scholarly journals High-Stakes Testing & Student Learning

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey L. Amrein ◽  
David C. Berliner
Keyword(s):  
Student Learning ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
Testing Program ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Testing Policies

A brief history of high-stakes testing is followed by an analysis of eighteen states with severe consequences attached to their testing programs. These 18 states were examined to see if their high-stakes testing programs were affecting student learning, the intended outcome of high-stakes testing policies promoted throughout the nation. Scores on the individual tests that states use were not analyzed for evidence of learning. Such scores are easily manipulated through test-preparation programs, narrow curricula focus, exclusion of certain students, and so forth. Student learning was measured by means of additional tests covering some of the same domain as each state's own high-stakes test. The question asked was whether transfer to these domains occurs as a function of a state's high-stakes testing program.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Rethinking the Connection Between High-Stakes Testing Policy and Classroom Instruction

2007 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
John B. Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Classroom Instruction ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Road ◽  
Collegial Interactions ◽  
Instructional Content ◽  
Using Data ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Testing Policies

In this article, the author examines the link between high-stakes testing policies and classroom instruction. Using data from classroom observations and interviews with teachers, he argues that these policies influence instruction but are mediated by teachers and filtered through their collegial interactions. He shows that teachers link the influence of high-stakes testing policies to instructional content (the knowledge and skills that they emphasize) more often than pedagogy (how they engage students around instructional content). As a result, didactic instruction dominates, especially in predominantly low-income and African American schools, in a policy environment that encourages addressing racial and class achievement gaps by increasing the use of interactive forms of instruction. The author concludes that researchers should be cautious not to overstate the impact of these policies on pedagogy and educational equity.

scholarly journals Third through Sixth Graders' Perceptions of High-Stakes Testing

2005 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheri Foster Triplett ◽  
Mary Alice Barksdale
Keyword(s):  
Test Anxiety ◽  
Test Preparation ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Sixth Graders ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Content Areas ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
High Stakes Tests ◽  
Written Descriptions

This study examined elementary students' perceptions of high-stakes testing through the use of drawings and writings. On the day after students completed their high-stakes tests in the spring, 225 students were asked to “draw a picture about your recent testing experience.” The same students then responded in writing to the prompt “tell me about your picture.” During data analysis, nine categories were constructed from the themes in students' drawings and written descriptions: Emotions, Easy, Content Areas, Teacher Role, Student Metaphors, Fire, Power/Politics, Adult Language, and Culture of Testing. Each of these categories was supported by drawings and written descriptions. Two additional categories were compelling because of their prevalence in students' drawings: Accoutrements of Testing and Isolation. The researchers examine the prevailing negativity in students' responses and suggest ways to decrease students' overall test anxiety, including making changes in the overall testing culture and changing the role teachers play in test preparation.

scholarly journals Cheating in the first, second, and third degree: Educators' responses to high-stakes testing

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Amrein-Beardsley ◽  
David C. Berliner ◽  
Sharon Rideau
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Convenience Sample ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data ◽  
Testing Policies

Educators are under tremendous pressure to ensure that their students perform well on tests.  Unfortunately, this pressure has caused some educators to cheat.  The purpose of this study was to investigate the types of, and degrees to which, a sample of teachers in Arizona were aware of, or had themselves engaged in test-related cheating practices as a function of the high-stakes testing policies of No Child Left Behind. A near census sample of teachers was surveyed, with valid responses obtained from about 5 percent, totaling just over 3,000 teachers. In addition, one small convenience sample of teachers was interviewed, and another participated in a focus group. Data revealed that cheating occurs and that educators can be quite clever when doing so. But how one defines cheating makes it difficult to quantify the frequency with which educators engage in such practices. Our analysis thus required us to think about a taxonomy of cheating based on the definitions of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree offenses in the field of law. These categories were analyzed to help educators better define, and be more aware of others' and their own cheating practices, in an attempt to inform local testing policies and procedures.

scholarly journals LEAP-ing Toward Accountability? Ideology, Practice, and the Voices of Louisiana Educators

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jim Horn
Keyword(s):  
School Climate ◽  
School Administration ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Document Analysis ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Testing Program ◽  
State Test ◽  
Testing Practice ◽  
Teaching Curriculum ◽  
Development Of Attitudes

Louisiana educators at an urban K-5 school participated in a two-year study to share their experiences related to the implementation of a state high-stakes testing program (LEAP 21) that is used to make promotion decisions in grades 4 and 8. Observations, document analysis, and interviews were used to study the development of attitudes, perceptions, and practices related to the use of and consequences emanating from this testing practice. It was found that the state test has far-reaching effects on teaching, curriculum, school climate, students, parents, and school administration. The ideology of testing as a positive reform idea and the practice of testing as a constant and tangible threat, form the two poles of an experiential field that these educators encounter as figure and ground. The avoidance of failure and the threat of failure push these educators toward an ideological commitment to testing.

