NTN Wins First Award

NTN is happy to announce that an article, The Case Against Standardized Testing, has won an award from the Minnesota English Journal.

I will append the article below, or you can proceed here to read it for yourself. Its author, Peter Henry, has won the magazine's annual prize for best essay, which means he has a little walking around money--enough to keep this open source learning community going for another six months.

Essentially, the article makes a substantive case that standardized testing is not only a poor education strategy, but alienates students and teachers from school, limits brain development and individual student potential, wreaks havoc with the public's notions of learning, education and the value of education and focuses instructional efforts on pedagogy that we have known for fifty years-- do. not. work.

Let's look at it this way: standardized tests are not reliable measures of student learning, they have low validity, they are not transparent and they do not enhance the learning process because neither students, nor teachers ever get to examine individual student questions and answers.

Oh, and by the way, this whole educational strategy of high stakes testing has no research basis, has never been proven to work and, outside of a few Asian cultures where authoritarian practices are socially accepted, has never even been tried.

Why, then, are we giving them so much time, energy and emphasis to standardized testing at the K-12 level?

Two words: measurable accountability.

In our attempts to ensure that schools are effectively teaching children, we are, in effect, ruining their education. We want to be sure that teachers are doing their jobs well and so we have decided to ruin schools and education for everyone.

I go to hearings on these issues. I read a lot of articles. I blog and stay active online.

The one question I never hear, not from professionals, not from politicians, not from journalists: Is this policy ultimately good for children?

The answer is: No. A resounding, this-is-not-even-close, no.

Take a look:

The Case Against Standardized Testing

More than ever, K-12 public education in the United States is beholden to, and synonymous with, standardized testing. Fromteacher merit pay plans linked to test scores,1 to school ‘report cards’ based on exam numbers under No Child Left Behind,2 tohigh-stakes tests determining who walks and who waits,3 policy makers display an abiding faith in the importance, meaning andauthority of standardized tests.

But, is this faith justified? Is it borne out by researchand academic studies? Corroborated by cognitive theory? Substantiatedby best pedagogical practice? Supported by neuroscience?
Confi rmed by international comparisons? Does it create motivated lifetime learners? And, does it stand the ultimatetest—successfully preparing students for active participation as
citizens and workers in today’s complex, multi-faceted society?

This paper examines these issues in detail, particularly from the perspective of English instructors, whose sacred domain,building literacy and critical analysis, demands that such
questions be answered fully and fairly before handing over our prerogatives, and our curriculum, to those seeking radical changein how we teach.

It must be said at the outset: standardized testing has muscled its way onto the educational stage in very short order.In little more than a decade, the frequency and number of stan-
dardized tests has doubled and redoubled in response to public concern about the quality of high school graduates, and thus, theeffectiveness of public schools.

In 2005, 11 million exams were dded in elementary and middle schools; another 11 milliontests for high school science are expected to bring the national yotal to near 50 million by 2008, amid signs that the quality,reliability and validity of exams are eroding.4 (Fairtest puts the total of all tests—including I.Q., screening and readiness at 100million; that does not include the ACT or SAT college entrance exams.5) The rapidity of standardized testing’s ascent means thatfew teachers are well-versed in its language, terms or accepted
uses as most teachers’ educational programs did not include such coursework.6

Ignorance, however, is not a defense; not in legal venues, nor should it be in education circles. It is my thesis that teachers’collective ignorance around standardized testing must change—and change quickly—if we are to preserve our autonomy andprofessional status as educators. The entire gestalt of the “accountability” movement holds that teachers are not to be trustedor believed when it comes to student learning. Even grades, acquired over the length of a semester are presumed suspect:subjective, inadequate measures which do not allow direct comparison across the domain in a cohort.7

For many outside critics of education, only a standard test can reveal the “truth” about what transpires in classrooms,and, thus, successful teaching is reduced to a single, narrow
measure on a multiple choice instrument. Ultimately, such a system makes teaching the provision of defi ned information inputs—synonymous to a functionary responsible for conducting transactions on behalf of some distant monolith.

And when the numbers rolling off the computer print-out appear unsatisfactory to those in authority? They will have their justifi cation to takepublic education private8, where due process, labor agreements and unions are not barriers to the prerogatives of management.If that dystopic future alarms you as much as it does me, then I urge that you learn more about standardized testing (startby reading this article) and commit to sharing it with students, arents and the larger community.

At this point in education history,teachers are the last best hope for preserving not only the
autonomy of local schools, but the very meaning and essence of American democracy.9

To be blunt: as of this writing, I am not impressed by the collective response by those whose very job it is to know better.Shame on us for allowing the train wreck of standardization to
get this far down the track without raising a substantial ruckus, as in: Wrong way! That approaching light is not a tunnel’s endbut the spear tip of a massive social and educational disaster!

 

Defining Terms

We need to understand the language of standardized testing before confronting and critiquing its nature and assumptions.

What is a standardized test?

An examination made up of uniform items which can be replicated across an entire domain of students, typically by asking short multiple choice questions
which can be easily and cheaply scored by machine.

Validity. Does the exam accurately measure the kinds
of skills and aptitudes it purports to? In other words, if we are
trying to measure vocabulary skills, is that what we end up effectively
measuring, or are we actually tracking something else,
like reading skills or the level of advanced course work?

Reliability. Would the exam, if given again, yield analogous
results from the same cohort? In other words, is the exam
measuring a narrow band of knowledge that has been prepped
for and will soon evaporate, or does a subsequent test yield similar
scoring?

Transparency. Is the examination open to public scrutiny,
debate and monitoring as to quality and accuracy? Or, does it
remain a proprietary instrument of the corporation that created it
and thus is unavailable?

Norm-referenced exams. Exams specifically designed tospread students out across a normal shaped curve. These instrumentsare field-tested to prove that they effectively identify highand low achieving students. In other words, psychometricians(test makers) select questions knowing how many students, on
average, will get each answer correct.

Criterion-referenced exams. Exams pegged to a specific domain of knowledge or skill. There is no attempt to arrange questions to produce a normal curve, only to meet the “criteria”
of those designing the test. As a result, in a given cohort, any
number of students could pass or fail depending on the match
between what they know and can do and what is on the exam.

