Some New Jersey parents are steamed about a question on a statewide standardized test this week that asked some third-graders to write about a secret and why it was hard to keep.
Richard Goldberg, a Marlboro dentist, was appalled when he asked his twin 9-year-old sons about the New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge and they told him about the question, which state officials say was given to about 4,000 students as a tryout.
"All of the sudden, you have in a sense Big Brother checking out the secrets of families," he said.
So much for essays about how it was hard not to tell Mom about her surprise birthday party.
Goldberg felt the question ventured into topics that would best be kept quiet, and that it could raise some serious complications: What would test-graders do if the secret revealed has to do with a crime? And why would that question be asked anyway? New Jersey's state Education Department is reviewing what happened. More
