High Stakes
High Stakes

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1998-12-16

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 0309173469

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Everyone is in favor of "high education standards" and "fair testing" of student achievement, but there is little agreement as to what these terms actually mean. High Stakes looks at how testing affects critical decisions for American students. As more and more tests are introduced into the country's schools, it becomes increasingly important to know how those tests are usedâ€"and misusedâ€"in assessing children's performance and achievements. High Stakes focuses on how testing is used in schools to make decisions about tracking and placement, promotion and retention, and awarding or withholding high school diplomas. This book sorts out the controversies that emerge when a test score can open or close gates on a student's educational pathway. The expert panel: Proposes how to judge the appropriateness of a test. Explores how to make tests reliable, valid, and fair. Puts forward strategies and practices to promote proper test use. Recommends how decisionmakers in education shouldâ€"and should notâ€"use test results. The book discusses common misuses of testing, their political and social context, what happens when test issues are taken to court, special student populations, social promotion, and more. High Stakes will be of interest to anyone concerned about the long-term implications for individual students of picking up that Number 2 pencil: policymakers, education administrators, test designers, teachers, and parents.

The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing
The Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

Author: Gail M. Jones

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2003-04-09

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 1461715474

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To better understand how high-stakes accountability has influenced teaching and learning, this book takes an in-depth look at the myriad consequences that high-stakes tests hold for students, teachers, administrators, and the public. By focusing on these tests and spending large amounts of time on test preparation and driving teachers to teach low-level, rote memorization, schools are essentially wiping out non-tested subjects such as science, social studies, physical education, and the arts. Although testing is promoted as a strategy for improving education for all, research shows that testing has differential effects on students with special needs, minority students, students living in poverty, and those for whom English is a second language. The Unintended Consequences of High Stakes Testing unpacks the assumptions and philosophical foundations on which testing policies are based. The authors' arguments are grounded in extensive interviews and research. Through an examination of research, these authors show that high-stakes testing promotes students' dependence on extrinsic motivation at the cost of intrinsic motivation and the associated love of learning—which has tangible impacts on their education and lives. Features: -Examines how high stakes testing from the perspectives of teachers, students, and adminstrators. -Considers how testing impacts the curriculum including tested subjects such as reading, writing, and mathematics as well as non-tested subjects such as science, social studies, physical education, and the arts. -Documents how teachers and administrators engage in test preparation and discusses ethical and unethical test preparation practices. -Reviews the evolution of testing through history and how it mpacts the curriculum. -Examines the differential effects of testing on students with special needs, minority students, students living in poverty, and those for whom English is a second language.

The Case Against Standardized Testing
The Case Against Standardized Testing

Author: Alfie Kohn

Publisher: Heinemann Educational Books

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13:

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Kohn's central message is that standardized tests are "not a force of nature but a force of politics--and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed."

High-Stakes Testing
High-Stakes Testing

Author: R. Murray Thomas

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-03-23

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1135601739

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The federal government's No Child Left Behind Act has thrust high-stakes testing - its goals, methods, and consequences - into the educational limelight. The four-fold purpose of this book is to: describe the nature of high-stakes testing; identify types of collateral damage that have attended the testing programs; analyze methods different groups of people have chosen for coping with the damage and suggest lessons to be learned from the high-stakes-testing experience. The six groups of people whose coping strategies are inspected include: politicians and their staffs; educational administrators and their staffs; parents and the public; test makers and test administrators; teachers and students. Importantly, the author avoids aligning himself with the test-bashing rhetoric of those who oppose high-stakes testing, especially the No Child Left Behind Act. Key features of this outstanding new book include: illustrative cases. The book offers more than 350 cases of collateral damage from high-stakes testing--and people's coping strategies--as reported in newspapers over the 2002-2004 period. background perspectives. Part I examines the influence of high-stakes testing on: 1) what schools teach; 2) how student progress is evaluated; 3) how achievement standards are set; and 4) how test results are used. participant responses. Part II, which is the heart of the book, devotes a separate chapter to the coping strategies of each of the major participants in the high-stakes testing movement: politicians and their staffs, educational administrators and their staffs, parents and the public, test-makers and test-givers, teachers, and students. summary chapter. The last chapter (Lessons to Learn) offers suggestions for minimizing collateral damage by adopting alternative approaches not used in the creation of our current high-stakes testing programs, particularly the federal government's No Child Left Behind Act. This book is appropriate for any of the following audiences: students taking evaluation or administration courses in schools of education, inservice administrators and teachers, policy makers, and those members of the general public who are concerned about the fate of schooling in America.

