The Lessons of Pineapplegate
Little did I know when I posted a piece on the NYC Public School Parents blog on April 19 revealing that there was a passage on the eighth-grade New York state exam about a race between a talking pineapple and a hare that a month later, people would still be talking about it. I’ve broken quite a few stories in my time, but none has had the viral velocity of this scandal.
Within 36 hours, John King, the state education commissioner, had released the full text of the passage and questions, and announced he would not count them in scoring the results. Since then, the story has made headlines in news outlets around the world, led to the publication of not one but two leaked memos from Pearson, the company that created the test, and intensified the debate about the role of standardized testing in our schools today.
Why did this story attract such a wide audience? In my view, for two reasons: Much of what is argued about our
Within 36 hours, John King, the state education commissioner, had released the full text of the passage and questions, and announced he would not count them in scoring the results. Since then, the story has made headlines in news outlets around the world, led to the publication of not one but two leaked memos from Pearson, the company that created the test, and intensified the debate about the role of standardized testing in our schools today.
Why did this story attract such a wide audience? In my view, for two reasons: Much of what is argued about our