Introduction

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Hochschild ◽  
Nathan Scovronick
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
American Dream ◽  
School Funding ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Individual

THE AMERICAN DREAM IS A POWERFUL CONCEPT. It encourages each person who lives in the United States to pursue success, and it creates the framework within which everyone can do it. It holds each person responsible for achieving his or her own dreams, while generating shared values and behaviors needed to persuade Americans that they have a real chance to achieve them. It holds out a vision of both individual success and the collective good of all. From the perspective of the individual, the ideology is as compelling as it is simple. “I am an American, so I have the freedom and opportunity to make whatever I want of my life. I can succeed by working hard and using my talents; if I fail, it will be my own fault. Success is honorable, and failure is not. In order to make sure that my children and grandchildren have the same freedom and opportunities that I do, I have a responsibility to be a good citizen— to respect those whose vision of success is different from my own, to help make sure that everyone has an equal chance to succeed, to participate in the democratic process, and to teach my children to be proud of this country.” Not all residents of the United States believe all of those things, of course, and some believe none of them. Nevertheless, this American dream is surprisingly close to what most Americans have believed through most of recent American history. Public schools are where it is all supposed to start—they are the central institutions for bringing both parts of the dream into practice. Americans expect schools not only to help students reach their potential as individuals but also to make them good citizens who will maintain the nation’s values and institutions, help them flourish, and pass them on to the next generation. The American public widely endorses both of these broad goals, values public education, and supports it with an extraordinary level of resources. Despite this consensus Americans disagree intensely about the education policies that will best help us achieve this dual goal. In recent years disputes over educational issues have involved all the branches and levels of government and have affected millions of students. The controversies—over matters like school funding, vouchers, bilingual education, high-stakes testing, desegregation, and creationism—seem, at first glance, to be separate problems.

Assessing the field

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Frawley ◽  
Larissa McLean Davies
Keyword(s):  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Pedagogical Content ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Writing Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Test ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the interface between high-stakes testing, disciplinary knowledge and teachers’ pedagogy in English. The most prevalent standardized assessment form in the current Australian context is the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) undertaken each year by students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in all Australian States and Territories. Understood in the context of the Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM) (Sahlberg, 2011, pp. 100-101) – the NAPLAN tests serve as a bi-partisan governmental response to a perceived need to improve the quality of teachers and schools in Australia. Design/methodology/approach – The authors draw on the key sociological constructs of Pierre Bourdieu (1995) to analyze the ways in which the writing component of the suite of NAPLAN tests serves to legitimize and idealize particular kinds of writing, writers and teachers of writing. Findings – The authors suggest that in the absence of current literacy policy and curriculum instability, this national test shapes the literacy field, influencing the direction of writing practices and pedagogy, and, therefore, subject English itself, in Australian classrooms. Originality/value – This assessment intervention is considered in the context of the history of writing, and addresses accordingly fundamental questions concerning the changing nature of the writing/writerly field, the impact of assessment on teachers’ conceptions of disciplinarity and pedagogical content knowledge and students’ experiences of writing and thinking in subject English.

Bad Tests or Bad Test Use? A Case of SAT Use to Examine Why We Need Stakeholder Conversations on Validity

2013 ◽  
Vol 115 (9) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madhabi Chatterji
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Teachers College ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Stakeholder Perspectives ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Test Use ◽  
Nclb Act

Background Much is still unknown or unclear about how and where validity issues arise in high stakes testing situations in education, and ways by which we can rectify validity problems in practice and policy contexts. Purpose This paper is the Foreword to the special issue of the Teachers College Record, When Education Measures Go Public – Stakeholder Perspectives on How and Why Validity Breaks Down. Method The paper analyzes a recent case involving an application of the SAT to highlight tensions between validity and test score use in high stakes school accountability environments driven by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. It uses the case study as a vehicle to introduce the individual papers and authors in the section. Conclusions There are information and power gaps among those who set societal priorities for using tests for high stakes purposes, those who design and conduct psychometric research on tests and testing programs, and those who could eventually face consequences of assessment misuse. These gaps could be addressed through thoughtful exchanges among key assessment stakeholders, as this special issue shows.

School Leaders in a Time of Accountability and Data Use

2018 ◽  
pp. 235-259
Author(s):  
Evan G. Mense ◽  
Dana M. Griggs ◽  
Julius N. Shanks
Keyword(s):  
Educational Leadership ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Leaders ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Leadership Preparation ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Preparation Programs ◽  
School Improvement Plan ◽  
Educational Leadership Programs ◽  
Quality School

School leaders are challenged with the task of high stakes testing and student achievement. In the data-driven K-12 setting, it is necessary to have quality school leaders in place. Universities are charged with preparing these quality school leaders. Educational leadership programs need to contain quality structure and key components. These key components required of leadership preparation programs consist of data, leadership style/theories, data culture/climate school leader organizational and management, school community relations, professional development, school/teacher improvement, school improvement plan (SIP), implementation of SIP goals, and field experience. These key components need to encompass the national educational leadership preparation (NELP) standards and the professional standards for educational leaders (PSEL) standards to maintain a successful educational leadership program.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document