High stakes exams. Tests which decide a final outcome for students, yea or nay, in terms of passing a course, advancing to the next grade level or even graduating.10

 

High-Stakes Testing: The Poster Child of Failure

I am focusing here mainly on “high-stakes” exams since
they are the most pernicious, least accurate and least defensible
of standardized tests. (There are good uses for standardized
tests: in the form of short, frequent measures that assist teachers
in making “formative” decisions about pedagogy.11 But, that
isn’t what is transpiring in K-12 education today.) The rationale
for high-stakes exams is that by upping the ante and letting students
know there will be serious consequences for failure, it will
provoke a better effort, more scholarship and greater attention
to the subject matter. Teachers, too, are thought stimulated by
potential excessive “failures” and, thus, focus their efforts more
effectively on what will be tested.

Yet, giving a “norm-referenced” exam and counting it
for high-stakes is simply an exercise of shooting fi sh in a barrel,
since the test has been designed precisely because it identifi es a
declining level of achievement across a cohort.12 Before the test
is even given, a good psychometrician knows how many students
will and will not pass. Why exactly, would a state administer
a norm-referenced “high stakes” exam, well aware of the
pre-determined fail rate? A question that has fueled speculation
that privatization ideologues want to use public school “failure”
to wrest control of schools from the government.

So, the only defensible exam used for a high-stakes purpose would have to be “criterion referenced”,13 meaning that as many students who know and understand the material could, in theory, successfully pass. Quality criterion-referenced exams are tied to state standards. However, to believe that every state has successfully meshed its standards with its exams or that everyschool and teacher teaches to state standards in similarly enlightened
and effective ways is not credible.

Further, to believe that one entity, a state board for example, can adequately, fairly and effectively delineate all the important elements of a subject
like history or mathematics, then encapsulate those perfectly on
one multiple choice exam, is similarly without credence.

Thus, in terms of validity, the best that can be said of
high-stakes exams is that they measure effectiveness of instruction
toward pre-selected material (again, selected by whom?)
on one particular exam. And, in terms of reliability, since most
schools and teachers focus relentlessly on the material just before
the exam is given, it is likely that, a year later, if tested
again, many students would not be as successful. This is why
most thoughtful educators decry the “narrow” focus of testing:
it measures a small domain of select material; one that, when
prepped for, regularly distorts the depth, complexity and steadfastness
of student ability.

But, putting all this aside, let’s return to the central
premise: student effort will increase when there is “more” riding
on a test’s outcome. Astoundingly, there is no research data
showing that such “high-stakes” environments actually work to
improve effort, achievement or scholarship. None.14 Nor have
long-standing college-entrance exams, like the SAT and ACT,
shown any signifi cant change in student achievement over the
last decade.15 In fact, in 2006, they experienced their biggest decline
in 31 years.16 Nor do international comparison exams like
TIMMS17 or national comparative tests like the NAEP18 show
much improvement amongst the body of American students. In
other words, if the claim is that high stakes exams are somehow
improving “student achievement”, it is not showing up in numbers
across class cohorts.

Moreover, a well known sociological principle, Campbell’s Law19 applies directly to “high stakes” exams. Campbell’sLaw, states: “The greater the social consequence riding on an
examination, the more likely it is that the exam will be manipulated
or corrupted to outfl ank the social pressures surrounding
it.” Campbell’s Law has proven true for centuries, starting with
ancient Chinese civil service exams based on Confucianism. It
has certainly proven to be true with high-stakes testing as David
Berliner documents assiduously in his book on the standardized
testing craze, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing
Corrupts America’s Schools.20

Campbell’s Law, by itself, makes clear that high-stakes exams—far from producing “certainty” ofeducational excellence—are a set-up for schools to fore go real
learning in favor of the only thing the system truly values: producing
an acceptable numerical appearance of learning.
So, despite all the rhetoric surrounding the need for “accountability”
in public schools, the one operational strategy designed
to demonstrate accountability has itself escaped accountability—
at least in terms of having any kind of a research base to
justify its widely accepted use. High stakes exams typically feature
low validity, low reliability and a high likelihood of corruption.

Further, when you factor in that these high-stakes exams,
which have so much riding on them, are not generally available
to the public or subject to the safeguards or oversight that you
would expect from such a consequential event, it should set off
alarms across the country.

Think about this: if a school or a teacher announced to
the student body that there was going to be one test to determine
who graduates, and that what was on that test, its scoring and
methodology could not be revealed—in fact, anyone found to
have revealed specific material on the test could be tried for felonytheft—does anyone think that such a policy would survivethe next school board meeting? Of course not.

And don’t imagine there have not been errors in administering
and scoring these exams—huge errors that have cost
students diplomas, access to scholarships and even admission
to college.21 Such flaws turn up in the local press every year across the country. But, how are errors even discovered? So far, only through the relentless pursuit of the truth by parents and a willingness to initiate court action. But, for poor families, when
handed a score on official school stationary, with a young child standing nearby looking ashamed, what are the odds they will spend considerable time and money to contest it over the course of the next year?

Let me say this again because it is terribly important:
There are no large-scale, peer-reviewed academic studies that
prove, or even suggest, that a high-stakes, standardized testing
educational program improves learning, skill-development or
achievement for students. And, in fact, when you think about
some of the best students and schools in this country—I am talking
about the 10% of students in private schools—they do not,
as a rule, employ high-stakes testing. And why not? Because
they have a clear educational mission22 in most cases, and understand
that high-stakes standardized tests do not fundamentally
move students closer to learning goals.

The academic motto of the Blake School in Minneapolis
is: Challenging the mind; engaging the heart. And from their
program description: One of Blake’s core values is love of learning.
Every day, in every classroom our students embrace this
value by actively engaging in the learning process.23

Here is the Mission Statement of St. Paul Academy and Summit Schoolin Saint Paul: In pursuit of excellence in teaching and learning,
St. Paul Academy and Summit School educates a diverse and
motivated group of young people for leadership and service, inspires
in them an enduring love of learning, and helps them lead
productive, ethical and joyful lives.

If private schools are the gold standard in American education
and they do not utilize high stakes exams, why then is it
being foisted on public schools?

Why High-Stakes Exams?

Principally because we, as a society, unlike most private
schools, have not decided what the goals of education should
be. As a result, the aims of learning are easily diverted, misused
and hijacked to fi t the latest campaign slogan, administrative fiat or position-paper. There is no clearer example than the 1983report, A Nation At Risk,24 put forward by business interests, upported by the Reagan Administration and swallowed whole by an uncritical media, portraying America’s schools as being so disastrous that they were ruining America’s competitiveness.(Funny that the decade of the 1990s turned out to be one of
America’s most successful, at least economically, in its history.)

