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It could almost be a joke, testing as rigorously as possible for the sake of improving education. Almost - if only it weren't a serious suggestion. Consider the logic carefully: Our students are not receiving as thorough an education as we feel they need. To ensure that they are receiving proper instruction, let us devote extra class time to testing them, to better monitor their performance. Now they spend one less week learning, but we have a more accurate measure of performance. Wait! Performance appears to have slipped, according to the new test scores. Clearly, the testing was inadequate. Double the testing, making sure to explore every imaginable skill in depth. Take another week or two if need be, evaluation is the only way to improve education. The fallacy should be apparent. As the cycle repeats, the time for lessons lessens. Certainly, an accurate measure of literacy can be obtained in this fashion. The less time allowed for learning, the lower we can expect that literacy level to be.

Literacy is terribly important, make no mistake. Reading skills are a basic need in today's society, and a deficiency puts an individual at a great disadvantage. Large scale testing however, as illustrated above, does nothing to improve literacy. It does give bureaucrats numbers to throw around as they juggle budgets and re-election schemes. It only strips students of their classroom time. There are better approaches, both to monitoring and improving literacy.

Teachers can monitor literacy by incorporating reading exercises and activities into every class. Traditional texts are a start, or course, but they are generally uninspiring, and do not encourage participation. There are also works of fiction on every topic which make for more pleasurable reading, and still offer many educational opportunities, if chosen wisely. ("Flatland" should be required reading for teachers of Geometry. "The Guns of the South" would offer much to American History.) Teachers monitor their students through multiple approaches. The simplest is to listen as a student reads aloud, and this basic analysis is often utilized. Reading aloud, however, is not literacy. Literacy requires comprehension as well as the ability to pronounce the words. To check for comprehension, the teacher must seek feedback, and this is what is often forgotten. For a start, scrap book reports. It is too easy to find notes on books and craft a report from them. This is not literacy,

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