This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Val Klenowski, Jill P. Koyama, Paula Groves, Wayne E. Wright, Mike Zwart, Kathy Emery, Rosemary K. Murray, Gordon Cawelti, Judi E. Vanderhaar, and Alice A. Kozen.
(2005). Speeding, Tax Fraud, and Teaching to the Test. CSE Report 659, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Educators worry that high-stakes testing will induce teachers and their students to focus only on the test and ignore other, untested aspects of knowledge. Some counter that although this may be true, knowing something is better than knowing nothing and many students would benefit even by learning the material that is to be tested. Using the metaphor of deterring drivers from speeding, it is shown that the optimal rules for high-stakes testing depend on the costs of learning and of monitoring. For high cost learners, and when monitoring technology is inefficient, it is better to announce what will be tested. For efficient learners, de-emphasizing the test itself is the right strategy. This is analogous to telling drivers where the police are posted when police are few. At least there will be no speeding on those roads. When police are abundant or when the fine is high relative to the benefit from speeding, it is better to keep police locations secret, which results in obeying the law everywhere. Children who are high cost learners are less likely to learn all the material and therefore learn more when they are told what is on the exam. The same logic also implies that tests should be clearly defined for younger children, but more amorphous for more advanced students. [More] Descriptors: Figurative Language, Testing, High Stakes Tests, Student Evaluation
(2002). "Doesn't It Feel Morbid Here?" High-Stakes Testing and the Widening of the Equity Gap, Educational Foundations. Discusses how federal policies in educational practice widen the equity gap between privileged and underprivileged students and schools. Using a case study of a North Carolina elementary school, the paper argues that high stakes testing policies of excellence actually worsen conditions of teaching and learning and push imperative principles of equity and democracy to the margins. Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Access to Education, Black Students, Disadvantaged Youth
(2007). Corporate Control of Public School Goals: High-Stakes Testing in Its Historical Perspective, Teacher Education Quarterly. In the last 20 years, public education in the United States has been transformed under the pressures of high-stakes testing. Some argue that right wing ideologues are out to privatize the public school system in order to wring as much profit from the system as they can. Others argue that the new reforms are needed because for too long, teachers have allowed working class students of color to fail in schools. Both of these views and their variations, however, suffer from a lack of historical perspective. If one puts the current educational reform movement in an historical context, then what can be seen is the following pattern: When the job categories in the U.S. economy undergo a fundamental realignment, business leaders move to transform the public school system to sort the nation's children into the new categories and socialize them to accept these arrangements. This theoretical paradigm explains a lot of things, including the widespread bipartisan support that No Child Left Behind enjoys today. This author states that the educational reforms being put in place that are associated with high-stakes testing, while justifying the creation of real and painful changes in schools–resegregation, under-funding, downsizing, outsourcing and a new tracking system–have not fundamentally changed the essential characteristics of a centralized, bureaucratic system. To address this dilemma, the author, along with three others, created a "Freedom School" in San Francisco in the summer of 2005. This Freedom School, taking its inspiration from the Citizenship Curriculum of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Schools, teaches the detailed history of the Southern Freedom Movement so that those who need nurturing, inspiration, or tool building, can learn from the past. It provides community members, students, and educators within schools a place to go to gain or retain perspective on and rekindle their passion for issues of social justice. It is hoped that the San Francisco Freedom Schoolcan make a small contribution in this direction. Analysing how social movements have happened (their successes and failures) is crucial if teachers are going to be part of creating the next one. [More] [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Public Education, Educational Change, Educational Objectives
(2010). Making Failure Pay: For-Profit Tutoring, High-Stakes Testing, and Public Schools, University of Chicago Press. A little-discussed aspect of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a mandate that requires failing schools to hire after-school tutoring companies–the largest of which are private, for-profit corporations–and to pay them with federal funds. "Making Failure Pay" takes a hard look at the implications of this new blurring of the boundaries between government, schools, and commerce in New York City, the country's largest school district. As Jill P. Koyama explains in this revelatory book, NCLB–a federally legislated, state-regulated, district-administered, and school-applied policy–explicitly legitimizes giving private organizations significant roles in public education. Based on her three years of ethnographic fieldwork, Koyama finds that the results are political, problematic, and highly profitable. Bringing to light these unproven, unregulated private companies' almost invisible partnership with the government, "Making Failure Pay" lays bare the unintended consequences of federal efforts to eliminate school failure–not the least of which is more failure. [More] Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Academic Achievement, High Stakes Tests, Corporations
