ABSTRACT
TESTING POLITICS (A VIGNETTE) March 25, 1996-this is the day for the Arizona Board of Education to approve, or not, the Arizona Standards for Reading, Writing, and Math. We are here to witness.
Dignified and formal, the members of the Board emerge from their private chambers, stifle their whispers and chuckles, and seat themselves in their highback leather chairs. They are arranged behind a polished dark walnut desk, slightly concave around them as if to separate themselves from the spectators, maybe even to protect them from us. Imagine the Supreme Court, minus the robes. The ritual attracts our eyes to them, but their gaze aims for the middle distance, somewhere just above our heads. Occasionally they speak, sotto voce, to each other or to the staff that scurries around, getting them pitchers of water or official-looking papers, or fiddling with the microphones and tape recorders. They assume the anonymous authority of any group of worthies on a raised dais anywhere in the Western World.
