The federal government's No Child Left Behind Act has thrust
high-stakes testing (its goals, methods, and consequences) into the
educational limelight. The four-fold purpose of this book is to: 1)
describe the nature of high-stakes testing; 2) identify types of
collateral damage that have attended the testing programs; 3)
analyze methods different groups of people have chosen for coping
with the damage; and 4) suggest lessons to be learned from the
high-stakes-testing experience. The six groups of people whose
coping strategies are inspected include: a) politicians and their
staffs; b) educational administrators and their staffs; c) parents
and the public; d) test makers and test administrators; e)
teachers; and f) students. Importantly, the author avoids aligning
himself with the test-bashing rhetoric of those who oppose
high-stakes testing, especially the No Child Left Behind Act.
Key features of this outstanding new book include:
*Illustrative Cases. The book offers more than 350 cases of
collateral damage from high-stakes testing--and people's coping
strategies--as reported in newspapers over the 2002-2004 period.
*Background Perspectives. Part I examines the influence of
high-stakes testing on: 1) what schools teach; 2) how student
progress is evaluated; 3) how achievement standards are set; and 4)
how test results are used.
*Participant Responses. Part II, which is the heart of the book,
devotes a separate chapter to the coping strategies of each of the
major participants in the high-stakes testing movement: politicians
and their staffs, educational administrators and their staffs,
parents and the public, test-makers and test-givers, teachers, and
students.
*Summary Chapter. The last chapter (Lessons to Learn) offers
suggestions for minimizing collateral damage by adopting
alternative approaches not used in the creation of our current
high-stakes testing programs, particularly the federal government's
No Child Left Behind Act.
This book is appropriate for any of the following audiences:
students taking evaluation or administration courses in schools of
education, inservice administrators and teachers, policy makers,
and those members of the general public who are concerned about the
fate of schooling in America.
General
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