This annotated bibliography is reformatted and customized by the Center for Positive Practices. Some of the authors featured on this page include Arthur L. Petterway, James T. Austin, Marlow Ediger, Dale DeCesare, Victoria Crisp, W. James Popham, Robert A. Mahlman, William Allan Kritsonis, James H. McMillan, and Gail Burrill.
(2002). Is High-Stakes Testing Harming Lower Socioeconomic Status Schools?, NASSP Bulletin. A strong relationship is shown between students' state assessment test pass rates and students' socioeconomic status (SES). State sanctions based on assessment scores can affect graduation, student diplomas, school accreditation, school funding, teacher rewards and promotion, paperwork requirements, regulations, work expectations, improvement plans, and even real estate values. Advises voters not to endorse legislation and policy that penalizes low SES communities and their constituency. (Contains 23 references.) Descriptors: Accreditation (Institutions), Educational Assessment, High Schools, High Stakes Tests
(2002). Education's "Perfect Storm?" Racial Resegregation, "High Stakes" Testing, & School Inequities: The Case of North Carolina. This paper examines student resegregation by race and socioeconomic class, high stakes accountability measures aimed at affecting educators' decisions on student promotion and graduation, and continuing disparities in school resources and finance, all of which intensified in 2002, particularly in North Carolina and the U.S. south. The paper asserts that without careful planning, their simultaneous convergence threatens to derail public education. It discusses the new constraint on race-conscious student assignments suggesting that, absent some contrary Supreme Court decision or extraordinary efforts by southern school boards to circumvent its impact, this ban will recreate levels of racial and socioeconomic isolation not experienced since the 1960s. Section 1, "School Racial Composition: The Legal and Demographic Realities in North Carolina," discusses the Supreme Court's changing rulings, the ban on race-conscious student assignments, the demographic future of North Carolina's public schools without race-conscious assignments, and the adverse educational impact of racial resegregation. Section 2, "School Accountability: Unintended Consequences?" discusses the development of the accountability approach, North Carolina's commitment to accountability, and the likely impact of high stakes testing in resegregating schools. Section 3 examines "School Finance/Resource Inequities: While Major Reforms are Educationally Necessary, Will They Prove Sufficient, and Can Political Will be Sustained?" Descriptors: Educational Finance, Elementary Secondary Education, Federal Legislation, High Stakes Tests
(2001). Teaching in the Time of Testing: What Have You Lost?, English Journal. Asks several teachers what they have lost from their teaching or their classroom since the growth in mandated, standardized testing. Considers the ill effects of mandated testing, and names some educational essentials at risk of being lost while testing rules. Discusses what is lost in high-stakes multiple-choice testing of new teachers. Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, Higher Education, Preservice Teachers, Secondary Education
(2005). The Impact of High-Stakes Test Results on Teachers' Instructional and Classroom Assessment Practices, Online Submission. This study investigates relationships between teachers' receipt of high-stakes test score results of their students and subsequent changes in instructional and classroom assessment practices the following year. The sample consisted of 722 elementary, middle, and high school teachers. The results indicate that most teachers reported using the results to make instructional and assessment changes, especially those who emphasized depth of learning and higher-level cognition. Greater collaboration among teachers was reported, as well as more formative classroom assessment. Elementary teachers changed more than secondary teachers. Small to moderate effect sizes suggest important impacts on a moderate number of teachers that are more positive than previously reported for high-stakes minimum competency testing. [More] Descriptors: Test Results, Scores, Formative Evaluation, Minimum Competency Testing
(2001). Improving Mathematics Education: Resources for Decision Making. This report describes the message of current publications in mathematics education. Eight documents were selected to be reviewed which provides a starting point for readers. Papers include: (1) "Principles and Standards for School Mathematics"; (2) "Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics"; (3) "How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School"; (4) "Before It's Too Late: A Report to the Nation From the National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century"; (5) "Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology: New Practices for the New Millennium"; (6) "The Mathematical Education of Teachers"; (7) "High Stakes: Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation"; and (8) "Every Child Mathematically Proficient: An Action Plan of the Learning First Alliance." (Contains 10 references.) [More] Descriptors: Decision Making, Elementary Secondary Education, Evaluation Methods, Learning