(2005). English Language Learners Left Behind in Arizona: The Nullification of Accommodations in the Intersection of Federal and State Policies, Bilingual Research Journal. Current educational reform efforts in Arizona involve three major federal and state language and assessment policies: (a) AZ LEARNS (2001), Arizona's high-stakes testing and school accountability program; (b) No Child Left Behind (2002); and (c) Proposition 203 (2000), which places restrictions on programs for English language learner (ELL) students. Each policy calls for the full inclusion of ELLs in statewide high-stakes testing. These policies are analyzed from frameworks of educational language policy. The findings reveal that these school reform efforts function as restricted-oriented language policies, particularly as the three policies intersect. Furthermore, it is found that most of the accommodations for ELLs called for within these policies are nullified in the intersection, especially at the level of interpretation and implementation. The remaining accommodation-oriented policies are less helpful to ELLs, and may in fact be more beneficial to state policy actors by masking the harmful effects their restricted-oriented policies are having on ELL students. Suggestions for improving this situation are considered in the Conclusion. [More] Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Second Language Learning, English (Second Language), Educational Change
(2006). Who's Teaching, Who's Learning? Analyzing the Professional Growth of Graduate Student Tutors, Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning. This qualitative study examined the professional growth of literacy teachers as they scaffolded students' one-to-one literacy learning within a university reading clinic tutoring experience. These teachers–graduate students within a reading education program–documented both their own learning and that of their students through various venues. These included the data sources considered for this study: teaching videotapes, email correspondence with the university instructor, online discussions with colleagues, and final reflective essays. Findings suggested that substantive learning by these literacy teachers influenced not only their tutees but also their own professional growth, impacting their classroom practice and the wider educational community. Implications of such teacher learning within educational settings employing high-stakes testing and accountability were considered. [More] Descriptors: Graduate Students, High Stakes Tests, Reading Centers, Tutors
(2006). Leadership as Accountability for Learning: The Effects of School Poverty, Teacher Experience, Previous Achievement, and Principal Preparation Programs on Student Achievement, Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education. In the current era of accountability for achievement, school principals play the pivotal role of instructional leader. In a high-stakes testing environment, leadership preparation programs in universities and school districts need to be positively related to academic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school leadership preparation programs and student achievement in urban settings. Because leadership is contingent on the setting, school contextual factors and their impact on student achievement framed this study. Regression techniques were employed to construct a conceptual model with predictors of criterion and norm-referenced student achievement scores. Confirming previous research findings, student poverty, teacher experience, and previous achievement were the strongest predictors and accounted for a significant amount of variance in student achievement; however, university and district preparation programs were not significant predictors. Implications for policy, practice, and future research are discussed. [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, High Stakes Tests, Accountability, Principals
(2006). Normalizing the Educated Subject: A Foucaultian Analysis of High-Stakes Accountability, Educational Studies: Journal of the American Educational Studies Association. In this article, I use concepts from Michel Foucault to analyze the ways in which the high-stakes accountability movement has appropriated the technology of the examination to redefine the educated subject as a normalized case. Partly this has become possible because of the role that educational research has played in laying out the conditions for high-stakes accountability. I argue that critiques of current educational policy and practice need to devote attention to the radical implications of testing on what we mean by the educated subject (the individual) in education. Challenging this notion of the self may enable educators to challenge the power exercised through high-stakes testing and open up more promising possibilities for public education. [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Accountability, Educational Research, Educational Policy
(2014). Towards Fairer Assessment, Australian Educational Researcher. Drawing on the largest Australian collection and analysis of empirical data on multiple facets of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education in state schools to date, this article critically analyses the systemic push for standardized testing and improved scores, and argues for a greater balance of assessment types by providing alternative, inclusive, participatory approaches to student assessment. The evidence for this article derives from a major evaluation of the Stronger Smarter Learning Communities. The first large-scale picture of what is occurring in classroom assessment and pedagogy for Indigenous students is reported in this evaluation yet the focus in this article remains on the issue of fairness in student assessment. The argument presented calls for "a good balance between formative and summative assessment" (OECD, "Synergies for Better Learning An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment, Pointers for Policy Development," 2013) at a time of unrelenting high-stakes, standardized testing in Australia with a dominance of secondary as opposed to primary uses of NAPLAN data by systems, schools and principals. A case for more "intelligent accountability in education" (O'Neill, "Oxford Review of Education" 39(1):4-16, 2013) together with a framework for analyzing efforts toward social justice in education (Cazden, "International Journal of Educational Psychology" 1(3):178-198, 2012) and fairer assessment make the case for more alternative assessment practices in recognition of the need for teachers' pedagogic practice to cater for increased diversity. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Educational Assessment, Indigenous Populations, Public Schools
