High stakes testing is a concept of using assessments to make major decisions about students and to hold schools accountable. In the U.S. high stakes testing is part of a standardization process that sees students being assessed to evaluate progress; the tests not only impact whether a student will advance but also whether the school will receive incentives from the government. Because incentives are tied to achievement and the high stakes tests are used to evaluate achievement, schools teach to the tests and spend much time ensuring that students do well on them. This raises questions about the type of education students are getting. Critics of high stakes testing believe that the method results in teaching to the test and that this—rather than real learning improvement—is the reason for test score increases. The research indicates that critics are right: Au (2007) has shown that “the primary effect of high-stakes testing is that curricular content is narrowed to tested subjects, subject area knowledge is fragmented into test-related pieces, and teachers increase the use of teacher-centered pedagogies” (p. 258). Amrein and Berliner (2002) showed in their study of high stakes testing in 18 states that test score manipulation could easily be done to affect test outcomes. Jacob (2005) showed that while scores increased in high stakes testing for, scores did not improve...
Jacob (2005) also found that teachers were focusing their attention on the high stakes tests because of the accountability factors attached to these tests. In other words, the research shows that the critics are correct in their assessment of high stakes testing.References
Amrein, A. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2002). High-stakes testing & student learning. Education policy analysis archives, 10, 18.
Au, W. (2007). High-stakes testing and curricular control: A qualitative metasynthesis. Educational Researcher, 36(5), 258-267.
Jacob, B. A. (2005). Accountability, incentives and behavior: The impact of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools. Journal of Public Economics, 89(5), 761-796.
7). Although "one would expect higher quality assessment instruments that produce better information to make education decisions given NCLB-imposed penalties for districts associated with poor performance on the test...many states struggle with budget deficits and funding restrictions. They cannot allocate the funds necessary to improve the testing programs. States are forced to rely on large-scale assessments with too few questions and a narrow focus on skills and knowledge that are
Thus, students faced with fear and stress, are overwhelmed, concentrating on the test rather than on the goals of learning. They cannot concentrate on school work, understanding the importance of learning and education, because of stress that forces some to focus only on the test and others to drop out. III. High stakes testing disadvantages those with learning disabilities. In addition to lowering the teaching capacity of some teachers and students'
"Schools will not be able to attract high-quality teachers to a system that stifles richness and creativity and emphasizes a narrow band of knowledge and a very restricted set of tests to measure it." Consequently, struggling schools will get worse as teachers move to more affluent public or private schools to teach. The students will suffer the consequences of inadequate instruction the most. In the end, High Stakes Testing does
Recognition of quality and lack there of should be a basic goal of the education system, as it strives to direct resources and change situations that are not meeting the demands of accountability, yet it is clear that High Stakes testing does a poor job identifying good schools and good teachers as it ignored, by default important information that is not available on the test scores. It has been clear
Because of this, students who had disabilities, low language proficiency, and who come from various ethnic backgrounds are viewed as such during the grading process. In addition, these kinds of assessments allow professors to not only assess whether the students have learned the subject matter, but also whether or not they have the skills to proceed in the academic realm. According to the Ohio Department of Education (n.d.), there
Only 32.6% of Black households own a computer, compared to 65.6% among Asian-Americans, 55.7% among Whites, and 33.7% among Hispanics. Similarly, only 23.5% of Black households have Internet access compared to 56.8% among Asian-Americans, 46.1% among Whites, and 23.6% among Hispanics" (p. 31). This so-called "digital divide" gap, though, between the "information haves" and the "information have-nots" continues to shrink and more and more young people are using these
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