All this served the purpose of undermining confidence in thepublic system, softening the ground for dramatic change, andlock-stepping education policy with business interests—pushing us inexorably toward an over-reliance on standardized tests.25The same thing has now happened under the more sanguine
title, No Child Left Behind, which sets as a condition of
aid for Federal Title I funding tests in reading and math for
grades 3 through 8. While these exams are not high stakes for
students, NCLB provides an ever increasing level of punishment
for schools who do not move rapidly up to 100% proficiency by 2012—a level of student achievement that has never been attained in any school, district or country around the world.26

(And, in fact, given that some states are using norm-referenced
instruments, a level of achievement that is already known to be
impossible before any tests are given!)

In a sense, what the onset of NCLB means is that virtually every standardized test around the country is now high stakes, for schools if not for kids.
What’s more, there are some in Congress who want to extend
the annual testing into high school and use the results to rate
individual teachers.27

It is disheartening that there is not a stronger public
understanding about what is important in education so that it
doesn’t become a political football to be tossed and kicked by
self-serving politicians. Do we really want an education system
driven by the latest political slogan? With education policy
housed in fifty different state capitols around the country,the notion of consensus in terms of learning goals is inherentlyproblematic. In fact, for most of our history, and, ironically, as
recently as the Reagan Administration, local school-board control and individual states as incubators of innovative educational reforms were viewed as major assets in America’s educational program.

As a child of two life-long educators, a teacher of 20
years and an author who has studied these issues, I feel compelled
to confront the unchallenged assumption that the current
hyper-testing regime is a sound approach for developing the human
capital that is today’s younger generation. In fact, I am
prepared to argue that not only is the entirety of the standardized
testing regime ineffective in its aims of improving education,
but that it is, in fact, the very reason drop-out rates are
accelerating,28 the achievement gap continues to widen29 and so
much of America’s educational program is dull and uninspired.30

High stakes, standardized exams have been billed as a panacea
for our educational ills. I declare this a sham and an appallingly
bad educational strategy which guarantees poor results, reduced
motivation and legions of graduates without the skills necessary
to live a decent and fulfilling life.

The Dirty Dozen: How High-Stakes Tests Fail Our Kids

Below, I identify twelve principal harms that flow from the high-stakes, measurable accountability movement in U.S.education policy. Each contributes its share to making schools less than welcoming and dynamic place for young people, but,taken cumulatively, they are conspiring to make the experience of school something that children learn to hate.

1. In the trash-bin of history: low order thinking skills
Standardized tests, typically multiple-choice and lacking in breadth and depth, tend to measure low-order thinking skills,the kind of short-sequence logic operations which are routine and involve immediate recall of discrete but obvious facts. Thereare two problems here: fi rst, these types of questions are often abstract, with no connection to a student’s life and are thereforeinherently uninteresting and unable to pierce through to their
real-world concerns. We know, or should, that connection to a student’s identity is one of the surest ways we can bring him orher into the world of academia.31 In a word, students fi nd these problems unimportant and useless, and many don’t care enoughto put forward a good effort.

Second, the kind of skill-set that these questions build is rapidly becoming obsolete in today’s economy. When you look at jobs that are being outsourced to
Asia, it is exactly this kind of rote, sequenced operation that workers in India and China are able to do much more cheaplythan the best-trained American workers.32 Bottom-line: even if
American students master these kinds of short, logical operations, executing them over and over again, the reality is there won’t be much demand for these skills in the world of work.

2. The future is in the right-hemisphere.

The skills that are most necessary for today’s work environment
are much more right-brained: creativity, whole analysis,
a collaborative people orientation, aesthetic appreciation,
complex reasoning and critical problem-solving.33 It is a fact
that standardized tests do not, and cannot, measure these kinds
of aptitudes.34 Right-brained abilities are much more dependent
on instructor modeling, personal exploration and experience,
effective pedagogy and inspiring curriculum. This is precisely
why America’s best private schools do not overly bother themselves
with standardized tests, but, rather, attempt to directly
build academic skills—love for learning, creative problem solving,
stimulating reading and discussion, critical thinking—that
can be transferred to other endeavors.

3. A lousy way to teach and learn.

Standardized tests result in the kind of “drill and kill”
pedagogy that we know is ineffective. In his ground-breaking
book How Children Fail, John Holt wrote this about how and
why children learn:

The child who wants to know something remembers
it and uses it once he has it; the child who learns
something to please or appease someone else forgets
it when the need for pleasing or the danger of not appeasing
is past.

Brace yourselves: Holt wrote this 50 years ago in 1958!
Teaching in a standardized testing environment encourages
lousy teaching techniques—memorization, drill-and-kill, rote
learning—and results in the kind of shallow, fl eeting and compartmentalized
knowledge that is ineffective and prone to turn
children off from school. We have known this for over fi ve decades—
why would we go back to a kind of instructional practice
that never worked in the first place?

4. Learning is natural and inherently valued.

As mentioned above, a standardized classroom results
in poor pedagogy that gets the learning equation backward.
Learning should be pursued for its intrinsic value, not because
someone is forcing one to learn. Why do students put in hours
and hours rehearsing for musical concerts, plays or practicing
sports? Because, in fact, they see intrinsic value in those activities;
in a word, they choose to pursue them. The same could and
should be true for our academic subjects if and when we focus
on giving students choices and responsibility for designing a
learning plan. Course work should have much greater relevance
to a student, as well as a specifi c and practical application beyond
school. Mostly this means making explicit the connection
between a given subject and a student’s life—contextualizing it,
bringing it home personally, giving them and their community a
stake in seeing that learning matters.35

Once students are hooked on learning—not for reward or avoiding punishment—they willdo far more for themselves and their intellectual development
than we could ever imagine. Unfortunately, in the current environment,
students are told repeatedly: the reason they need to
spend hours learning some abstract, disconnected operation or
set of facts is that it will someday be on an exam.

5. We are ruining brains.

Brain development is perhaps the most pressing reason
why we need to rethink our current high-stakes testing mania.
By age 9 or so, young people have the physical structure—the
hardware, if you will—of their brain in place. Over the next ten
to twelve years it is crucial that they actively utilize different
brain functions—develop the software—in order for it to reach
its maximum potential.36 Structured complexity in the classroom,
an enriched array of choices and modes of assessment,
varied social groupings all contribute to growing the brain in
particularly fruitful ways.