(2006). An Assessment of the Perceived Benefits of Extracurricular Activity on Academic Achievement at Paramount High School, Online Submission. The problem is the perceived academic shortcomings of America's public schools because of high stakes testing that is expected to increase along with limited funds and resources. The purpose of this study was to find the benefits of the extracurricular activity that students are already participating in at Paramount High School. This is a quantitative study looking at the cumulative GPA's, standardized test scores in mathematics, and standardized test scores in English/Language Arts of students involved in school athletics, music instruction, and non-participants. Athletes and music students outperformed their non-participating counterparts in all areas. Further study is recommended with a larger sample, over a longer duration of time, and with a wider array of measurements. [More] Descriptors: Standardized Tests, Music, Music Education, Grade Point Average
(2006). Field Trips as Cognitive Motivators for High Level Science Learning, American Biology Teacher. Using a composite example of field trips from several years of traveling to Yellowstone with high school biology students, the author illustrates how to raise the cognitive level of science instruction and student learning through science field trips. The author examines what teachers can do to raise the level of both teaching and learning in all three phases of a field trip (pre, during, and post). It also illustrates the natural progression of learning through Bloom's taxonomic stages of cognition as the phases of the field trip progress. In other words, the highest levels of cognition (analysis, synthesis, and evaluation) occur after the field trip ends. The author describes her own experiences as an example of how to achieve this. This article also establishes the continuing need for field trips in spite of low budgets and the current drive for standardized and high stakes testing. [More] Descriptors: Field Trips, Cognitive Processes, Learning Experience, Student Motivation
(2006). Kindergarten Education and Early Childhood Teacher Education in the United States: Status at the Start of the 21st Century, Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. The political, economic, social, equity, and historical influences on the status of kindergarten education and early childhood teacher education in the United States are discussed. There are many sources of data that create a picture of the diverse programs, resources, and opportunities that kindergarten children experience, including the preparation of kindergarten teachers. This article addresses the questions: What does kindergarten curriculum look like today compared with other times? What is the status of full-day kindergarten? What are the influences of the high-stakes testing movement, school budgets, and economic status across communities? How has early childhood state teacher certification changed during the past two decades? What is worthwhile learning? This article takes an editorial position that supports an intellectually significant curriculum in which specially prepared early childhood teachers match teaching with the ways in which kindergarten children learn, and might want to learn more. [More] Descriptors: Educational History, Kindergarten, Early Childhood Education, Young Children
(2006). An Investigation of an after School Math Tutoring Program: University Tutors + Elementary Students = A Successful Partnership, Education. Because of No Child Left Behind and the pressure of high stakes testing, many school districts are looking for ways to raise test scores and gain or maintain adequate yearly progress. A successful after-school math tutoring program, a partnership between a rural school district and the local university, is summarized in this article. Keys to this program's successful implementation are related to those found in research. Strengths of the program were found to outweigh its challenges. With a long term commitment from the district, an organized program structure, and university tutors part way through their teacher training, the district reported successful achievement by children, and satisfaction from adult participants–including school district teachers and tutors–and children's parents. [More] Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Educational Improvement, Tutors, Tutoring
(2006). The Side Effects of NCLB, Educational Leadership. With its focusing on high-stakes testing in reading and math, NCLB has narrowed the curriculum. This focus comes at the expense of instruction in social studies, the arts, science, and health and denies many students access to the quality curriculums that students in more affluent schools enjoy. NCLB is now the prescribed method of treatment for the achievement gaps in our schools, but it has several serious side effects: It has resulted in an imbalanced curriculum, it demoralizes teachers, and it encourages manipulation of the numbers. School leaders should take into account the many models that have been proposed over the years–the broad fields approach or the crucial issues approach, for example–to establish a framework for developing a balanced core curriculum for all students. The federal government can also help in a number of creative ways to ensure true student achievement. [More] Descriptors: Teaching Methods, High Stakes Tests, Federal Government, Core Curriculum
(2006). Increasing All Students' Chance to Achieve: Using and Adapting Anticipation Guides with Middle School Learners, Intervention in School and Clinic. The ability to effectively use reading as a study skill is critical to academic success at the middle- and high-school levels. In an age of high-stakes testing and accountability, content-area specialists, teaching multiple sections of students each day within clearly designated time periods, must focus the majority of their instructional efforts on content-area instruction. This leaves little time for direct teaching of reading skills. This article directs practitioners in the design and use of the anticipation guides, a prereading strategy designed to concurrently increase students' content knowledge and reading comprehension. The authors also offer suggestions for instructional adaptations to facilitate this strategy's use within general, inclusive, and special education settings. [More] Descriptors: Study Skills, Reading Comprehension, High Stakes Tests, Academic Achievement