This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Alan H. Schoenfeld, Amber E. McConnell, Shaun L. Holmes, Nathaniel P. von der Embse, Laura Pendergast, Marcus A. Winters, Jay P. Greene, Greg Thompson, Pablo C. Ramirez, and Mark D. Shermis.
(2008). A Comparative Analysis of the Influence of High Stakes Testing Mandates in the Elementary School, Forum on Public Policy Online. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, sponsored by President George W. Bush, calls for 100 percent proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2014. This Federal mandate has caused all public schools in the United States to examine the programs in use to meet these requirements. In addition, states across the country have implemented a series of high-stakes testing to insure that school districts are accountable for measurable growth among the student population. New York State has been on the front line in the implementation of high-stakes testing and increasing accountability. New York State is now administering assessments in English/Language Arts as well as Mathematics to all students in grades three through eight. This empirical research examined how elementary teacher attitudes towards high-stakes testing influence the range of instructional methods they employ and their self-reported ability to engage students in enrichment activities within the classroom. [More] Descriptors: Comparative Analysis, High Stakes Tests, Elementary School Teachers, Teacher Attitudes
(2010). High-Stakes Testing and Its Relationship to Stress Levels of Secondary Teachers, ProQuest LLC. This study investigated the relationship between high-stakes testing and the stress levels of secondary teachers in Jackson's Jackson Public School District. The independent variables of age, gender, subject taught, teaching experience, degree and school level were used to determine the differences of the various groups. A survey was piloted and used to determine teachers' levels of stress. There was not a statistically significant difference between the stress levels of teachers who teach subjects that are measured by high-stakes testing and those who do not. There also was not a statistically significant difference between the stress levels of veteran teachers and novice teachers. Finally, there was no statistically significant difference between the stress levels of teachers based on their school's assigned level. Teacher demographic information was gathered via survey during the fall semester of 2009. There were 300 surveys sent out, and 140 were returned. The educators agreed that while high-stakes testing causes stress, it does not affect their self-efficacy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Self Efficacy, Testing, High Stakes Tests, Teaching Experience
(2015). The Intersectionality of Culturally Responsive Teaching and Performance Poetry: Validating Secondary Latino Youth and Their Community, Multicultural Perspectives. In this article the authors draw from culturally responsive teaching and multicultural education to describe performance poetry as an effective strategy for validating secondary aged Latino youths' lived experiences. Supported by teacher modeling and the incorporation of community poets, students created and shared their own powerful poems that provided authentic opportunities to engage in critical analysis of the poems and issues of equality, social justice, and equity. Performance poetry is successfully used as a tool for validation, honoring and learning from our community, and transformation. Students in this border community were validated in terms of the identities as members of multiple worlds, learned about their own neighborhood from community poets, and were transformed in their identities as community activists through performance poetry. However, in this era of standardized teaching and high-stakes testing, teaching through performance poetry is often not supported in schools. [More] Descriptors: Culturally Relevant Education, Poetry, Secondary School Curriculum, Hispanic American Culture
(2015). 70 Years and Going Strong, Issues in Teacher Education. The survival and prosperity of the California Council on the Education of Teachers/California Council on Teacher Education (CCET/CCTE) over its 70 years of existence is remarkable, especially given the historic roller coaster of educational policy and practice in the United States–the ups and downs of school financing, in addition to the ins and outs of methodology, reading instruction, assessments, and high-stakes testing. Working as the executive secretary with 10 CCET/CCTE Presidents gives the author a unique perspective into the organization. The author attributes the success of the CCET/CCTE to several factors, and discusses the following: (1) Policy; (2) Membership; (3) Funding; (4) Journals and Research; (5) Planning; and (6) Semi-Annual Conferences. Every educator in California has a stake in CCTE, and CCTE has a stake in every one of them, which results in the profession and organization remaining strong. [More] Descriptors: Teacher Education, Financial Support, Group Membership, Policy
(2015). Transition Planning and Writing Instruction: The Effects of a Brief Intervention, British Journal of Special Education. This study used a multiple probe design across behaviours to determine if four high school students with learning disabilities could plan post-school transition goals using a modified "GO 4 IT … NOW!" intervention while learning essential paragraph and essay writing skills. The results of this study indicate a functional relationship between the intervention and increased writing skills needed for high-stakes testing and increases in students' knowledge of transition planning. During baseline, students produced extremely short essays and did not include essential paragraph elements. After instruction, students wrote longer compositions and included more details, and paragraphs contained more paragraph elements. All participants increased essay quality during the intervention as measured by the rubric used to evaluate end-of-instruction writing prompts. [More] Descriptors: High School Students, Mental Retardation, Transitional Programs, Planning