And so does creating an environment
in which adequate time, physical activity and low stress levels
are baseline considerations.37-38 Similarly, the aesthetic appreciation
found in music and the arts as well as more contemplative
activities like spirituality and compassion are not things that
happen without schools making them a priority, or at least a possibility.
39 All of these are currently being shunted aside in our
mad rush to increase test scores.

As a result, we are in danger of
producing a generation of learners who cannot critically think,
appreciate the arts, nor marvel at the profound mysteries of our
universe. And, tragically, once these abilities are neglected long
enough, up through the age of 24 or so, there is less of a chance
that they will ever be fully integrated into a person’s intellectual
repertoire.

6. Exams merely ratify the achievement gap.

The oft-stated purpose of NCLB is to narrow the achievement
gap between whites and students of color. Yet, we know,
and have known for a long time, that the most reliable predictor
of a student’s standardized test score is the square-footage of
their principal residence.40 In other words, students of affl uent
families almost universally score higher on exams than do students
in under-privileged homes. Researchers have found that
by the age of six, children in affl uent families have been exposed
to fully 2 million more words than have been children in more
trying circumstances.41 They are more likely to have been read
to regularly, engaged in enrichment activities like travel and
museums and also to have had access to adequate nutrition and
health-care.

Is it any wonder that there is a substantial achievement
gap when there is a veritable gulf of difference between the
haves and the have-nots in America? (I don’t even understand
why we are surprised by this.) But to then take the one reliable
instrument which has always privileged well-to-do students and
make it the basis of comparison and academic achievement for
every kid in America is simply to lock in place existing inequities. Poor children are, by far, more likely to drop out, have astressful home-life, get suspended, repeatedly move and change schools, run afoul of the law and act out during class.42 They arealso least likely to be interested in or motivated by abstract questions or the need to score highly on an instrument far removedfrom their personal experience. We are not closing the achievement
gap under NCLB as major research studies have shown,43
but, rather, we are confi rming and institutionalizing at the level
of policy how real and profound are the differences between rich
and poor.

7. More anxiety = less learning.

High-stakes standardized tests increase the levels of fear
and anxiety of young students, and it is a well-documented fact
in education that the higher the levels of affective interference,
the less able students are to complete even low-order thinking
tasks—not to mention the more refl ective, higher-order skills
which are crucial for brain development and future employment.
The stories coming in from around the country, even
around the world,44 of students unable to sleep at night, acting
out, exhausted from stress45 and generally working themselves
into emotional wrecks46 as a result of hype surrounding exams47
is truly disgusting. These are children, some as young as eight
years old, being put in highly stressful situations where their test
performance may have extremely serious repercussions for their
teachers, their parents and the fate of their school. Why are we
doing this again? Oh, right—for the good of the children.

8. Narrowing the curriculum to a lifeless skeleton.

Fact: 71% of schools48 report having to cut back on important
electives like art, music and gym class in order to fi nd
more time for remedial instruction in math and reading. Some
critics might consider this a step in the right direction, more like
our highly competitive adversaries in China, India and Japan.
But, as previously mentioned, in terms of brain development,
pedagogical excellence, real-world skills and fostering intrinsic
interest in learning, this is a huge net loss for children and our
society. Doing more and more of what is not working does not
equate with an effective educational program. We are asking
children to do the metaphoric equivalent of bang their heads
against a concrete wall for hours every day—and when we discover
that it isn’t working, we are urging them to do it harder
and for longer periods of time.

9. The higher the stakes, the lower the bar.

High-stakes standardized tests are not good measures of
academic excellence. As mentioned previously, they measure
a narrow band of logical sequence operations which are useful
only for taking further exams. In fact, because states are under
tremendous pressure to show that their academic programs are
working, the truth is that state exams are becoming less and less
demanding.49 It is a truism: just as in gym class where every student
must jump over a bar at some minimum height, the temptation
is to continually lower the bar until a vast majority can
make it. This is not driving the system toward Olympian heights
of excellence; on the contrary, it is driving the system toward
lower and lower levels of acceptability. Why is it that some
states like Georgia and North Carolina have such remarkable
pass rates on their State-wide exams but such a dismal pass-rate
on the NAEP exam?50 The answer is that high-stakes exam bars
are not set very high, and are certainly not indicative of students
who are ready for college, work or the complex demands of being
an adult. Look at the amount of remedial instruction now
required on college campuses before students can even begin
taking introductory classes. On the route of trying to measure
and prove academic excellence, we are guaranteeing ourselves a
progressively larger share of mediocrity. We are being dumbeddown
in a systematic, organized and expensive way.

10. Shallow is as shallow does.

The American public’s perception of how public education
is performing continues to slide in an era of standardized
testing. Surveys confi rm that Americans view public education
unfavorably, saying that standards are too lax and that students
are leaving with low skill-levels.51 Interestingly, when the same
respondents are asked about their own public school, the one
at which they send their children, their perceptions are that the
school performs quite well.52 In other words, it is the “other”
schools that aren’t doing well, the ones that are educating “other”
children. No doubt, media coverage of school shootings, falling
test scores and inadequate supplies and resources contribute to
a general perception that schools are failing. But even when the
news is apparently good, when pass rates or test scores move up,
the public is being encouraged to believe in a very shallow and
unreliable measure of what makes for a “quality” education.53

As much as students are being dumbed-down by the lowered bar ofhigh-stakes exams, their parents and the public are being asked to swallow whole that the complex, interrelated and open-endedprocess of education can be reduced to a single number, up or
down, black or white. Standardized exams are equally adept at
dumbing-down the American public—the very ones being asked
at election-time to vote on school-funding levels, school-board
candidates, and—yes, sadly—even presidential candidates.

11. We are undermining and losing our best people.

As an educator, I can attest to the increasing levels of
frustration and dissatisfaction within the ranks of teachers. We
are losing fully 50% of new teachers in the fi rst fi ve years of embarking
on what they hoped was a lifetime career.54 We are also
losing a staggering number of veteran teachers, some through
retirement, others through the frustration of seeing what has
happened to education.55

Think about it: are we really supposed
to believe that a teacher comes home at the end of the day and
says to her husband—“Honey, it’s been an unbelievable day at
school; our reading scores just shot up 2 percent over last year.”
The real truth is that educators are made from a complex
confl uence of personal factors, and principal among them are
a love of learning and a kind of reverence for making a difference
in the lives of youngsters. By subverting that, by elevating
merely routine performance to the front of what makes for education,
we are actively undermining the very rationale for why
good teachers want to teach.56 And slowly, over the course of a
generation, if we lose enough truly inspiring educators, we will
lose their students too—the ones who see no particular reason to
want to go into teaching themselves.

