Harper’s Spin-Dex
Pop quiz.

By John J. Miller, Ramesh Ponnuru & Ben Domenech
August 21, 2001 5:00 p.m.

op quiz: The editors of Harper's Magazine are:

A. Bush-hating Manhattanite hacks
B. Latte-sipping leftists
C. Dumb as rocks
D. All of the above

If you don't know the answer, then you aren't reading Harper's. The September issue assembles a wide-ranging cast of commentators, from John Taylor Gatto to Jacques Barzun, to weigh in on the "New Hope for American Education." As a sidebar, the magazine compares questions from two public-school tests of eighth graders: an 1895 test administered in Saline County, Kansas, and the 2000 Texas Assessment of Academic Skills.

It should come as no surprise that the older test is harder — a lot harder. A century ago, young Kansans were asked to explain the meaning of "phonetic orthography." The more recent Texas tests aren't nearly as ambitious, even though they are, as Harper's notes, "President Bush's cure for 'the soft bigotry of low expectations.'"

The most outrageous question cited by Harper's the last one, which supposedly appeared on the 2000 science test given to Texas eighth graders:

Read each question and choose the best answer:

Which of these is alive?
A. A rock
B. A fish
C. A star
D. A pencil

There's only one problem: No Texas student has ever been graded on this question. According to Marsha O'Carroll, a science consultant for the Texas Education Agency, the question does appear on page 91 of the TAAS — as a sample question. Anyone who's taken a standardized test knows that the sample question is intended to have a bleeding-obvious answer, so that test-takers won't have any questions of their own about how to mark an answer correctly. (The actual science exam may be seen here.)

Kim Dennison of Harper's tell us that the magazine will run a "clarification" next month. Perhaps it could appear in the Harper's Index:

Number of times Harper's took a cheap shot at President Bush in its September issue: 1
Number of times Harper's had to eat crow for said cheap shot: 1

Bipartisanship in Action

When Republicans lost 4 House seats from California last year, a few Washington, D.C., Republicans told us to look at the bright side: Having hit rock bottom, they couldn't lose many more seats from redistricting. Dan Walters reports in the Sacramento Bee that California's House members have struck a deal that bears out those Republicans' hopes. If the California legislature enacts the district map to which they have agreed, Democrats would probably gain one seat, but the Republicans would not lose any. (California's getting a new one because its population has grown.)

When Gary Condit's district was safely Democratic, Democrats could contemplate moving some Democrats from it to the neighboring Republican district represented by Richard Pombo. But circumstances have forced them to shore up Condit's seat by adding Democrats to it. In general, Democrats had to make a trade-off. They could have sought a map that gave them an opening in more seats-but only by making existing seats less safe. They opted for incumbent protection.

The map, concludes Walters, "may doom Democratic hopes of retaking control of the House next year."