(2012). An Investigation of No Child Left Behind and Its Primary Purpose to Close the Achievement Gap, ProQuest LLC. Research has suggested the 2001 No Child Left Behind high-stakes testing legislation has resulted in a narrowed curriculum, decreased opportunities for poor and minority students, and decreased job satisfaction among teachers and administrators. Given the considerably negative influence No Child Left Behind legislation has had on public education, learning whether the legislation has met its primary objective to close the achievement was the critically important question asked by this quantitative ex post facto study. The existence of an achievement gap, or lack thereof, was determined by using 2011 AIMS reading and math test data from Maricopa County non-Title I and Title I elementary school at the aggregate school level and at grades three, four, and five, the elementary grade levels tested. Achievement scores of students in high socio economic status (non-Title I) schools (SES) were compared with scores of students in low (Title I) SES schools. Results revealed statistically significant evidence that the achievement gap has not closed in grades three, four, and five, in the fourth largest county in the United States. The high cost of No Child Left Behind high-stakes testing test-driven, narrowed curriculum delivered by dissatisfied and demoralized teachers and administrators might have been worthwhile had the legislation been successful. However, statistically significant evidence shows that NCLB legislation failed and that continuing to support legislation that mandates high-stakes testing will only delay endeavors to find meaningful ways to authentically assess students and their schools and deliver on the promise of a quality education. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: www.proquest.com/en-US/products/disserta… [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Achievement Gap, Socioeconomic Status, Institutional Characteristics
(2015). Contrasting State-of-the-Art in the Machine Scoring of Short-Form Constructed Responses, Educational Assessment. This study compared short-form constructed responses evaluated by both human raters and machine scoring algorithms. The context was a public competition on which both public competitors and commercial vendors vied to develop machine scoring algorithms that would match or exceed the performance of operational human raters in a summative high-stakes testing environment. Data (N¬ =¬ 25,683) were drawn from three different states, employed 10 different prompts, and were drawn from two different secondary grade levels. Samples ranging in size from 2,130 to 2,999 were randomly selected from the data sets provided by the states and then randomly divided into three sets: a training set, a test set, and a validation set. Machine performance on all of the agreement measures failed to match that of the human raters. The current study concluded with recommendations on steps that might improve machine-scoring algorithms before they can be used in any operational way. [More] Descriptors: Test Scoring Machines, Responses, Interrater Reliability, High Stakes Tests
(2015). PSAT Testing: Blunder Causes Staffing Reassignment, Journal of Case Studies in Education. This case exemplifies the effects of high stakes standardized testing and accountability on education and school district personnel. The case focuses on a school counselor who inadvertently gave the students the actual PSAT (a preliminary college entrance exam) instead of a practice test during a college preparatory workshop. The error caused the counselor to be placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation. The counselor was later reassigned to another high school. [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Standardized Tests, Accountability, School Counselors
(2015). Summative and Formative Assessments in Mathematics Supporting the Goals of the Common Core Standards, Theory Into Practice. Being proficient in mathematics involves having rich and connected mathematical knowledge, being a strategic and reflective thinker and problem solver, and having productive mathematical beliefs and dispositions. This broad set of mathematics goals is central to the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics. High-stakes testing often drives instructional practice. In this article, I discuss test specifications and sample assessment items from the two major national testing consortia and the prospects that their assessments will be positive levers for change. For more than 20 years, the Mathematics Assessment Project has focused on the development of assessments that emphasize productive mathematical practices, most recently creating formative assessment lessons (FALs) designed to help teachers build up student understandings through focusing on student thinking while engaging in rich mathematical tasks. This article describes our recent work. [More] Descriptors: Summative Evaluation, Formative Evaluation, Mathematics Tests, Educational Objectives
(2010). The Impact of High-Stakes Testing on Student Proficiency in Low-Stakes Subjects: Evidence from Florida's Elementary Science Exam, Economics of Education Review. An important criticism of high-stakes testing policies–policies that reward or sanction schools based on their students' performance on standardized tests–is that they provide schools with an incentive to focus on those subjects that play a role in the accountability system while decreasing attention to those subjects that are not part of the program. This paper utilizes a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of Florida's high-stakes testing policy on student proficiency in the low-stakes subject of science. We confirm prior results that students in schools facing more immediate sanctions under the policy made substantial gains in the high-stakes subjects of math and reading. Contrary to the crowding-out hypothesis, we find that students in these schools made substantial achievement gains in the low-stakes subject of science as well. [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Academic Achievement, Elementary School Science, Science Tests
