Discusses two reasons why the state of writing performance may worsen when, beginning in 1983, Tennessee high school students must pass a proficiency test as a condition for graduation; reasons are the objective nature of the test and the language performance objectives which the test proposes to measure. (NEC)

Many secondary school English teachers have had no formal training in the teaching of writing and consequently equate written discourse with language propriety. This has been aggravated by the back to basics movement that has influenced secondary teaching across the country--especially as it has led to the development of legislation establishing…