O.C. Protest Gets Deletion in State Test

Two weeks before release of the first results of California’s heralded new system of testing student academic skills, controversy has erupted over the dropping of passages by prize-winning author Alice Walker that some conservative Christians object to as being anti-religious.

The state Department of Education yanked a question based on excerpts of the Walker story, “Roselily,” from a reading portion of the test after complaints by the Anaheim-based-Traditional Values Coalition. Teachers and civil liberties groups protested that the decision to pull the story from future versions of the exam is censorship and a threat to academic freedom.

At a news conference Friday, Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont), a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, said she has scheduled a March 16 hearing of the Assembly Education Committee, which she chairs, to pursue the issue.

“We need to determine what were the grounds for removing this item,” Eastin said. “If they were political, that is a cause for grave concern . . . political correctness, whether it comes from the left or from the right, has no place in California public education.”

She was joined at the Downtown Los Angeles news conference by leaders of the California Federation of Teachers, United Teachers-Los Angeles, National Writers Union--of which the Pulitzer Prize-winning Walker is a member--and People for the American Way, a liberal civil liberties organization that battles censorship in the schools.

On March 9, the state will release the long-awaited first results from the pioneering California Learning Assessment System, which puts California at the forefront of the movement to develop better ways of assessing students. State school officials hope that the new tests will be a key component of efforts to improve the education of 5.2 million public school students in California.

Unlike the state’s previous testing system, which was based primarily on multiple-choice questions, the new version requires students to demonstrate thinking ability and show how they arrived at answers. Although this new system, called “performance-based” or “authentic” assessment, is considerably more expensive to develop and score, educators said it provides a much better method of determining what a student can do and can help shape reforms in teaching and curriculum.

The “Roselily” excerpt is about the thoughts of a black unmarried mother as she stands at the altar for her wedding to a Muslim man. The tale appeared in Walker’s collection of short stories “In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women.”

The excerpt was on the language arts portion of the exam given to 10th-graders throughout the state last spring. Students were asked to write their responses to the story--a test of their reading comprehension, along with thinking and writing skills.

The test was scored, along with those given to fourth- and eighth-graders in reading, writing and math, over the summer by teams of teachers statewide.

The controversy surfaced in October, when the Riverside Press-Enterprise published the “Roselily” excerpt and question in a story on the new assessment system. Shortly after that, the state Department of Education, which had received complaints from the Traditional Values Coalition, decided to pull the item from next year’s version of the test, which is to be administered annually.

The coalition, headed by the Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, has achieved statewide recognition in recent years for its lobbying on conservative and religious issues, including its opposition to gay rights legislation and to certain elements of the state’s educational curriculum.

A spokesman for the coalition said Friday that the group had complained about the Walker story, and objected to the new system of testing in general because the group believes it emphasizes “emotions, not intellect.” The Walker story “could easily be construed as anti-religious and anti-clergy,” said spokesman Steve Sheldon.

The issue is not censorship but discrimination against religious people, Sheldon said, adding that Eastin was a “demagogue” who had seized the issue to further her election prospects “with the ACLU types.” The American Civil Liberties Union is among those to decry the decision to pull the test item.

William D. Dawson, acting state superintendent, said the decision was made in large part because publication of the item spoiled its effectiveness.

“It alerted every 10th-grade English teacher in the state of California that it would be on the test,” thus spoiling the unrehearsed nature of the response, Dawson said. The Walker story might be reinstated in the future, he said.

All of Walker’s works, including the Pulitzer-winning book, “The Color Purple,” are on the state’s recommended reading lists, Dawson noted. He called “Roselily” a “fine, engaging, thought-provoking story that causes kids to stop and think hard about other people’s lives and problems and how they address them.”

But Dawson acknowledged that the controversy generated by the news story also played a role in the decision to drop the test item. He said that after the story appeared, Dale Carlson, the state’s testing director, recommended dropping the item, based on the spoiled confidentiality and the controversy. Dawson said he “fully backed” Carlson’s recommendation. “It was our judgment that continued inclusion of ‘Roselily’ . . . would have injected a level of controversy that could have jeopardized the larger testing program,” Dawson said.

Walker was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

Times staff writer Eric Lichtblau contributed to this report.

Controversial Passages

The following excerpts from Alice Walker’s short story “Roselily”--about a rural Mississippi woman’s private thoughts during her wedding ceremony--were included on a test of language arts skills given to sophomores statewide in 1993. Students were asked to write their feelings about the passages.

* “. . . She cannot always be a bride and a virgin, wearing robes and veil. Even now her body itches to be free of satin and voile. . . . She wonders what it will be like. Not to have to go to a job. Not to work in a sewing plant. . . . Her place will be in the home, he has said, repeatedly, promising her rest she has prayed for. But now she wonders. When she has rested, what will she do? They will make babies--she thinks practically about her fine brown body, his strong black one. They will be inevitable. Her hands will be full. Full of what? Babies. She is not comforted.”