It's Come To This

By Christopher Shea

For people who worry that standardized tests are warping teaching, what's going on at Winslow Township's School No. 4 might be the horror at the end of the line, the confirmation of all their fears. It's also very cute.

Princeton Review, the test-preparation company that made its name teaching rich New York City kids how to beat the SAT, has been tutoring Winslow's teachers. In February, at the invitation of school officials, a handful of Review staffers drove from New York to this bedroom community, midway between Philadelphia and Atlantic City, to spend a day demonstrating the tricks of the standardized-test trade. They told teachers about Joe Bloggs, the fictional not-too-dumb, not-too-bright student who scores exactly at the median on standardized exams. They explained how poor Bloggs always goes for the obvious answer-say "peanut butter" and he can't help but think "jelly"-and how testmakers throw in "distractor" answers to trip him up. And they talked about "P.O.E.," the process-of-elimination approach that helps students push their scores past Bloggs'.

A few days later, the teachers, in turn, passed the tidbits on to . . . 3rd graders? That's right: The Winslow school district is now doing Princeton Review- endorsed test prep with 9- and 10-year-olds. For six weeks this spring, select Winslow students met twice a week, after school, to gear up for...