12. We are undermining essential American values.

Last, but not least, and perhaps most insidiously, highstakes
standardized exams support a very dangerous world-view.
Jim Cummins, the intrepid advocate for literacy and second language
acquisition, calls the NCLB mindset “an ideology.”57 It is
one that believes there is a single measure of human excellence,
that conformity to the designs of those in authority is mandatory
and that deviating in any way from the norm is wrong and
to be punished Had it been our principal educational impulse
since America’s inception, I believe there would not have been
developments like Jazz and women’s suffrage, or fi gures like
Anne Sullivan, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony or Franklin
Delano Roosevelt—that we would be today a much less confi
dent, innovative and resilient people.

At its core, the high-stakes standardized testing movement
is asking students not only to not think for themselves, but
to passively accept that all knowledge is controlled by authority.
That you exist only as an individual, not as part of some larger
social whole, and that you will be successful or fail based upon
your individual ability to do exactly what others expect you to.
If you step outside of that and try to do something based upon
conviction, creativity or critical insight, your academic record
along with a raft of social opportunities will be damaged. In
fully embracing a high-stakes standardized testing regime, we
are subverting a substantial part of what makes America unique
and productive: our ingenuity, our self-reliance, our faith that
we make a better tomorrow through creativity and collaboration,
not conforming to others’ ideas about what we ought to know or
be able to do. Instead, we are being asked to stay passively in
our chair and make a selection from answers provided, obey all
commands and regulations—no matter how punitive, ridiculous
or restrictive—blithely accept the accuracy, fairness and lack
of transparency surrounding the exams, and voice not a single
word in opposition to the entire noxious enterprise.

Standardizaton versus Customization

To be fair, there are other voices, education experts, policy
wonks and business executives,58 who see it different and
want to continue even more aggressively down the path of tougher
standards, measurable accountability and doling out rewards
and punishment based on test scores. They have their reasons.59
They are well-educated (in a non-high stakes environment, of
course) and they aim to convince: We have to measure what is
happening with public dollars. This is about system accountability.
We need to keep up with what other countries are doing.
Why should poor kids be left without options in the inner city?

Two of the largest and best-funded of these groups are
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable,
and they have banded together to fi ght any major changes to
the No Child Left Behind Law as it faces renewal. Their reason:
“competitiveness.” As Charles E.M. Kolb, president for the
Committee for Economic Development, a Washington-based
group of business, academic, and philanthropic leaders puts it:
“Business is probably the largest consumer of American education”,
and the priority of learning should be “having people in
the workforce who are capable and have the skills you need in
the workforce today.”60

I have already spoken to the issue of “real-world” skills:
how quickly low-order thinking jobs are being outsourced
abroad, and how 21st century workers will need a much more
fl exible right-brained skill-set—whole analysis, critical thinking,
creativity, an aesthetic sensibility, and a host of collaborative
people skills—not to mention the intellectual fl exibility to
constantly learn new things and be able to switch careers as the
modern economy evolves and restructures.

But let’s put that aside. Let’s consider Kolb’s claim that
“business is the largest consumer of American education.” This
gets to the nub of America’s lack of understanding about the
goals of education. Do we really agree that children are going to
school so that they can serve the interests of the economy? That
is, that the goal of learning is to prepare students so that they
can successfully work for a local business or corporation? Or, is
the goal of learning to further that individual’s—and their family’s—
own prospects? That is, to help them discover who they
really are, what they value, and prepare them to live a healthy,
dynamic and meaningful life?

I submit, by tradition and routine, that the goal of public education is the latter. That, in fact,student achievement is higher, more sustained and more valued
when student identity and autonomy are affi rmed and enhanced.
And also, that the largest “consumers” of American education
are the very people who need and use these schools—students,
along with their families: the exact citizens upon whom all of us
are dependent in a governmental system “of the people, by the
people and for the people.”

The core of this debate over whose interests education is
meant to serve characterizes a simple but important distinction
in our approach to how learning actually works: On one side are
people who believe that education is centered in the learner, with
their interests, passions and enthusiasm as the driving force. On
the other are people who see learning as being more about the
system and adults: developing effective structures that allow the
system to manage, control and direct children to “achieve” what
the system determines is important, measuring that and handing
out rewards to those who comply.

The latter impulse, which generally falls under the rubric
of “standardization,” requires students to conform to a certain
mold and become, more or less, products that are kicked-on
from school when they “pass” a minimum level of uniformity
with everyone else. The former, which might best be defi ned by
the term “customization,” asks that we listen to each individual,
establish relationships, help them build identity and assets as
learners and then provide assistance in determining a workable
route—given their affi nities and abilities—into the future. One
side looks fearfully at young people as inputs to an economic
scheme that might not be capable of achieving a minimally viable
result (a la A Nation At Risk); the other looks optimistically
at learning and seeks to maximize what students can become,
create and provide the world.

Both sides say they want the best for children. Yet
only one side actually takes time to ask what children want forthemselves—only one side supports getting students to confronttheir world honestly—in full possession of vital literacy skills and critical perspectives. And only one side has the professionaltraining, background and experience to fully understand the complexities of human learning and how to make it happen.And this to me is the crucial difference between standardization
advocates and genuinely effective educators.

Who is willing to listen? Who is willing to go down the aisles of classroomsand discover what it is that kids really want for themselves, for their lives and the world? Who wants the truth, original and authentic,to emerge from a child’s encounter with learning? And
who, looking at the economy and education as a series of interconnected
systems and policies to be controlled and managed, assumes an infallible knowledge about what every kid needs,then forces them to jump through the same ludicrous hoop no
matter the human cost?

And it has to be said: the agents of standardization are
not nearly as interested in the lives of poor and disenfranchised
students as they claim. For the truth is this: well-to-do students
and their families have access to fully “customized” learning
experiences—tutors, charter schools, private schools, academic
camps, test-prep centers, travel, enrichment of all kinds—whereas
the poor are consigned to the dumbed-down standards of accountability
and vacuous debates about whether they can obtain
these low-level skills and out-dated curriculum from their local
school, or, with government help, attend one further away.61 In
either case, they end up without an education aimed at furthering
their unique abilities, but rather, curriculum and instruction designed
to make them like everyone else who is not succeeding.

