This is backstory. I'm Peter Onough. Millions of American high school students are sitting

down to take the newly revamped SA-2s. The new exam will have an optional SA. More time

will be allowed and there will be 16-fear questions. Many have criticized the test for its cultural

biases in favor of high-income students. Not exactly a new problem. Standardized tests,

a century ago asked students to draw what was missing from a house. The test is of course who

think, oh, missing chimney. The Italian immigrant kids will put a crucifix. Today I'm

extoria, history of testing in America, from IQ and personality tests to fighting government

corruption with a civil service exam. You don't want people that are going to be like the New

York City politicians that were known as the paid eaters because they take everything they

can. It's even said that eat the paid off the walls. A history of testing today on backstory.

Major funding for backstory is provided by the ShiaCon Foundation, the National Endowment for

the Humanities, the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis

Foundations. From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, this is backstory with the American

District Guys. Welcome to the show. I'm Brian Ballot, and I'm here with Ed Ayers. Hey, Brian,

and Peter Ones with us. Hey, Brian, we're going to start today in the Athens of America,

or at least that's how Boston thought of itself back in 1845. The city schools were considered the

best in the country. But a guy named Horace Mann thought this fine reputation was not deserved.

Mann was superintendent of Massachusetts schools, and the leading education reformer of his day.

Historian William Reese says that after touring Europe, Mann was convinced Boston schools were

falling behind. So Mann devised an idea to give a written test.

Now a written test sounds like no big deal, right? But in the 1840s, it was a novel idea, revolutionary

in fact. It was a world of oral recitations in which teachers in almost virtually every classroom

...