(2002). High-Stakes Testing. Policy Statement. Issue 3. With public demand and recent federal legislation calling for high standards and improved student performance, virtually every state in the nation has created and administered statewide tests that measure student progress over time. The requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 will result in increased use of these tests. After careful deliberation, the National Forum to Accelerate Middle-Grades Reform has endorsed the following statement of policy: The National Forum believes in standards and assessments that lead to high expectations, foster high-quality instruction, and support higher levels of learning for every student. At the same time, the National Forum believes that no single test should ever be the sole determinant of a young adolescent's academic future, whether it be promotion to the next grade, special placement, or transition from the middle grades to high school. Rather, the National Forum encourages diverse approaches to curriculum and instruction and supports the use of multiple measures to make decisions about a student's progress. These may include portfolios, exhibitions, performances, demonstrations, and tests that measure how well students achieve state standards. This policy statement is grounded in the National Forum's vision of high performing middle-grades schools, which use multiple sources of assessment information to make decisions about teaching and student learning. [For "Teacher Preparation, Licensure, and Recruitment. Policy Statement. Issue 2," see ED528789.] [More] Descriptors: Student Evaluation, Developmentally Appropriate Practices, Federal Legislation, State Standards
(2002). High-Stakes Testing: Implications for Career and Technical Education. The Highlight Zone: Research @ Work. The topic of high-stakes testing (HST) is important because HST has direct and indirect effects on career-technical education (CTE) programs and timely because HST increasingly enters public discussion and has produced a large body of research and practice that generalizes to CTE. A review of HST has identified two persisting dilemmas: policy and public expectations of testing exceeding tests' technical capacities and tension between testing to increase fairness and testing to classify. Applicable strategies to provide validity for HST are reliability estimation of scores used to make decisions, expert judgements of item linkage to curricula, studies of the predictive power of HST scores, and studies of consequences. Two opposing perspectives on the accountability-testing theme are that use of HST for accountability is a positive application of data-driven management to education and that the consequences of HST are negative. Descriptions of HST systems in Kentucky, Texas, and Massachusetts indicate different ways to accomplish HST; use of advisory panels to represent stakeholders' viewpoints; and continuous change. Findings of an e-mail survey of state CTE directors suggest ways to expand assessment modalities–computer delivery of assessments and authentic assessments or multimodal assessments that include high- and low-stakes components. Implications are that the CTE community needs awareness of HST; tests should be used responsibly; and a useful database system should be developed. (Contains 76 references and a list of 8 Internet sites.) [More] Descriptors: Accountability, Adult Education, Educational Research, High Stakes Tests
(2001). Statewide Standardized Testing in Higher Education. Briefing Papers. Most stakeholders in higher education are deeply interested in improving student learning outcomes, but there is disagreement about whether standardized testing programs will contribute to this goal. Plans for standardized testing of college students in public institutions appear to be on the rise. Eight to 10 states currently engage in standardized forced-choice testing for students in public institutions of higher education. These programs are outlined. In a draft paper on statewide testing in higher education, Peter Ewell has expressed a belief that more of these tests may be developed as a spin-off of assessment trends in K-12 education. Higher education may soon be subjected to the same "teach to the test" syndrome that public school teachers in high stakes testing environments now experience. If a widely shared understanding of the aims and purposes of higher education can be developed, higher education may be able to avoid this dilemma. [More] Descriptors: Academic Achievement, College Students, Educational Trends, Higher Education
(2002). How High Are the Stakes in High-Stakes Testing?, Principal. Discusses the need for elementary principals and teachers to understand their state's policies involving the improvement of school performance through the use of high-stakes assessment of students and schools. Describes range of state sanctions for poor school performance, which are infrequently based on test scores alone. Descriptors: Academic Achievement, Administrator Evaluation, Educational Assessment, Elementary Secondary Education
(2001). The Truth about Testing: An Educator's Call to Action. This book explores the serious destructive consequences of today's testing programs using actual test items to show what tests really measure and why they should not be used to evaluate school quality or teacher ability. The book also proposes more meaningful ways to assess students and to meet the call for accountability in education. The chapters are: (1) "Classroom Consequences of Unsound High-Stakes Testing"; (2) "Why We Test"; (3) "The Mystique of Standardized Measuring Instruments"; (4) "Confounded Causality"; (5) "Creating Large-Scale Tests That Illuminate Instructional Decisions"; (6) "Getting Maximum Instructional Mileage Out of Classroom Assessment"; (7) "Collecting Credible Evidence of Instructional Effectiveness"; and (8) "Wrapping Up with Action Options." (Contains 23 references.) Descriptors: Achievement Tests, Educational Change, Elementary Secondary Education, High Stakes Tests
