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Recognition of quality and lack there of should be a basic goal of the education system, as it strives to direct resources and change situations that are not meeting the demands of accountability, yet it is clear that High Stakes testing does a poor job identifying good schools and good teachers as it ignored, by default important information that is not available on the test scores. It has been clear for countless years that socioeconomics, for example plays a much larger role in most high stakes test scores than the ability of the teacher, as it does in many other issues surrounding student performance and even long-term lifetime outcomes. Excellent teachers in poorer school districts will be misidentified as substandard due to factors beyond their control, and students will be held back based on circumstances outside of their control, if a single form of assessment is to be the rule.
The majority of students who failed the MCAS examinations were from school districts serving low social class and poor or working class families. The report supports one of the most fundamental arguments against high-stakes testing -- scores on high-stakes tests are only a measure of students' socioeconomic status (Clancy 2000; Kohn 2001; Sacks 1999; Wilgoren 2000; Zwick 2002). It seems that students' performances on high-stakes tests have "almost everything to do with parental socioeconomic backgrounds, and less to do with teachers, curricula, or what the children learned in the classroom" (Clancy 2000, A19). These tests merely perpetuate and reinforce inequalities in public education Kozol (1991) described over a decade ago. (Volger, 2004)
Yet, despite this clear indication that the tests are not testing what their implementers intend them to test has not seemed to create enough of a conflict to demand the return of multiple resource assessment, and schools and systems continue to validate the high stakes testing system without choice.
In conclusion, the validity of single aspect assessment is clearly in question, from the top of the chain of command to the youngest student struggling with test material and lecture-based curriculum, devoid of creativity. Several problems exist with using high stakes testing as...
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Johnson, Dale D., & Johnson, Bonnie. (2006). High Stakes: Poverty, Testing, and Failure in American Schools (2nd ed). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Lederman, Leon M. & Burnstein, Ray a. (Feb. 2006). Alternative Approaches to High-Stakes Testing. Phi Delta Kappan, v. 87 no6, 429-32. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from First Search: WilsonSelectPlus.
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Neill, Monty. (March/April 2006). The Case Against High-Stakes Testing. Principal, v. 85 no4, 28-32. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from First Search: WilsonSelectPlus.
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Savage, Tom V. (Sept./Oct. 2003). Assessment and Quality Social Studies. The Social Studies,…
Resources
Costigan, Arthur T. (Winter 2002). Teaching the Culture of High Stakes Testing: Listening to New Teachers. Action in Teacher Education, v. 23 no4, 28-34. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from First Search: WilsonSelectPlus.
Edwords, Fred. (May/June 2005). The Issue at Hand. The Humanist, v. 65 no3, 3. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from First Search: WilsonSelectPlus.
Johnson, Dale D., & Johnson, Bonnie. (2006). High Stakes: Poverty, Testing, and Failure in American Schools (2nd ed). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Jones, Brett D. & Egley, Robert J. (June 2006). Looking Through Different Lenses: Teachers' and Administrators' Views of Accountability. Phi Delta Kappan, v. 87 no10, 767-71. Retrieved October 31, 2006, from First Search: WilsonSelectPlus.
7). Although "one would expect higher quality assessment instruments that produce better information to make education decisions given NCLB-imposed penalties for districts associated with poor performance on the test...many states struggle with budget deficits and funding restrictions. They cannot allocate the funds necessary to improve the testing programs. States are forced to rely on large-scale assessments with too few questions and a narrow focus on skills and knowledge that are
Thus, students faced with fear and stress, are overwhelmed, concentrating on the test rather than on the goals of learning. They cannot concentrate on school work, understanding the importance of learning and education, because of stress that forces some to focus only on the test and others to drop out. III. High stakes testing disadvantages those with learning disabilities. In addition to lowering the teaching capacity of some teachers and students'
"Schools will not be able to attract high-quality teachers to a system that stifles richness and creativity and emphasizes a narrow band of knowledge and a very restricted set of tests to measure it." Consequently, struggling schools will get worse as teachers move to more affluent public or private schools to teach. The students will suffer the consequences of inadequate instruction the most. In the end, High Stakes Testing does
Because of this, students who had disabilities, low language proficiency, and who come from various ethnic backgrounds are viewed as such during the grading process. In addition, these kinds of assessments allow professors to not only assess whether the students have learned the subject matter, but also whether or not they have the skills to proceed in the academic realm. According to the Ohio Department of Education (n.d.), there
articles on high-stakes testing. Specifically, it will review the three articles, and include how the articles changed my personal views on high-stakes testing. Clearly, testing is a necessity in the educational environment, and yet, many forms of testing seem to be more a form of control and labeling rather than a way to accurately measure the student's expected and actual learning outcomes. High-stakes testing may help reinforce the school
High stakes testing is a concept of using assessments to make major decisions about students and to hold schools accountable. In the U.S. high stakes testing is part of a standardization process that sees students being assessed to evaluate progress; the tests not only impact whether a student will advance but also whether the school will receive incentives from the government. Because incentives are tied to achievement and the high