The Case Against the SAT
The Case Against the SAT

Author: James Crouse

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1988-03-31

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0226121429

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The College Entrance Examination Board and the Educational Testing Service claim that the SAT helps colleges select students, helps college-bound students select appropriate institutions, and furthers equality of opportunity. But does it really? Drawing on three national surveys and on hundreds of studies conducted by colleges, the authors refute the justifications the College Board and the ETS give for requiring high school students to take the SAT. They show that the test neither helps colleges and universities improve their admissions decisions nor helps applicants choose schools at which they will be successful. They outline the adverse effect the SAT has on students from nonwhite and low-income backgrounds. They also question the ability of the College Board and the ETS to monitor themselves adequately. The authors do not, however, recommend abolishing either college admissions testing or the College Board and the ETS. Rather, they propose dropping the SAT and relying on such already available measures as students' high school coursework and grades, and they raise the possibility that new achievement tests that measure the mastery of high school courses could be developed to replace the SAT.

The Test
The Test

Author: Anya Kamenetz

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2015-01-06

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1610394429

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"[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system." -- New York Times Book Review The Test is an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it points the way toward a hopeful future of better tests and happier kids.

High Stakes Testing
High Stakes Testing

Author: Louis J. Kruger

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 1136864504

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Meet the challenges of high stakes testing in the practice of school psychology School psychologists can be a positive influence on how students, teachers, parents, schools, and communities cope with the challenges and opportunities associated with high stakes testing. Unfortunately, there has been a significant lack of literature to guide school psychologists and related school-based practitioners on this topic. High Stakes Testing: New Challenges and Opportunities for School Psychology is a timely groundbreaking book that provides useful and thought-provoking information to help psychologists meet the challenges of high stakes testing and create new roles for themselves in helping children succeed. This book discusses practical ways to help provide academic support to facilitate student success on high stakes tests, reduce the impact of stress associated with high stakes testing, assess the data from the tests to improve programs, and take a leadership role in the appropriate use of the tests. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001(NCLB) and its accountability provisions has helped create and sustain a climate where student performance on state-created achievement tests often has high stakes implications for students, families, and schools. High Stakes Testing: New Challenges and Opportunities for School Psychology provides important background information about high stakes testing, including the legal, historical, and political context of high stakes testing, pertinent psychometrics, and a review of research on academic and non-academic outcomes as it relates to high stakes testing. Using this information as a foundation, the book then identifies new roles and opportunities for school psychologists with respect to high stakes testing. This book is comprehensively referenced. Topics in High Stakes Testing: New Challenges and Opportunities for School Psychology include: advocating for the appropriate use of state-wide assessments the influence of item response theory (IRT) on the development of high stakes tests whether the accountability system of NCLB is truly improving student’s learning the impact of high stakes tests on classroom instruction and student motivation strategies for helping students succeed on high stakes tests available resources to cope with the stress of high stakes testing and more High Stakes Testing: New Challenges and Opportunities for School Psychology is a thought-provoking, horizon-expanding resource for school psychologists, public school educators, administrators, school counselors, curriculum coordinators, and special education teachers involved in organizing, administering, and preparing students to take high stakes tests.

Defending Standardized Testing
Defending Standardized Testing

Author: Richard Phelps

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005-03-23

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 113561427X

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Everyone invested in the success of American education, from parents to policymakers, are affected by or concerned about educational testing. The education reform movement of the past 15 years has focused on raising academic standards. Some standards advocates attach a testing mechanism to gauge the extent to which high standards are actually accomplished. On the other hand, some critics view the push for standards and testing as precisely what ails American education. They view testing generally as an impediment to reform, an antiquated technology that reflects an antiquated view of teaching, learning, and social organization, and perpetuates inequality. At the same time, the testing profession has produced advances in the format, accuracy, dependability, and utility of tests. Never before has obtaining such an abundance of accurate and useful information about student learning been possible. And, never before has the American public been in such agreement about the value of testing for measuring student performance, monitoring the performance of educational systems, gauging the success of reforms, and accountability. acknowledge the benefits of testing. Many of these measurement specialists also believe that those benefits have been insufficiently articulated in the public discussions of testing. Although much has been written over the past decade on standardized testing policy, little has been published by measurement specialists who support the use of external, high-stakes standardized testing. Most of the published material has been written by those opposed to such testing. The contributing authors of this volume are both accomplished researchers and practitioners who are respected and admired worldwide. They bring to the project an abundance of experience working with standardized tests. standardized testing situation, arguments, and strategies; explain and refute many of the common criticisms of standardized testing; document the public support for, and the realized benefits of, standardized testing; acknowledge the genuine limitations of, and suggest improvements to, testing practices; provide guidance for structuring and administering large-scale testing programs in light of public preferences and the "No Child Left Behind Act" requirements; and present a defense of standardized testing and a practical vision for its promise and future. Defending Standardized Testing minimizes the use of technical jargon so as to appeal to all who have a stake in American educational reform - parents, policy makers, school board members, teachers, administrators, and measurement specialists.