The agents of standardization have an awesome advantage
in this debate: the American public does not have a high
tolerance for nuanced discussions about education policy. Tell
them that schools are bad, that numbers from test scores prove
it, that the younger generation is about to ruin this country and
a majority buy it. Ask them to consider a list of qualitative reasons
why that scenario is a misconception and a massive fraud
and a majority will beg off for not enough time.

I am not suggesting that educating children is easy or uncomplicated.
Nor that it is currently being done well or should
be radically more expensive. What I am saying is that we are
doing a dreadfully dumb thing in embracing whole-heartedly
the standardized testing agenda. It is unproven, and a rotten
educational strategy: harmful to kids who need education most,
fundamentally unfair, counter-productive to brain development
and ignorant of the demands the world makes on kids as adults.
It also represents a fundamental change in the goals of public
education: from serving the genuine needs of learners to catering
to the demands of business concerns and an unjust economic
arrangement.

And I also submit that believing we can reduce the
very complex, profound and multi-faceted process of educating
a child to a single number, to see those numbers as everything we
need to know about millions of professionals working to educate
kids, and then to assert that all will be better if we just hand over
control to bureaucrats in Washington is the height of arrogance
and reveals a severely authoritarian impulse.

The high-stakes, measurable accountability advocates
are in ascendancy, and with every indication that the system they
put in place is not effective and not working, they demand more
power and more control over how we teach children—while simultaneously
decrying the scourge of taxation that sustains public
schools. They variously blame teachers, parents, the bureaucracy
and notions of public education itself. But never do they
provide real solutions, real resources or new ideas on how we
can restore America’s faith in a dynamic public education sector—
one that utilizes the latest pedagogy, curriculum, brain-research,
technology and inspired instructors. Rather, they use the
cudgel of “testing data” to flog everyone in their way and spoutan endless parade of statistics to confi rm what everyone alreadyknows: we need real reform, real ideas and real resources if we ant to change the status-quo in America’s public schools.

But even before that, and now more than ever, America
needs one thing above all: an informed, dedicated, and effective
teacher corps. One willing to effectively combat outmoded,
counter-productive and wrong-headed educational strategies by
using well-grounded research, experience and insight. One that
has the courage and vision to articulate and create thoughtful,
dynamic and highly relevant instructional programs that help
every child in America realize their potential as full human
beings. And, I believe, that must start with the set of teachers
whose very job it is to engage multiple perspectives, enhance
communication and build critical literacy; those whose job it is
to work with language and human expression to further ennoble
the cause of being human: teachers of the language arts.

 

 

