University Officials Doubt Merits Of Centralized Secondary Testing

Recent criticism by American educators of efforts toward establishing nationwide student testing programs for college met with varied response from University officials yesterday.

In a speech this week at an educational conference in Atlantic City, Fred M. Raubinger, New Jersey Commissioner of Education, labeled such programs "harmful to American schools." They "tend to rigidify the curriculum," he said, and cause "the dead hand of uniformity" to fall upon high school scholastic courses.

Agreeing with Raubinger's charge that any evaluation of high schools in terms of the Merit winners and semi-finalists they produce is "foolish," Wilbur J. Bender, Dean of Admissions, said he entirely supported the view that national testing should not determine college placement.

"I am on the side of a certain degree of anarchy in this matter," Bender stated. "I don't trust any system of central authority." He emphasized that at present "we don't really have satisfactory tests even in high school, and we need better ways than we have of identifying talent early--in the eighth or ninth grade."

The United States Office of Education is expected to announce this week a $1 million four-year "talent test" covering 1,400 secondary schools, as a possible pioneer step in the centralization of educational testing.

Francis Keppel, Dean of the Graduate School of Education, derided the notion that such a step would ever lead to government administration of tests. "The Federal Government will have more and more interest in education," maintained Keppel.

Richard G. King, Assistant Director of Admissions, commented that he didn't credit the argument that such programs as Merit narrowed school curriculum by making teachers concentrate on subjects likely to be tested.