A state education spokesman says the department regrets any misunderstanding. Says Tom Dunn: "We meant no disrespect for Levittown or those who live there."
The test was administered two weeks ago to 200,000 students statewide.
Levittown blasts 'shantytown' reference
NEW YORK The question, on the state's eighth-grade social studies test,
shows a photo of shacks labeled "A Shantytown during the
Depression." Students were asked whether such areas were known as
tenements, ghettos, Levittowns or Hoovervilles. (The correct answer
is Hoovervilles.)
In a letter to the state, the Levittown schools superintendent
calls the reference "derogatory, totally unnecessary and
inaccurate."
