scholarly journals Look How Far We Haven’t Come: The Possible Implications of Current Educational Context and Practices for Young Black Males by Amanda VandeHei Carter

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 142
Author(s):  
Amanda VandeHei Carter
Keyword(s):  
Identity Development ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
General Public ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
K 12

Data that are derived from high stakes testing in the United States have created rhetoric of fear and criticism around our public K–12 educational system. Stakeholders often blame these low-test scores on the school, administration, or teachers. Due to the way that this data is shared with the general public Different from this narrative, within many schools, high stakes testing data are reported in an aggregated fashion, usually by students’ race. While the general public may be pointing their finger at schools, administrators, or teachers for poorly achieving students, these folks can quickly shift the blame to certain populations of students who are not performing well on standardized tests. Teachers spend time sorting and labeling children into groups and categories in an effort to “fix the problem”. While sometimes well intended, the planning, instruction, and assessment of daily and weekly instruction is focused on an end result of getting particular groups of students to score better on standardized tests. This article provides the counter narrative to this conversation and it strives to tell the story of a student who has fallen victim to standardized unauthentic curriculum. Multiple case study was the methodology used for this research. Consistent with this methodology, the data were gathered through one-on-one interviews, classroom observations, and small group discussions. Hardiman’s model of White Identity Development (WID) and Freebody and Luke’s four resources model were the conceptual frameworks that were used to guide the study. The findings shared in this article represent the data collected from one participant in this multiple case study.

“As the Test Collapses In”: Teaching and Learning Amid High-Stakes Testing in Two Urban Elementary Classrooms

2020 ◽  
pp. 004208592090226
Author(s):  
Michiko Hikida ◽  
Laura A. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Elementary Classrooms ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
Ethnographic Data

Although there is much research detailing the pedagogical constraints of high-stakes testing (HST), there is less that examines teachers’ practices within and beyond its control. This multiple case study analyzes ethnographic data to explore two teachers’ practices in an urban context where HST was relevant. Drawing on Foucault’s conceptualization of a plague-stricken town, we explore the mobilization of disciplinary power associated with HST. We then examine teachers’ agency as they taught beyond the administrative gaze. We found that teachers sometimes complied with administrative mandates while also articulating tensions of providing access and actively resisting/critiquing the test.

A Comparative Study of Higher-Order Thinking and Teaching in the United States and United Kingdom

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-63
Author(s):  
Vibhakumari Solanki ◽  
Brian R. Evans
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
Higher Order Thinking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The United Kingdom

The United States and the United Kingdom have used standardized high-stakes testing as a measurement of students’ cognitive level to determine success in the 21st century. Standardized tests have given teachers guidance to help them determine what to teach students and how to teach to the test. With such increased emphasis on high-stakes standardized tests, students are being taught based on tested content. This study evaluates the frequency of higher-and lower-order items in the respective country’s standardized test, and analyzes the teaching of higher-order thinking within classroom instruction.

scholarly journals In Education and in Work: The Globalized Community College

2002 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-77
Author(s):  
John S. Levin
Keyword(s):  
Community College ◽  
Community Colleges ◽  
Organizational Context ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Work Behaviors ◽  
Educational Programming ◽  
Field Methods ◽  
Multiple Case

This is a multiple case study of seven colleges using field methods research to examine institutional life and organizational context. This study determines that community colleges in both Canada and the United States exhibited educational and work behaviors in the 1990s consistent with the globalization process. Education was oriented to the marketplace, and the needs of business and industry received high priority in educational programming. Work within these institutions was valued for and carried out with economic ends: to realize productivity and efficiency.

High-Stakes Testing, Standardization, and Inequality in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne Au
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Standardized Tests ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Racial Achievement

High-stakes standardized tests standardize which knowledge is assessed, and because consequences are tied to their results, they have the impact of standardizing classroom content, teaching, and learning. The result is that students whose cultural identities do not fit the standardized norms created by test-based must either adapt or are left out of the curriculum and the classroom. This happens in a few key ways. First, as schools face increased pressure to raise test scores, curriculum content that embraces the diversity of student history, culture, and experience gets pushed out. In turn, this standardization of content limits the diversity of teacher and student identities expressed in classroom pedagogical experiences. Finally, given the disparate racial achievement on high-stakes tests, students of color face more intense pressure to perform, while at the same time their educational experiences become increasingly restricted and less rich than those of affluent, whiter students. Additionally, even though educational research has consistently shown that high-stakes testing correlates most strongly with the socioeconomic backgrounds of students and their communities, policymakers and many educators presume that these tests are offer objective measurements of individual merit. This mistaken belief ulitmately serves to hide and justify existing inequalities in the United States under the notion of individual achievement. The overall result being that high-stakes, standardized tests reproduce educational inequalities associated with race and class in the United States.