Notes

1. Houston, Denver, and the state of Florida all approved
programs to provide “merit pay” to teachers based on
test scores of students. In Houston, the upshot of administering
these bonuses resulted in a chaotic scene in which teachers
complained bitterly about why, how and if the process approximated
reality. Denver backed down from its plan to extend a
pilot program across the district. Whereas, Florida is dealing
with problems of testing errors and fairness to the extent that the
legislature is revamping the original law only one year after it
was implemented.
< http://www.susanohanian.org/
show_atrocities.html?id=6905 >
< http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.
qst;jsessionid=GrpHnymQd15mp2Bb6Vs6Tp
G0KW4YWk3Fw7CnWTZJkpxZX7psQR7P!-
646413792?docId=5009329158 >
< http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/reality/
pay_performance >
2. Currently, 27 states produce school report cards,
most of them based signifi cantly on test scores.
< http://www.nea.org/accountability/
reportcards.html >
3. Even the U.S. Congress is on the case of assessing
the wisdom of using high-stakes testing for promotion.
< http://www.nap.edu/html/highstakes >
4. Both Education Week and the New York Times have
recently raised serious questions about the quality of standardized
tests given their rapid increase in number and importance.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/07/23/44toch_web.h26.html >
< http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/
education/22education.html?ei=5070&en=583026c
a0f9ed068&ex=1185768000&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=
1185655644-SIUKO8HwQ3c/Olangj+N1Q >
5. The Fairtest site is one of the few credible and independent
sources of information about standardized testing.
< http://www.fairtest.org/facts/fallout.htm >
6. Education Week broaches the question.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/07/23/44toch_web.h26.html?levelId=
2300&rale2=KQE5d7nM/XAYPsVRXwnFWYRqII
X2bhy1+KNA5buLAWGoKt77XHI2terRpWBSgkt
LIAhcBHMqi8LK >
7. This is just one of many “wonks” who are willing to
go there on trusting standardized tests more than the judgment
of the professional educator.
< http://www.eduwonk.com/2006/11/
test-scores-and-grades.html >
8. The “free” market, as espoused by Republicans, is
most often depicted as “the” savior for public education.
< http://www.heartland.org/
Article.cfm?artId=17727 >
9. How are young people supposed to learn and practice
democracy if they do not see it and understand it from their
experience in school?
< http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/
recordDetail?accno=EJ725990 >
10. Fairtest is considered one of the few unbiased sources
of information about standardized testing.
< http://www.fairtest.org/ >
11. An extensive review of the literature reveals the one
valuable role for standardized tests.
< http://www.fairtest.org/facts/
formulative_assessment.html >
12. Once again, Fairtest has the data and the quality information.
< http://www.fairtest.org/facts/nratests.html >
13. Criterion-referenced exams are sometimes called
“standards referenced exams.”
< http://www.fairtest.org/facts/csrtests.html >
14. Anyone who can prove standardized testing’s effi -
cacy would have lifetime job prospects. The National Academy
of Sciences is no small player in this debate. Can you fi nd any
evidence in peer-reviewed studies?
< http://www.123helpme.com/
preview.asp?id=34046 >
15. Test scores have either inched up within the margin
of error, stayed the same or declined.
< http://fi ndarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0MJG/
is_1_6/ai_n15969879/pg_12 >
16. Why would test scores be going down for our best
and brightest? Perhaps because we are focusing on minimum
standards instead of achieving excellence.
< http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6...
E15F93A5A0C738FDDA10894DE404482 >
17. International comparisons have their own problems
but clearly the U.S. is not exactly sprinting to the front of the
pack in the standardized testing era.
< http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-
Differences/2007/05/should_data_matter.html >
18. NAEP scores show little movement nationally, leading
many to suspect states are lowering their standards to give
the “appearance” of improvement. And Gerald Bracey has had
62 Minnesota English Journal
to work overtime to swat down claims made by Education Secretary
Spellings about the success of NCLB testing.
< http://nces.ed.gov/whatsnew/commissioner/
remarks2007/5_16_2007.asp >
< http://64.233.169.104/
search?q=cache:oMmAkvW5dqIJ:www.americatomorrow.
com/bracey/EDDRA/k0610bra.pdf+The+
16th+Bracey+Report+on+the+Condition+of+Public
+Education&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us >
19. America sometimes believes that it can ignore, avoid
and transcend the long history of humanity: Campbell says otherwise.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell’s_Law >
20. Berliner and Nichols demonstrate conclusively the
fatuousness of the standardized testing myth.
< http://www.tcrecord.org/
Content.asp?ContentId=13828 >
21. Compiling all the individual states and their errors
would be a heroic undertaking.
< http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/21/
business/21EXAM.html?ex=1185768000&en=4f6b
0c6b305ed4a2&ei=5070 >
22. Their missions may vary, but the focus of their vision
does not.
< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_school >
23. Captured from http://www.blakeschool.org/academics/
index.html on 7-28-2007.
24. The original report makes an interesting read in light
of the 1990s economic success.
< http://www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/risk.html >
25. Gerald Bracey has the data to reinforce his ideas
about why A Nation At Risk was way off base.
< http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.
html?id=492 >
26. There has never been any country or school system
in the world that has recorded 100% profi ciency on any meaningful exam.< http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2007/03/nclb-0-c... ciency.html >27. There are many players calling for “tougher standards”on students and teachers, but the Aspen Institute’s NCLB
Commission is among the highest profi le.
< http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.
huLWJeMRKpH/b.938015/k.40DA/Commission_
on_No_Child_Left_Behind.htm >
28. Dropouts are notoriously hard to measure, but many
people believe it has reached an “epidemic” level amongst the
urban poor.
< http://abcnews.go.com/US/
story?id=2667532&page=1 >
29. Harvard’s Civil Rights Project weighs in with authority
and long experience on this question.
< http://www.edletter.org/current/ferguson.shtml >
30. We have known the shortcomings of programs like
NCLB for a long time; in fact, this is an old idea wrapped in a
new cover.
< http://www.amazon.com/Many-Children-Left-Behind-
Damaging/dp/0807004596 >
< http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0807004596/
ref=sib_dp_pt/104-8955214-6838341 >
31. One of the premiere thinkers about literacy, Jim
Cummins, knows a bad thing when he sees it.
< http://www.dailykos.com/
storyonly/2007/7/26/131722/394 >
32. Maintaining profi t margins in today’s economy
means a race to the bottom.
< http://www.susanohanian.org/
show_commentary.php?id=473 >
33. Some business leaders “get it”, and are attempting to
move education into the 21st century.
< http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/
index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=254&Itemid=120 >
34. Applied thinking, creating new knowledge, critical
thinking—we know what kids need to be successful but we are
not doing it consistently at the K-12 level.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/01/17/19global.h26.
html?levelId=1000& >
35. Among many books and thinkers espousing “human
development” above the need to sort and measure, Thomas
Armstrong stands out.
< http://www.tcrecord.org/
Content.asp?ContentID=13942 >
36. Dr. David Walsh, who lives here in Minnesota, is a
leading thinker about adolescent brain development.
< http://books.google.com/books?id=YOaR4angPQk
C&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=david+walsh+adolescen
t+brain+development&source=web&ots=41uUFpg
5LB&sig=LxHSVz5pR1Btaedu2660fz1g0M0 >
37. Dr. Eric Jensen is also a leading thinker on brain development,
particularly as it relates to educational design.
< http://books.google.com/books?id=iftjAQAACAAJ
&dq=Eric+Jensen,+Enriching+the+Brain >
38. Neuroscience is quite clear, united and convincing
on the needs of adolescents relative to brain development. Why
don’t we listen to their recommendations more often?
< http://www.ascd.org/portal/site/ascd/template.
MAXIMIZE/menuitem.459dee008f99653fb855
16f762108a0c/;jsessionid=GspsLDRgRdocCnd
o2dbvFWL25bhc0yRccqabbo5NwJorOnK79GC
d!-1298136751?javax.portlet.tpst=d5b9c0fa1a4
93266805516f762108a0c_ws_MX&javax.portlet.
prp_d5b9c0fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_
viewID=issue_view&javax.portlet.prp_d5b9c0-
fa1a493266805516f762108a0c_journalmoid=307
9b465e4013010VgnVCM1000003d01a8c0RCRD
&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=token&javax.portlet.
endCacheTok=token >
39. If we want a better future, we have to equip young
people now with the tools and skillfulness that will allow them
to get there.
< http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/
current_issue/suttie.html >
40. Why does no one ever invoke public policy to undo
the “wealth gap”, the “health care gap” or the “income gap”,
given that we know quite well what educational impacts those
gaps have on children?
< http://www.news-record.com/apps/
pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051009/
NEWSREC0101/51009006 >
41. Once again, David Berliner has the data that proves
this point clearly.
< http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.
asp?ContentID=12106 >
42. Dropout numbers, when they can be obtained, are quite
damning in regard to America’s overall educational program.
< http://www.csba.org/csmag/csMagStoryTemplate.
cfm?id=103 >
43. There are many such studies: closing the achievement
gap when there are other signifi cant gaps is not at all likely.
< http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1...
B13F93E5A0C738EDDA80994DE404482 >
44. England has just recently come to its senses and
moved away from such an extreme testing regime. When will
the U.S. wake up?
< http://www.susanohanian.org/
show_atrocities.html?id=7101 >
45. Some states are worse than others. Massachusetts
was among the early offenders in high-stakes testing profl igacy.
< http://www.susanohanian.org/
show_atrocities.html?id=6114 >
46. If you page through the “Outrages” column at www.
susanohanian.org, you will fi nd many examples, like this, of
what is being done in the name of “good for the children.”
< http://www.susanohanian.org/ >
66 Minnesota English Journal
< http://www.susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.
html?id=6952 >
47. Our children are being manipulated by a system that
clearly has little regard for their overall emotional and educational
health.
< http://www.susanohanian.org/
show_atrocities.html?id=6806 >
48. This was from two years ago. Recent trends suggest
the percentages, both in terms of the number of schools and of
the time on math and reading tasks, has increased since then.
< http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F3...
713FF3F540C758EDDAA0894DE404482 >
49. Thomas Toch writes for Education Week.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/07/23/44toch_web.h26.html >
50. This story is being repeated virtually everywhere
around the country.
< http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.
cgi?fi le=/c/a/2006/06/30/MNG28JN9RC1.
DTL&type=printable >
51. Phi Delta Kappan has done extensive surveying in
this area.
< http://www.aei.org/publications/
fi lter.all,pubID.25667/pub_detail.asp >
52. One of many surveys that reveal essentially the same
data. “Our” schools are okay, it’s the other ones that don’t measure
up.
< http://newsroom.msu.edu/site/indexer/1844/
content.htm >
53. Bill Spady, veteran educator, gives the lowdown on
America’s 19th century thinking about education.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/01/10/18spady.h26.
html?levelId=1000& >
The Case Against Standardized Testing 67
54. Some states and districts lose less than 50%, which
means that some must lose more. Ouch.
< http://www.csba.org/csmag/
csMagStoryTemplate.cfm?id=101 >
55. Brookings has the numbers on supply and demand
for teachers.
< http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/
information_show.htm?doc_id=468990 >
56. This scene is being replayed over and over across the
country.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2007/07/18/43gill.h26.
html?tmp=1579681080 >
57. Four standing ovations for Mr. Cummins at a recent
meeting of literacy educators.
< http://www.dailykos.com/
storyonly/2007/7/26/131722/394 >
58. The Business Roundtable has led the charge in favor
of No Child Left Behind.
< http://www.businessroundtable.org/newsroom/
document.aspx?qs=5976BF807822B0F1ADD4084
22FB51711FCF53CE >
59. The profi ts from publishing and testing companies
have improved greatly over the last six years, in direct proportion
to their coziness with Congress and the Bush Administration.
< http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/
bushplan/test192.shtml >
60. Business leaders are not shy about what they want,
and why.
< http://www.edweek.org/ew/
articles/2006/10/18/08biz.h26.
html?levelId=2200& >
61. The duplicity of the Department of Education will
eventually be uncovered, but, for now, we only have the voices
of renegade administration offi cials.
< http://www.ednews.org/articles/7315/1/NCLBtweaking...
aids-voucher-wish-list/Page1.html >

