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The Paradoxes of High Stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society reviewed by Sharon L. Nichols - June 24, 2009 Title: The Paradoxes of High Stakes Testing: How They Affect Students, Their Parents, Teachers, Principals, Schools, and Society Author(s): George Madaus, Michael Russell, and Jennifer Higgins Publisher: Information Age Publishing, Charlotte ISBN: 1607520273, Pages: 264, Year: 2009 Search for book at Amazon.com Madaus, Russell, and Higgins provide an authoritative historical and contemporary account of the role, impact, and consequences of high-stakes testingtests that are used to make decisions about people or institutions. Although some of the evidence they present is not new (e.g., that high-stakes testing narrows the curriculum or changes how teachers teach), their contextualization of high-stakes testing from an historical viewpoint offers a fresh and much needed perspective on the evolution and impact of high-stakes testing in society.
The authors primary argument is that the practice of high-stakes testing presents an inherent paradox. As one example of this, they argue that high-stakes testing may increase student motivation and learning or improve teaching among some, while they erode it for others. Consequently, if we are to use high-stakes testing as a lever for school reform, they ask us to consider how we might accentuate the positive while we simultaneously, eliminate these... (preview truncated at 150 words.)To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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- Sharon Nichols
University of Texas, San Antonio E-mail Author SHARON L. NICHOLS is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her research interests include high-stakes testing and its impact on teacher development and practice as well as student learning, motivation, and development. She is coauthor of Collateral damage: How high-stakes testing corrupts America’s schools (with D. C. Berliner, Harvard Education Press, 2007). She has also recently published in the Phi Delta Kappan (2008, “Why has high-stakes testing so easily slipped into contemporary American life?” 89(9), 672-676) and Educational Leadership (2008 “Testing the joy out of learning.” 65(6), 14-18). Her current work focuses on the impact of accountability of preservice and in-service teachers on student motivational development.
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