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(Tenured Radical)

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Question #1,
National Standardized
Exit Exam for American
Colleges and Universities:


Please read the following statement carefully:

"What we oppose is a single, national, high-stakes, one-size-fits-all, uber-outcome exam. The notion of a single exam implies there are national standards, and that implies a national curriculum. Then we are on the way to a centralized Prussian education system."

(David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges)




Trace the logic of this statement, and then analyze its rhetoric. In particular, how does the writer move from Point A (national higher education standards in the United States) to Point B (Prussia)? What is the rhetorical effect of the writer’s allusion to Hitler’s Germany (“uber-outcome”)?