Third Graders Asked to Reveal Personal Secrets on State Exam

How hard is it to write appropriate test questions for a third grader?

A few weeks ago we had a teacher fired for assigning his students grossly morbid word problems. Now, we have this story out of New Jersey, where third graders were asked on a state exam to reveal a secret they had a hard time keeping.

The website NJ.com reports that one parent, Richard Goldberg of Marlboro, was appalled when he asked his 9-year-old twin sons about the exam and was told about the question, which required an essay. One of the boys wrote about breaking a ceiling fan and not telling his dad (presumably until now). The other wrote about the time Goldberg took them out of school on false pretenses for a day of skiing!

Approximately 4,000 students in New Jersey answered the question, which has since been pulled from the exam and will not be used on future exams. But seriously, this question never should have shown up on an exam in the first place. How do you suppose the administration would have reacted if a student revealed that they were molested, or witnessed a criminal act?This is a ridiculous, overly intrusive question that could have potentially opened up a huge can of worms for the administration to deal with.