High Stakes Testing and Educational Inequality in K-12 Schools

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald W. Solórzano
Keyword(s):  
Students Of Color ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Curriculum And Instruction ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
School Personnel ◽  
The United States ◽  
Low Achievement ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
K 12

The ubiquitous use of high stakes tests in K-12 schools in the United States has a deleterious effect on students of color (e.g., Black and Latino). Punitive policies related to test outcomes, such as retention and graduation, have been particularly damaging. In fact, the historical use of tests has been linked to exclusionary and racist motives resulting in discriminatory practices in college admissions while leading to genetic and cultural deficit theories to explain low achievement for students of color. The legacy of these early uses of tests has maintained its adverse presence in today’s educational landscape. National data on grade retention, high school dropout rates, and achievement indicate that students of color are disproportionately penalized by school-based policies resulting in an unequal educational experience. Unfortunately, these trends have been persistent reflecting achievement gaps between White and Asian students and Latino and Black students, and where, in most cases, no meaningful progress in eliminating these gaps has been made. English learners are particularly harmed by these policies and tests since language and opportunity to learn (OTL) concerns persist. Trends of low achievement are attributed to poorly resourced schools, cultural deficit theories employed by school personnel, and the invalid use of tests. Schools could serve students better by employing a curriculum and instruction that is culturally and linguistically relevant, that integrates communities and schools to critically analyze their educational and social-political status and agency thus empowering both for lasting change. Furthermore, teachers need to be empowered to be instructional leaders who critically evaluate their curriculum and instruction so as to educate and liberate students of color.

The Common Core and the Evasion of Curriculum

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 666-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Guillory
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Common Core ◽  
High Stakes Testing ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Standards ◽  
National Standards ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
K 12

Although the common core state standards initiative was adopted with little controversy in forty-eight states, it soon became the target of attacks both on the right, for the mistaken perception that public education was being taken over by the federal government, and on the left, in response to the institution of an all-too-real draconian testing regime that served the needs more of the testing companies and other corporate agents than of students or teachers. Despite these attacks, it seems likely that the initiative will prevail in most states, perhaps both for better and for worse. My position is that real national standards—not simply state standards— are a desirable goal for the United States today, and long overdue. The “local control” of public education by states and school districts has been, let us admit, the greatest flaw of the K-12 system and a powerful obstruction to the reform of that system. On the other hand, I agree with many (Bryant; Hacker and Dreifus; Ravitch) who see the Common Core as a misguided effort at reform, fatally undermined by the use of punitive, high-stakes testing as the driver of implementation (Loveless). Opting for this strategy, the promoters of the Common Core unfortunately imposed a top-down procedure just where it is least appropriate. Testing, by its very nature, ought to arise from the classroom, the scene of a unique relation between teacher and students. This is not to deny that universal testing is possible and even necessary but rather to acknowledge that the more distant tests are from the scene of teaching, the more limited their informational value.

Curriculum reform and policy considerations: A multiple case study of the inclusion of modern band into music teacher preparation programmes

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Stevens Prendergast ◽  
Brittany Nixon May
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Multiple Case Study ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Music Teacher Education ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Multiple Case

Many music teacher education programmes in the United States are increasingly offering classes that fall within the scope of modern band. A number of policies impact music teacher education curricula in the United States. These include both hard policies, such as teacher certification and NASM accreditation requirements, as well as soft policies, such as institutional traditions. In this multiple case study, the researchers interviewed three music teacher educators from different universities to examine their individual experiences incorporating modern band into their music education curricula and identify any policy issues that arose as they proposed and instituted curricular changes. The themes identified with regard to implementing modern band into the music teacher education curriculum included time, support, curricular positioning, equity and access. Notably, the participants did not cite any specific policy issues as barriers to implementing modern band into music education coursework.

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