President Bush had just proposed a national achievement test for high-school

students and had run into criticism both from the Left, anxious to protect the

under performing teachers unions, and from the Right, uneasy with the specter of national

control of local schools. Mrs. Cheney is the perfect guide to this debate, outlining what

other countries do and explaining the difference between aptitude tests, which attempt to

test what the student is capable of, and achievement tests, which find out what the student

has actually learned. LC: "Any time you have a high-stakes exam, teachers will teach to

it and students will study for it. The point is to get an exam in place that is worth

teaching to, that is worthy studying for." ... "When you try to explain to a Frenchman or

a Japanese or a German that we test for this thing called aptitude, they're very puzzled

that we even think you can test for it."