Public Radio listeners know that in Lake Wobegon, all the
children are above average. However, if all the children there
are above average, then an equal number of children somewhere
else are below average. With a wife who teaches fifth grade in
Bridgeport, and a son-in-law who teaches seventh grade in
Woodbury, I often hear more than I thought I'd ever need to know
about what's going on in our schools. In Bridgeport, the
Integrated Reading and Language Arts Curriculum states as its
first goal that all students will score "at or above the 50th
percentile on a norm-referenced test." In other words: All
Bridgeport 5th graders will be average or above. "What's a norm-
referenced test?" listeners may well ask. The Connecticut
Mastery Test (CMT) given to fourth, sixth and eighth graders,
the pre-CMT, given to third, fifth and seventh graders and the
Scholastic Aptitude Test used for college entrance are all norm-
referenced. These are tests created to differentiate between
students- to sort and rank them. The tests