(2015). Governmentality and "My School": School Principals in Societies of Control, Educational Philosophy and Theory. The introduction of new accountabilities and techniques of government for the purposes of educational reform have created new complexities and tensions for school leadership. Policies such as the publishing of league tables in the UK, high stakes testing in the US and the introduction of the "My School" website in Australia are particularly significant for school principals. In this article I appeal to the work of Foucault and Deleuze to provide an alternate approach to understanding how principals are constituted as subjects through a range of practices and discourses associated with the introduction of the "My School" website. I specifically draw upon Foucault's notion of governmentality and Deleuze's notion of societies of control to provoke new lines of thought into these government practices. I argue that it is through the performative in the education system that school principals are becoming perpetually assessable subjects. [More] Descriptors: Principals, Educational Change, Accountability, Government School Relationship
(2015). Do You Really Want to Know? Elementary Music Programs and Potential in Utah, Arts Education Policy Review. This is the first of two articles reporting the results of a study by the author regarding the status of elementary music education in the state of Utah. This article focuses on how elementary music programs are structured (regular instruction with a music specialist, truncated programs, delegated programs, no formal music instruction, no music instruction). Factors that shape those structures are also addressed. While over 90¬ percent of elementary schools in the United States provide regular music instruction taught by certified music specialists to over 90¬ percent of their student populations, less than 10¬ percent of Utah's elementary population receives such instruction. Nearly half of the elementary students in the state receive no designated music instruction other than that provided by their regular elementary classroom teachers. The influence of budget constraints, school funding policies, No Child Left Behind, other accountability measures, high-stakes testing, urban/rural populations, and demographics are highlighted. Policy considerations are discussed. [More] Descriptors: Music Education, Elementary Education, Educational Methods, Performance Factors
(2015). Education "Reform" in Latino Detroit: Achievement Gap or Colonial Legacy?, Race, Ethnicity and Education. Using critical theory and an analysis of missionary reports and documentation describing education in colonial Puerto Rico and Mexico, the authors cross borders and time periods to socially and historically situate Spanish colonial educational methodologies and their contemporary use in one low-income Latino community in urban Detroit, Michigan. By invoking associations from the colonial past to shed light on contemporary struggles, this study problematizes US educational reform initiatives such as high stakes testing and school turnaround policies. The authors found that when the playing field is not equal, such reform efforts are but another in a long line of colonial and neo-colonial methodologies that further disenfranchise Latino youth and push them out of school. [More] Descriptors: Educational Change, Low Income, School Turnaround, Hispanic Americans
(2015). Potential Psychosocial and Instructional Consequences of the Common Core State Standards: Implications for Research and Practice, Contemporary School Psychology. Despite the recent rollout of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), CCSS-aligned assessments, and test-based teacher evaluation systems, questions remain regarding the impact that these accountability policies will have on teachers and students. This article discusses the psychosocial and instructional consequences of test-based accountability policies and the role that school psychologists may have in supporting schools and teachers. Research on the influence of high-stakes testing and accountability practices on teacher well-being and stress is first reviewed. Then, research on the use of counterproductive instructional practices and the impact of these counterproductive instructional practices on student learning, test performance, and educational advancement is discussed. School psychologists may provide leadership, consultation, and support to assist schools and teachers in promoting student learning and addressing expected and unexpected challenges faced by the new policies and practices resulting from the CCSS and CCSS-aligned assessments. [More] Descriptors: State Standards, Academic Standards, Accountability, Educational Policy
(2013). NAPLAN, MySchool and Accountability: Teacher Perceptions of the Effects of Testing, International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives. This paper explores Rizvi and Lingard's (2010) idea of the "local vernacular" of the global education policy trend of using high-stakes testing to increase accountability and transparency, and by extension quality, within schools and education systems in Australia. In the first part of the paper a brief context of the policy trajectory of National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is given in Australia. In the second part, empirical evidence drawn from a survey of teachers in Western Australia (WA) and South Australia (SA) is used to explore teacher perceptions of the impacts a high-stakes testing regime is having on student learning, relationships with parents and pedagogy in specific sites. After the 2007 Australian Federal election, one of Labor's policy objectives was to deliver an "Education Revolution" designed to improve both the equity and excellence in the Australian school system (Rudd & Gillard, 2008). This reform agenda aims to "deliver real changes" through: "raising the quality of teaching in our schools" and "improving transparency and accountability of schools and school systems" (Rudd & Gillard, 2008, p. 5). Central to this linking of accountability, the transparency of schools and school systems and raising teaching quality was the creation of a regime of testing (NAPLAN) that would generate data about the attainment of basic literacy and numeracy skills by students in Australian schools. [More] Descriptors: Accountability, Teacher Attitudes, High Stakes Tests, Global Education