When I was 4, I spent my days in the backyard, digging trenches, chasing lizards and playing with any number of my 10 brothers and sisters.

Had someone given me a literacy test, I surely would have failed. I was an unlettered preschooler.

No one tried to instruct me in reading until I showed up for first grade, where a Dominican nun taught me phonics. I paid attention for one reason: the sports pages.

When the San Francisco Giants played night games, my bedtime invariably arrived before the ninth inning. The best way to find out what happened -- whether Willie Mays had hit another home run -- was to read the morning paper.

Despite my toddling illiteracy and early lowbrow reading habits, I somehow eventually earned a degree in English from Princeton.

Looking back, I am tremendously grateful no one ever pulled me out of my backyard and tried to teach me the A-B-Cs as preparation for a federally mandated test.

That is one reason I believe congressional Democrats may do at least one good thing this year: Bills to reauthorize the Head Start program recently approved by House and Senate committees would terminate the mandatory testing President Bush has instituted for all 4- and 5-year olds in the program. This testing has a properly Orwellian name -- "The National Reporting System" (NRS) -- and deserves to die.

Enacted in 1965, Head Start funds public and private groups that run local centers which provide what the Head Start Bureau calls "comprehensive child development services" for preschoolers from poor families. In 1966, Head Start enrolled 733,000 children and spent $198.9 million. By 2005, enrollment had increased modestly to 906,993, but spending had rocketed to $6.8 billion.

In his first term, Bush embraced two ideas for Head Start. One was good, the other bad.

The good idea was to allow several states to take over from the federal government in managing local Head Start programs. (Congressional Democrats, joined by some Republicans, blocked this.)

The bad idea was to require testing of all enrolled 4- and 5-year olds. The goal, as the White House put it, was to "develop a new accountability system for Head Start to ensure that every center meets high standards in teaching children early literacy, language and mathematical skills."

Testing started in 2003. Continued...