By Hector Tobar
October 22, 2013, 2:51 p.m.
Some of the country’s best
known authors and illustrators of children's books have signed a letter
addressed to PresidentObama with
a simple message: Too much standardized testing is causing children to lose
their love of books.
More than 100 authors and
illustrators have signed the letter,
including Judy Blume and Jules Feiffer. The campaign was organized by the
National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), an advocacy group.
“We are alarmed at the
negative impact of excessive school testing mandates, including your
Administration’s own initiatives, on children’s love of reading and
literature,” reads the letter. “Recent policy changes by your Administration
have not lowered the stakes. On the contrary, requirements to evaluate teachers
based on student test scores impose more standardized exams and crowd out
exploration.”
“Our public school students
spend far too much time preparing for reading tests and too little time curling
up with books that fire their imaginations,” the letter continues.
The letter also
quotes a 2003 essay by
the British writer Philip Pullman, in which the award-winning author states: “I
am concerned that in a constant search for things to test, we're forgetting the
true purpose, the true nature, of reading and writing.”
Testing, Pullman argued,
“divorces” reading from “pleasure” and is “creating a generation of children
who might be able to make the right noises when they see print, but who hate
reading and feel nothing but hostility for literature.”
FairTest Executive Director
Monty Neill said the organization launched the effort in August.
“Several board members knew
authors as friends, relatives or colleagues, so they spread it to them,” Neill
said in an interview. “It circulated within the national association of authors
and illustrators of works for young children and teens, on listservs and with
Facebook. Then there was a ripple effect as authors contacted one another. Some
of the more prominent authors were reached by our direct contacts, others via
supporters who signed on and reached out to others.”
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