The Paradoxes of High Stakes Testing

This book examines the complexities of high-stakes testing in education, questioning its effectiveness and exploring ways to improve testing methods. It discusses the impact of testing on teaching and learning, and proposes strategies for better tests and accountability in educational policies. As a nation, we spend more than $1 billion a year on federally mandated educational tests that 30 million students must take each year. The country spends an additional $1.2 billion on test preparation materials designed to help students pass these tests. While test mandates were put in place with good intentions, increasingly educational leaders and policy makers are questioning these test based reform efforts. Some question whether these programs are doing more harm than good. Others call for the development of more and better tests. Given the vast amount of resources our nation pours into testing, is it time we pay closer attention to these testing programs? Is it time we hold the testing industry and policy makers accountable for the tests they make and use? Is it time we invest resources to develop new ways of testing our students? The Paradoxes of High-Stakes Testing explores these and other questions, as it helps parents, teachers, educational leaders, and policy makers better understand the complexities of educational policies that use tests as a lever for improving the quality of education. The book explores: -how testing is used to enable teachers and schools to be more effective and improve student learning, -why testing is so ingrained in the American psyche and why policy makers rely on testing policies to reform our educational system, -what we can learn from a long history of test-based reform efforts that have occurred over centuries and across continents, -what…