Steven Singer writes here about a dumb policy that is now commonplace thinking among both Ivy League corporate reformers and redneck legislators: If you make the tests harder, they reason, students will get higher test scores.

No, no, no, and no.

Singer says his students are weary of the endless testing. And it is getting worse because the tests will be even harder to pass in Pennsylvania.

He writes:

In the last two years, Pennsylvania has modified its mandatory assessments until it’s almost impossible for my students to pass.

Bureaucrats call it “raising standards,” but it’s really just making the unlikely almost unthinkable.

Impoverished students have traditionally had a harder time scoring as well as their wealthier peers. But the policy response has been to make things MORE difficult. How does that help?

Consider this: If a malnourished runner couldn’t finish the 50 yard dash, forcing him to run 100…