I mean its a question of whether you think College Freshman should be reading the Odyssey or not? Isn't it? Obviously, the work teaches us a lot about what it is to be human. But if Jimmy the Greek down the street wants to be an auto mechanic, should he have to read it? Or, an even better question...if Pavel the Punisher wants to be a OBGYN, should he have to read the Odyssey as a Freshman? And about testing. Standardized testing is really just the minimum. All students are then forced to teach that medium. Doesn't the class room environment allow for testing? Its not like you make the statement that testing is bad, and then boom all testing is banned. If the educators are educated, then testing really isn't a problem. Anyways, I'm just babbleing at this point.