A recent New York Times Op-Ed by Brent Staples revisits the controversy over the newest feature in the SAT, the timed essay, pitting the views of professional educators against the business folks who do the hiring and offering his own perspective on what?s gone wrong. The National Council of Teachers of English has asserted that the test's requirement that students write in standard English without the benefit of editing and revision places an unfair burden on poor and minority students because of their cultural background and vernacular languages. In contrast, a recent report from the Business Roundtable complains of otherwise outstanding job applicants who cannot write intelligibly. According to a report released last year by the National Commission on Writing, companies once surrounded poor writers with people who could help them effectively communicate their ideas, but businesses are now searching for ways to screen out poor writers before they ever walk through the door.

Staples suggests that America's teachers are merely the innocent instruments of a deeply flawed educational system that values content over form. This is giving both the system and teachers far too much credit. There is little evidence that students are asked to pay much attention to either content or form in student writing assignments; more likely, students are asked to respond to trivial prompts, barren of content, with no expectation other than that they convey their innermost feelings. Far too infrequently are students asked to write about something, subjected to the discipline of making sure that someone else can understand what they're trying to say.