A Test Like This Could Drive Poor Andy Nuts

Pay attention, class.

“Andy is making cookies for the bake sale. He needs to make 20 dozen cookies. For each dozen, he needs four ounces of nuts. How many pounds of nuts should he buy?”

The answer, of course, is:

Boys shouldn’t bake cookies. Andy needs to lose the Betty Crocker routine and go play some hardball outside with the guys.

Unfortunately, that’s the best answer I could come up with. Monday morning I was fool enough to take a sample test for the 7th grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

Algebra. Equations. Pie charts … Looks like ol’ Doug needs to repeat middle school.

The test was given to members of the media at Spokane School District 81 headquarters.

It was all a public relations ploy, I fear. Most likely an exercise in damage control before last spring’s student test results are released Sept. 8.

After all, how can adults hold failing youths accountable when a bonehead college graduate like me can’t even figure out Andy’s baking needs?

“Do we have a warranty on his diploma?” asked a snickering District Superintendent Gary Livingston.

Go ahead and laugh. I’m a product of Spokane public schools.

True story: At semester’s end one year at Ferris High School, my math instructor took me aside. “Drop out of class and I’ll give you a C,” he said, scratching his crew cut. “Stay and I’ll flunk you.”

Sounded sweet to me.

Fortunately, I made up for my numerical impotence by marrying a brainy math major. She balances the checkbook.

Monday was back-to-school terror all over.

I woke to the radio alarm and lay half-dozing, dreamily fantasizing about whupping Mark McGwire’s behind to set the new home run record.

“Take that, you steroid-popping impostor!”

I emerged from my fog enough to glance at the clock. It read 7:35. A faraway voice began whispering inside my head until it built into a full-blown holler:

“Hey, Doug, weren’t you supposed to be at the school district at 7:30? TAKING A TESSSST?”

“Oh, Lord,” I yelled, jumping up, “I’m later than Godot.”

No time to shower. Throw on clothes. Run out the door.

It was just like being in high school again.

At 8:15 a.m., I arrived at the administration building, looking more rumpled than an unmade bed.

I did my best to sneak into the conference room and locate a chair. Then I turned to my left and swallowed the urge to run away screaming.

Next to me was Ron Miller, my social studies teacher at Ferris.

I was in high school again.

“Would you like me to write you a note?” he said.

I’ll admit it. The state assessment test is a killer. We just took a brief version of it, but the questions are not easy multiple choice or true-false.

You have to actually explain how you arrive at your answers. How unfair.

But what does a test have to do with real life? To succeed in a self-important profession such as journalism, one needs to know a lot of things that can’t be taught in a classroom.

Things, for example, like what do you call a good lawyer?

Answer: Disbarred.

You don’t learn that kind of stuff from a book.

This is not to suggest that you young people should drop out of school. Just don’t think knowing how to solve a few problems is all there is.

You need to be skeptical. You need to ask probing questions about motives.

For example, why is Andy wasting his time baking, anyway?

He can buy six dozen cookies for five bucks this week at Rosauers. Since he needs 20 dozen, that’ll only cost him … Aw, a twenty oughta cover it.