(2006). Can a Picture Ruin a Thousand Words? The Effects of Visual Resources in Exam Questions, Educational Research. Background: When an exam question is read, a mental representation of the task is formed in each student's mind. This processing can be affected by features such as visual resources (e.g. pictures, diagrams, photographs, tables), which can come to dominate the mental representation due to their salience. Purpose: The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of visual resources in exam questions and, in particular, to investigate how and when students use images and whether subtle changes to these salient physical features can affect whether a question is understood and answered in the way intended by the question-setters. Sample: The participants were 525 16-year-old students, with a range of ability, in four secondary schools. Design and methods: Experimental test papers were constructed including six questions based on past examination questions and involving graphical elements. For five of the six questions, two versions were designed in order to investigate the effects of changes to visual resources on processing and responses. A sample of the students were interviewed afterwards. Results: Where two versions of a question were trialled in parallel, the differences in the visual resources significantly affected marks for one question and had smaller effects on marks and the nature of answers with some of the others. There were mixed views from students over whether a visual resource that is not strictly necessary should be used. Some considered it reassuring, whilst others deemed it unnecessary. Evidence in the literature suggests that caution may be needed since there is a risk that some students may pay too much attention to the image. Findings from one question (question 6) indicated that visuals can increase the likelihood of students making unhelpful interpretations of a question. Students were seen to have sensible expectations regarding when to use information from a visual resource and what is important in an illustration. In addition, more use tended to be made of a technical diagram (in question 12) in comparison to pictures or sketches, and it was found that if an image provides a clue to an answer, this may be used in preference to information in the text. Evidence regarding the use that students made of a table (question 1) indicated that the data in the table cells were given more attention than some of the preceding text and text in a header. This might apply similarly to other resources like graphs and charts. Conclusions: It is important to ensure that the inclusion of a visual resource is carefully considered and appropriately designed. If a visual resource is not strictly needed in a question, the writer will need to balance the advantages and disadvantages. Authors should also consider whether and how students are likely to use or be affected by the particular visual resource chosen. The findings and suggested implications of this study are most applicable to high-stakes testing but may also be useful to those preparing school textbooks and to teachers in their preparation of classroom materials. [More] Descriptors: Test Construction, Illustrations, Secondary School Students, Case Studies
(2001). Assessment in the Science Curriculum. This paper discusses assessment in science in the context of current discussions of standards and high stakes testing. Setting standards is always challenging, and care is needed to make the standards for science achievement neither too high nor too low. States must be careful to establish standards that are clearly written and that have high validity in covering what has been taught. Attention must be paid to test construction and scoring so that teachers are able to use assessment results to improve instruction. Portfolio assessment has the potential to improve assessment in science. When portfolios are used, decisions about assessment are made inside the classroom, and the student's daily work becomes important for assessment decisions. Hands-on approaches are useful in science assessment. Criteria can be established to see how effective students are in using scientific methods to complete tasks and achieve objectives. [More] Descriptors: Educational Assessment, Elementary Secondary Education, High Stakes Tests, Portfolio Assessment
(2010). School Leaders as both Colonized and Colonizers: Understanding Professional Identity in an Era of No Child Left Behind, ProQuest LLC. This study positioned the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 as a reified colonizing entity, inscribing its hegemonic authority upon the professional identity and work of school principals within their school communities of practice. Pressure on educators and students intensifies each year as the benchmark for Adequate Yearly Progress under the NCLB policy is raised, resulting in standards-based reform, scripted curriculum and pedagogy, absence of elective subjects, and a general lack of autonomy critical to the work of teachers as they approach each unique class and student (Crocco & Costigan, 2007; Mabry & Margolis, 2006). Emphasis on high stakes standardized testing as the indicator for student achievement (Popham, 2005) affects educators' professional identity through dramatic pedagological and structural changes in schools (Day, Flores, & Viana, 2007). These