Standardized testing is a billion-dollar industry, and it controls the direction of American education and many businesses. How standardized tests came about makes for an interesting read.

In 1860, Francis Galton defined intelligence as mental abilities based on selected and inherited traits. Galton went on to found the Eugenics Society, which advocated a birthrate favoring superior strains or races "so that their progeny shall gradually outnumber and replace those people with lower mental abilities."

In 1875, Charles Spearman enlarged on Galton's position. "General mental ability is passed on from generation to generation and replaces the view that humans might be intelligent in several ways including creativity, perceptions, and memory." Spearman recommended using school subjects to measure intelligence.

In 1904, Albert Binet was charged by the French Ministry of Public Instruction with finding a reliable means for identifying mentally "defective" children in order to justify keeping them out of regular classrooms. Verbal/language skills dominated. Cultural and background differences were ignored.

In 1916, Lewis Terman of Stanford University developed "The Measurement of Intelligence" based on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test. The Terman Scale defined potential vs. actual performance or achievement. The test did not account for social or economic opportunity.

In 1923, Carl Brigham of Princeton University was assigned to make a national inventory of American mental capacity. His study used U.S. Army recruits comparing native born, recent immigrants, and black Americans. The tightly timed tests, based on the Terman scale, consisted of mental gymnastics on meaningless tasks.

In his report, A Study of American Intelligence, Brigham concluded that the inability to respond to American culture is an undesirable trait indicated by the "real differences" in the intelligence of immigrants. Brigham returned to Princeton, where he created the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and became secretary of the College Entrance Examination Board. His editor, Elwood B. Cubberly, stated that the primary function of American education is to train the majority of Americans to be competent in an industrial or production setting where intelligence is not required.

The dictionary defines intelligence as the ability to learn and/or understand how to deal with new or trying situations. And to that point, American standardized tests say what?

David Pannkuk of Columbia Township is a workplace specialist and software developer.

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