Harpo Marx, Class Size And The Regents

Yesterday was the ELA Regents exam in New York State.

There are two points I wish to make about yesterday's exam.

The first is, Harpo Marx did not grow up in a tenement in Brooklyn, New York.

He grew up on 93rd Street near Lexington Avenue.

Maybe the NYSED and Regents can check their "facts" before having a Part 1 Listening Passage prepared for students that is meant to test their skills at listening for facts and key points that has erroneous facts in it?

Also, how the NYSED and the Regents managed to find a story about Harpo Marx, one of the more fascinating fellows to ever scamper upon this earth, and make it dreary and boring is truly amazing.

There's nothing like sucking the lifeblood out of subjects and historical people for testing purposes, is there?

The second point is about the Julia Child excerpt in Part 2 of the exam.

How interesting that they included a multiple choice question that revolved around Julia Child's frustration over class size during her culinary school training.

Maybe the NYSED bigwigs can send this multiple choice question to Governor Cuomo so that he, like Ms. Child, can understand the frustrations of large classes?

And so with these two points, I will leave you to go and grade these fine Regents exams at a school different than my own under the tutelage and guidance of some administrators I have never met before all because the geniuses at the NYSED, the Regents and Tweed have decided that security around these high stakes tests must resemble the security around uranium testing.

But before I go, let me leave you with a little of the spirit of Harpo Marx:



Swordfish!