dramatic changes to the ways our nation conducts schooling must be understood and thought about critically from school leaders' perspectives as their professional identity is influenced by large scale NCLB school reform. The author explored the impact No Child Left Behind reform had on the professional identity of fourteen, veteran Illinois principals leading in urban, small urban, suburban, and rural middle and elementary schools. Qualitative data were collected during semi-structured interviews and focus groups and analyzed using a dual theoretical framework of postcolonial and identity theories. Postcolonial theory provided a lens from which the author applied a metaphor of colonization to principals' experiences as colonized-colonizers in a time of school reform. Principal interview data illustrated many examples of NCLB as a colonizing authority having a significant impact on the professional identity of school leaders. This framework was used to interpret data in a unique and alternative way and contributed to the need to better understand the ways school leaders respond to district-level, state-level, and national-level accountability policies (Sloan, 2000). Identity theory situated principals as professionals shaped by the communities of practice in which they lead. Principals' professional identity has become more data-driven as a result of NCLB and their role as instructional leaders has intensified. The data showed that NCLB has changed the work and professional identity of principals in terms of use of data, classroom instruction, Response to Intervention, and staffing changes. Although NCLB defines success in terms of meeting or exceeding the benchmark for Adequate Yearly Progress, principals' view AYP as only one measurement of their success. The need to meet the benchmark for AYP is a present reality that necessitates school-wide attention to reading and math achievement. At this time, principals leading in affluent, somewhat homogeneous schools typically experience less pressure and more power under NCLB and are more often labeled "successful" school communities. In contrast, principals leading in schools with more heterogeneity experience more pressure and lack of power under NCLB and are more often labeled "failing" school communities. Implications from this study for practitioners and policymakers include a need to reexamine the intents and outcomes of the policy for all school communities, especially in terms of power and voice. Recommendations for policy reform include moving to a growth model with multi-year assessments that make sense for individual students rather than one standardized test score as the measure for achievement. Overall, the study reveals enhancements and constraints NCLB policy has caused in a variety of school contexts, which have affected the professional identity of school leaders. [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: Communities of Practice, Federal Legislation, Focus Groups, Educational Improvement
(2006). A National Perspective: A Mixed-Methods Analysis of the Impact of High Stakes Testing on English Language Learners in Major Urban High Schools in Texas, Online Submission. The purpose of this article is to analyze the issues and challenges faced by English Language Learners (ELLs) and the public schools that absorb them. Ample research has been conducted on the intrinsic validity of standardized assessments, and separately, on the factors affecting the assimilation and integration of ELLs. However, the reliability of these assessments as a universally applied tool to measure student learning, and as a basis for determining school performance needs to be more closely examined. Quantitative data for this research will be gathered from ten (10) high schools in the major urban independent school districts located in Texas. Qualitative data will be derived from an on-line questionnaire focusing on respondents' views and opinions about the varied ways in which standardized assessments impact English Language Learners. [More] Descriptors: High Stakes Tests, English (Second Language), Students, Public Schools
(2005). Differentiation. Research Brief, Education Partnerships, Inc.. The idea of differentiation was initiated by educators of and researchers for students who were classified as gifted and talented. Subsequently, this concept has become part of the general belief system that educators must meet and address the needs of every child, regardless of ability levels. Researchers have found that most teachers state that in theory they believe in the idea of differentiation and want to do it. However, in light of high stakes standardized testing, large numbers of students, and large course loads, they feel it is an overwhelming task and there are not enough hours in the day to do it well. According to Tomlinson, the guru in this field, differentiation is a philosophy, not a specific formula or methodology. It is the deep belief on the part of educators that every student can learn and the teachers will do whatever is necessary to help each reach his/her potential. There is a high regard and respect from the teacher to the learner. Although the teacher is the chief curriculum designer, in a differentiated environment, the students are the curriculum development engineers. In this setting, the content, processes, products, assessments, and environments can be differentiated. Suggestions for its implementation and a few suggested differentiated activities are presented. [More] Descriptors: Curriculum Development, Standardized Tests, Individualized Instruction, Student Needs