High Stake Testing in Public School: Ambiguous and Unsolved Dilemma

·      High-stake tests show student growth, keep teachers, administrators, and school accountable but they also have serious limitations and fail to achieve equality in education.

·      “A typical student takes 112 standardized tests K-12 spending 25.3 hours during school year taking tests (L. Layton)

·      Equality through high-stake test fails because of the weakest students are excluded so that the school is not penalized or labeled failing

·      Test scores grow at the beginning then they taper off

·      The score results do not reflect any improvement in teaching or improved curriculum

·      Standardized tests contribute to segregation because administrators have to think like CEO and do not want the lowest students

·      High-stake tests lead to an increase of drop-outs that appear as transfer to alternative schools

·      These drop-outs are actually students who are pushed out to avoid sanctions

·      High-stake tests introduce accountability but a review by J. Lee established that it did not translate into real sanctions

·      Accountability brings up the level of support and resources that schools receive and here poor district never receive the needed support

·      Students loose interest and do not take them seriously making them completely ineffective

·      Students are consumed by excessive classroom time of teaching to the test

·      Last evidence of rejection took place in New York where a group of educators, students, and parents decided to protest for the new Smart Balance test and more than 20% of students opted out

·      State Accountability Report for CT for the year 2016-17 shows a very slight scores decrease in ELA and Math

·      Ct uses 12 indicators now (SAT, and chronic absenteeism, preparation for CCR, Physical fitness, and Arts access among the most relevant)

·      A comparison between Coop and Wilbur Cross, and Hillhouse confirms how Hillouse and Wilbur Cross score lower than Coop (Magnet school)

·      Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress register no change, no growth in Reading and Math between 1998 and 2017.

·      High-stake tests fail to achieve equality and do not test any student knowledge and creativity.

Bibliography

Airasian, Peter W. (1987). State Mandated Testing and educational Reform: Context and Consequences. American Journal of Education. 95 (3). Retrieved from www.jstor.org.

Capello, C. (2004). Blowing the Whistle on the Texas Miracle: an Interview with Robert Kimball. Rethinking Schools. Retrieved from www.rethinkingschools.org.

“EdSight. Insight Into Education.” (2017). Connecticut State Department of Education. Retrieved from www.edsight.ct.gov

Fletcher, Dan. (2009, December 11). Standardized Testing. Time. Retrieved from http://content.time/time/nation/article/

Hamilton, Laura S., Stecher, Brian M., Klein, Stephen, P. (2002). Improving Test-Based Accountability. Making Sense of Test-Based Accountability in Education. Retrieved from www.jstore.org.

Hursh, David. (2005). The Growth of High-Stakes Testing in the USA: Accountability, Markets and the Decline in Educational Equality. British Educational Research Journal. 31 (5). Retrieved from www.jstor.org.

Layton, Lyndsey. (2015, October 24). Study Says Standardized Testsing is Overwhelming Nation’s Public Schools. The Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com.

Lee, Jaekyung. (2008). Is Test-Driven External Accountability Effective? Synthesizing the Evidence From Cross-State Casual-Comparative Studies.  Review of Educational Research. 78(3). Retrieved from www.jstore.org.

Lipman, P. (2004). High-Stakes Education: Inequality, Globalization, and Urban school Reform. New York, RoutledgeFalmer.

National Report Card. (2017). National Assessment of Educational Progress. Retrieved from www.nationreprtcardt.gov

Strauss, Valerie. (2017, January 6). How Testing Practices Have to change in U.S. Public Schools. The Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com

Summary Interview

·      Lack of communication among all involved parties (students, parents, teachers, administrators, and legislators)

·      Teacher’s time consumed filling out documents to back up his/her position

·      Lack of collaboration

·      Solution to lack of communication and collaboration: marketing strategy

·      Favorable to standardized test like CAPT or SAT

·      They measure learning and are cumulative, and help with differentiation

·      The negative side of these tests is that they do not correspond to district curricula

·      These tests are a money making for College Board

·      He thinks teachers should spend more time practicing the tested skills

·      He acknowledges the limitation of tested learning but does not have another proposal or solution.

·      Freedom in education is utopistic

·      He does not believe in closing the achievement gap because large districts will always have an inferior quality.