 

Annotated Bibliography

Berliner, David and Nichols, Sharon. Collateral Damage:
How High Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Press, 2007.
A well-researched, thorough and devastating exposition
of the role of standardized testing in America’s K-12
schools. Invoking “Campbell’s Law”, Berliner and Nichols
scrupulously document the folly behind the idea that
standardized testing can be used over and over as a legitimate
measure of learning outcomes, school effectiveness
or a teacher’s instructional ability. They maintain that
such “high stakes” measures have historically led to corrupt
practices wherever they have been attempted and are
doing so now across the United States. Excellent reviews
of this book can be found at http://www.hepg.org/page/40.

Dorn, Sherman. Accountability Frankenstein:
Understanding and Taming the Monster.
Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2007.
Sherman Dorn, one of the country’s pre-eminent education
historians, looks at the accountability movement
in a broader, historical perspective. He posits that the
system’s need for accountability has become so all-encompassing
that it has become a rapacious beast whose
outrageous demands must be satisfi ed before all others—
including educational excellence or innovation. A good
book for understanding the political contexts in which
education policy is determined.

Pearlstein, Linda. Tested: One American School Struggles to
Make the Grade. New York:
Henry Holt and Company, 2007.
Pearlstein, a former Washington Post reporter, spent a
year at an elementary school in Silver Spring, Maryland,
documenting the efforts of students and staff to “make
the grade” in terms of No Child Left Behind. Her account
describes well the impact that standardized testing
has on both the human beings and the programs of our
nation’s schools. This is an excellent qualitative look
inside the reality of NCLB at a typical school. A longer
review of the book may be found at http://www.dailykos.
com/story/2007/7/23/61531/6495.

Wood, George and Meier, Deborah. Many Children
Left Behind: How the No Child Left
Behind Act is Damaging Our Schools and
Children. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.
A short book of essays with a foreward by Linda Darling-
Hammond, including work of Meier, Wood and the
masterful Alfie Kohn, this book reveals once again theperfi dy and twisted motives that seem to lie behind federaleducation policy in the age of George Bush. These
authors are well-known for practicing a “whole child”
approach to education, and share no love for the idea that
more testing will lead to better schools or outcomes for
children.

Ohanian, Susan and Emery, Kathy. Why Is Corporate
America Bashing Our Public Schools?
Boston: Heinemann Publishers, 2004.
Susan Ohanian and co-author Kathy Emery peer inside
the box of corporate America to ascertain the hidden
motives behind wanting to disparage public education
70 Minnesota English Journal
through over reliance on standardized testing. Both authors
have long been advocates for non-standard students
and the educational practices that allow for individual
excellence to emerge across a broad spectrum of unique
individuals. Radical but well-grounded in reality, this is
a book that should give every educator pause in regard
to the current rhetoric around accountability, charter
schools and the quest to move toward a voucher system.

I would also like to recommend two very important articles
that have come out over the last couple years.

The first, again by David Berliner, is Our Impoverished View of Education Reform (Published through Teacher’s CollegeReview, it is available online at http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=1210...). What makes
this article so important is the clear linkage Berliner is
able to establish between results on standardized testing
and a child’s corresponding level of affl uence. The correlation
is unmistakable: the higher the level of income,
the higher a student’s score on standardized tests. No
amount of massaging statistics or of faulting public education
can undo this key fact: test scores are part and parcel
of a society which has generated signifi cant disparities
in wealth. Fighting the “achievement gap” while
simultaneously doing nothing to fi ght the “income gap”,
the “health care gap”, the “incarceration gap” is simply a
shell game in which schools are made scapegoats, politicians
are elected and nothing fundamental changes in
America’s social contract.

Second, an article published by Richard Rothstein, Tamara
Wilder and Rebecca Jacobsen, entitled Proficiencyfor All: An Oxymoron (also published by Teacher’s CollegeReview and available at http://www.epi.org/webfeatures/
viewpoints/rothstein_20061114.pdf), goes a long
way to clarifying terms, numbers and hype surrounding
student scoring on the oft-cited National Assessment
of Education Progress (NAEP) exams. In short, Rothstein,
et al, scrupulously recount debates around the “cut
scores” of the NAEP exams and show how they are set
unrealistically high and have been repeatedly criticized
by the government’s own agencies, including the Government
Accountability Offi ce and the National Academy
of Sciences. Despite repeated fi ndings that NAEP
results are “flawed” by the government’s own researchers,the National Assessment Governing Board continuesto use the exam and promulgate their results which the
media then swallow without a second thought. This article
is essential reading for those who need ammunition,
facts and research to refute the “crisis” type language
so commonly used when NAEP results are announced
every fall.

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