March/April 2007
Our literature search has turned up endless examples
showing how high-stakes testing corrupts education. A smattering
of anecdotes:
Narrowing the curriculum: A
2004 report from the Education Policy
Analysis Archives quotes one Colorado teacher as saying, “We
only teach to the test even at second grade, and have stopped teaching
science and social studies. We don’t have assemblies, take
field trips, or have musical productions at grade levels. …
Our second graders have no recess except 20 minutes at lunch.”
Pushing students out: Martin
B., 16, came home one day and asked his mother if he should quit
school. His English teacher had told the students, “Don’t
you know … that you will all fail the AIMS [state high school
exit exam]?”
Cheating: Fifth graders in one
Texas elementary school performed in the top 10 percent on the state
reading exam. The next year, as sixth graders entering a new middle
school, they scored in the bottom 10 percent. Teachers in the elementary
school admitted that cheating on the exam was standard operating
procedure.
Misreporting scores: In 2004,
the Wall
Street Journal reported on an Ohio sixth grader who attended
a school for the gifted but whose test scores were credited to the
neighborhood school he did not attend. The logic: If no “credit”
was given to neighborhood schools, they would never identify students
as gifted, for fear of losing high-scoring students to gifted programs.
Undermining teaching practice:
A dedicated eighth-grade math teacher told us that one year, when
his students’ test scores were high, he was asked to lead
“remedial” workshops for less successful colleagues.
The following year, his class had more special needs students and
English-language learners. Despite his best efforts, the scores
were not as good, and the principal requested that he attend the
same workshops he once taught so he could “improve”
his teaching.
Sharon L. Nichols is an assistant professor
at the University of Texas at San Antonio. David C. Berliner is
the Regents’ Professor of Education at Arizona State University
in Tempe. This article is adapted from their book Collateral
Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools
(Harvard Education Press, 2007).
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