Impact of High Stakes Testing

In General

• Faulty logic to assume that Bush's plan will solve problems of student failure
• At best it is a distraction from what should be the focus of education - you don't feed a starving cow by weighing it
• Kohn (200) suggests that standardized tests best measure the size of the test-takers home.

On Educational Reform

• There is some documentation to suggest that they knew it wouldn't work
• Questions of reliability, validity, curriculum alignment, and all of the biases (cultural, historical, gender, educational and psychometric biases.
• For poor and minority kids, it is the gatekeeper to more education and an invitation to exit school early.
• It is a disaster for Bilingual Educators

On Schooling

• When schools close, it marks the beginning of the deterioration of community
• Emphasis on Linguistic and Mathematical measures ignores more authentic assessments and the other forms of intelligences that we all possess (Gardner, 1983)
• University of California System decides to drop the SAT as an admission criteria, because it encourages students to prepare for college in the wrong way

On Parents

• Complex Issue
• For unsophisticated parents who probably were not well schooled themselves, it offers no hope
• For sophisticated parents, it skews their already not so great perceptions of what is a good teacher knowledge base

On Teachers

• CEO Prep Test

On Students

• Encourages the notion that there is some hidden information or trick to taking the test
• Reinforces notion of "cache knowledge" instead of critical thinking

Elizabeth Moore Rhodes - May 29th, 2002