思考？然而，批判性思考的能力依赖于州立考试所考查的基础学术技能。没有历史基本事实知识或阅读段落并理解的能力，学生无法对时事进行有意义的分析。
Education Commissioner Betty Rosa has explained that instead of relying on the Regents, the state is building a “graduation system grounded in New York’s Portrait of a Graduate,” a program wherein students can demonstrate their learning through performance-based assessments and portfolios. Instead of simply passing a basic competency test, the Portrait of a Graduate requires that students demonstrate their ability to be a “critical thinker” and “global citizen” through “multiple measures.”Such banalities are superficially appealing — after all, who would oppose critical thinking? But the ability to think critically relies upon rudimentary academic skills of the kind the Regents Exam tested. No student can meaningfully analyze current events without basic factual knowledge of history or the ability to read paragraphs and comprehend them.
这些画像以模糊的愿景取代了具体、可衡量的学术基准，而后者是实现更高层次认知功能的前提。因此，学生很可能两者都无法获得。
These portraits replace with vague aspirations the concrete, measurable, academic benchmarks that allow for higher-level cognitive functions. Consequently, students are likely to develop neither.
纽约实际上是这一趋势的后来者。2000年代中期，27个州要求高中毕业考试。如今这一数字已降至仅六个州。与此同时，26个州已采纳某种形式的“毕业生画像”，因此我们有实践证据来了解这些转变的实际含义。
New York is actually late to this trend. In the mid-2000s, 27 states required high school exit exams. That number is now down to just six. Concurrently, 26 states have adopted some variation of “Portrait of a Graduate,” so we have evidence of what these shifts mean in practice.
教育技术非营利组织Digital Promise 2024年发布的一份报告分析了来自学区的60多份毕业生画像。该组织设计了一个供学区遵循的模型，称其涵盖了样本中出现的90%的具体胜任力。这些胜任力包括“关爱并贡献社会”以及“运用所有媒体和模式进行沟通”。报告中还展示了此类画像在实践中可能呈现的样子。例如，Digital Promise建议初中生通过意大利面搭塔挑战来展示解决问题的能力。
A 2024 report by the ed-tech nonprofit Digital Promise analyzed more than 60 graduate portraits from districts. It devised a model for districts to follow that it says incorporates 90 percent of the specific competencies that appear across their sample. These include an ability to “care for and contribute to society” and “communicate in all media and modalities.”In their report, they include models of what such a Portrait might look like in practice. For example, Digital Promise recommends middle school students demonstrate their problem-solving abilities through spaghetti tower challenges.
该教育技术组织推崇的另一个表现性任务来自威斯康星州霍华德-苏亚米科学区，学生通过制作关于潜在无麸质墨西哥卷饼卡车的三折海报来展示“协作能力”。即便是学生范例也包含基本错误——把“甜玉米”拼成了“汗玉米”。我曾是一名教师，我不怪学生偶尔漏掉拼写错误，我也见过不少临时拼凑的最后时刻作业。但当这种作品被树立为典范时，整项努力看起来就像是为除了学业以外的一切寻找理由。
Another performance task that the ed-tech lauds comes by way of Howard-Suamico, Wisconsin, where students demonstrate “collaboration” by crafting tri-fold posters about potential gluten-free Taco trucks. Even the student model includes basic errors — get your taco with “sweat corn.”I was once a teacher. I don’t fault students for letting a typo slip through here or there. I have seen plenty of last-minute projects cobbled together the night before. But when such work is set forth as the ideal, it makes the whole effort look like a method to justify seemingly everything except academics.
作为推动“毕业生画像”等衡量标准潮流的主要组织之一，Battelle for Kids将密苏里州阿夫顿学区一名学生分析图派克和小韦恩歌词的演示作为典范。该组织还将北卡罗来纳州温斯顿-塞勒姆关于枪支管控和堕胎权的政治海报拼贴作为另一个范例。
Battelle for Kids, one of the main organizations behind the trend toward measurements such as “Portraits of a Graduate,” sets forth as an exemplar a student presentation analyzing Tupac and Lil Wayne lyrics from Affton School District in Missouri. It holds up as another example a collage of political posters on gun control and abortion rights in Winston-Salem, N.C.
换句话说，通过采用定义不清且无法衡量的目标，学校几乎可以用任何活动来证明学生具备了他们所青睐的能力。与此同时，学校也可以借此为学业失败找借口。当然，学生可能不会加分数，也说不出政府的三个分支是什么，但幸运的是，我们已经废除了曾经用来衡量此类失败的所有工具。
In other words, by adopting poorly defined and unmeasurable goals, schools can use almost any activity to demonstrate preferred competencies. Running in parallel, schools can then also explain away academic failure. Sure, the students may not be able to add fractions, and they can’t name the three branches of government, but fortunately we have abolished all the tools we once had to measure such failures.
我们可以衡量学生是否会乘法，以及某些教学实践是否帮助他们掌握了乘法。但我们如何衡量“全球公民意识”，又如何判断某项活动是否能培养这种意识？我们做不到，因此什么都可以算数。噢，好吧——至少他们都能显眼地“拥抱多元”！大多数人都希望学校能培养一些能力，比如毅力或解决问题的能力。但学校只有在重视传统学术教育时，才最有利于培养这些能力。
We can measure whether students can multiply and whether certain instructional practices helped them do it. But how do we measure global citizenship and determine if any one activity or another fosters it? We can’t, and so anything goes. Oh well — at least they can all conspicuously “embrace diversity!”Most everyone hopes that schools will foster some competencies, such as perseverance or problem-solving. But they are situated to do so best when they emphasize traditional academics.
学校如何培养毅力？设置要求严格的学业关卡。学校如何培养自律？制定行为标准并要求学生遵守。学校如何培养批判性思维？为他们提供历史、科学、文学、语法和艺术知识，这些知识会成为批判性思考的工具。
How can a school foster grit? Maintain demanding academic gauntlets. How can schools create self-discipline? Set behavioral standards and hold students to them. How can schools enable critical thinking? Provide them the knowledge of history, science, literature, grammar, and the arts that become the tools of critical thought.
学生是通过钻研有价值的学科内容，成为深思熟虑、自律的公民，而不是通过那些花哨的活动，比如制作“友善很酷”的海报。
Students become thoughtful, self-controlled citizens by wrestling with worthy subject matter, not through kitschy activities where they make posters about how kindness is cool.
取消 Regents 考试（纽约州高中毕业会考）是个错误，但他们用来替代它的东西可能甚至更糟。
Getting rid of the Regents Exams was a mistake, but what they are replacing it with might be even worse.
Daniel Buck 是美国企业研究所的研究员兼保守派教育改革网络主任。
Daniel Buck is a research fellow and the director of the Conservative Education Reform Network at the American Enterprise Institute.