Download or read book The Test written by Anya Kamenetz and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system." -- New York Times Book Review The Test is an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it points the way toward a hopeful future of better tests and happier kids.
Download or read book The Testing Charade written by Daniel Koretz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-08-31 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's leading expert in educational testing and measurement openly names the failures caused by today's testing policies and provides a blueprint for doing better. 6 x 9.
Download or read book Testing Wars in the Public Schools written by William J. Reese and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-03-11 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written tests to evaluate students were a radical and controversial innovation when American educators began adopting them in the 1800s. Testing quickly became a key factor in the political battles during this period that gave birth to America's modern public school system. William J. Reese offers a richly detailed history of an educational revolution that has so far been only partially told. Single-classroom schools were the norm throughout the United States at the turn of the nineteenth century. Pupils demonstrated their knowledge by rote recitation of lessons and were often assessed according to criteria of behavior and discipline having little to do with academics. Convinced of the inadequacy of this system, the reformer Horace Mann and allies on the Boston School Committee crafted America's first major written exam and administered it as a surprise in local schools in 1845. The embarrassingly poor results became front-page news and led to the first serious consideration of tests as a useful pedagogic tool and objective measure of student achievement. A generation after Mann's experiment, testing had become widespread. Despite critics' ongoing claims that exams narrowed the curriculum, ruined children's health, and turned teachers into automatons, once tests took root in American schools their legitimacy was never seriously challenged. Testing Wars in the Public Schools puts contemporary battles over scholastic standards and benchmarks into perspective by showcasing the historic successes and limitations of the pencil-and-paper exam.
Download or read book The Case Against Standardized Testing written by Alfie Kohn and published by Heinemann Educational Books. This book was released on 2000 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kohn's central message is that standardized tests are "not a force of nature but a force of politics--and political decisions can be questioned, challenged, and ultimately reversed."
Download or read book Standardized Testing in Schools written by Holly Dolezalek and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2009 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses standardized testing in schools and the controversy about its value as a tool, the history of testing, standards, and scoring, the No Child Left Behind Act, the effects on teaching, cheating among students and teachers, and public opinion about the topic.
Download or read book The ABCs of Educational Testing written by W. James Popham and published by Corwin Press. This book was released on 2016-11-02 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amplify your assessment literacy. Formative, data-driven, high-stakes—we all know the buzzwords surrounding educational testing. But we often shelve our understanding of these because they are overwhelmingly complex. Those who care about our schools and students—teachers, administrators, policymakers, parents, citizens—will discover how and why testing should be taken upon ourselves to advance. Using a nontechnical approach, this book offers fundamental knowledge to free you from testing fogginess—all framed around practical actions you can take to strengthen your assessment literacy. Inappropriate tests are leading to mistaken decisions, and this book provides everything you need to know to change that, including Reasons for tests Reliability/validity Fairness Test-building
Download or read book The Myths of Standardized Tests written by Phillip Harris and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2011-01-16 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pundits, politicians, and business leaders continually make claims for what standardized tests can do, and those claims go largely unchallenged because they are in line with popular assumptions about what these tests can do, what the scores mean, and the psychology of human motivation. But what most of what these opinion leaders say-and the public believes-about standardized testing just isn't so. However, few members of the general public, not even concerned parents, have the time or the background to keep up with the latest findings of testing experts, psychometricians, and researchers. That's where The Myths of Standardized Tests comes in. In simple, accessible language, Harris, Smith, and Harris spell out the assumptions underlying standardized tests and point out what's true about them and what's just plain mythical. But they not only debunk common assumptions; they propose better ways to judge the success of our schools. They also offer readers suggestions for ways they can help reduce the burden of tests on their children. Appendixes offer readers contact information and suggestions for actions they can take to become part of the solution to the problem of overusing and misusing standardized tests.
Download or read book Beyond Test Scores written by Jack Schneider and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Test scores are the go-to metric of policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the best schools. Yet standardized tests are a poor way to measure school performance. Using the diverse urban school district of Somerville MA as a case study, Jack Schneider’s team developed a new framework to assess educational effectiveness.
Download or read book Testing in American Schools written by and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Knowledge Gap written by Natalie Wexler and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The untold story of the root cause of America's education crisis--and the seemingly endless cycle of multigenerational poverty. It was only after years within the education reform movement that Natalie Wexler stumbled across a hidden explanation for our country's frustrating lack of progress when it comes to providing every child with a quality education. The problem wasn't one of the usual scapegoats: lazy teachers, shoddy facilities, lack of accountability. It was something no one was talking about: the elementary school curriculum's intense focus on decontextualized reading comprehension "skills" at the expense of actual knowledge. In the tradition of Dale Russakoff's The Prize and Dana Goldstein's The Teacher Wars, Wexler brings together history, research, and compelling characters to pull back the curtain on this fundamental flaw in our education system--one that fellow reformers, journalists, and policymakers have long overlooked, and of which the general public, including many parents, remains unaware. But The Knowledge Gap isn't just a story of what schools have gotten so wrong--it also follows innovative educators who are in the process of shedding their deeply ingrained habits, and describes the rewards that have come along: students who are not only excited to learn but are also acquiring the knowledge and vocabulary that will enable them to succeed. If we truly want to fix our education system and unlock the potential of our neediest children, we have no choice but to pay attention.
Download or read book Beyond Testing written by Deborah Meier and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beyond Testing describes seven forms of assessment that are more effective than standardized test results. These assessments are more honest about what we can and cannot know about children's knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Readers can compare and contrast each approach to determine which is most appropriate for their school.
Download or read book Contradictions of School Reform written by Linda McNeil and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book The Test written by Anya Kamenetz and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Standardized assessments test our children, our teachers, our schools—and increasingly, our patience. Your child is more than a score. But in the last twenty years, schools have dramatically increased standardized testing, sacrificing hours of classroom time. What is the cost to students, teachers, and families? How do we preserve space for self-directed learning and development—especially when we still want all children to hit the mark? The Test explores all sides of this problem—where these tests came from, their limitations and flaws, and ultimately what parents, teachers, and concerned citizens can do. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it offers a glimpse into a future of better tests. With an expert’s depth, a writer’s flair, and a hacker’s creativity, Anya Kamenetz has written an essential book for any parent who has wondered: what do I do about all these tests?
Download or read book Pencils Down written by Wayne Au and published by Rethinking Schools. This book was released on 2012 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This powerful collection from the groundbreaking Rethinking Schools magazine takes high-stakes standardized tests to task. Despite overwhelming evidence that the tests are invalid ways to measure teaching and learning -- and continuing signs of their unjust effects on students and teachers -- "reformers" and policymakers continue to force high-stakes tests into the public schools. Through articles that provide thoughtful and emotional critiques from the frontlines of education, Pencils Down deconstructs the damage that standardized tests wreak on our education system and the human beings that populate it. Better yet, it offers visionary forms of assessment that are not only more authentic, but also more democratic, fair, and accurate.
Download or read book Stealth Assessment written by Valerie Jean Shute and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An approach to performance-based assessments that embeds assessments in digital games in order to measure how students are progressing toward targeted goals. To succeed in today's interconnected and complex world, workers need to be able to think systemically, creatively, and critically. Equipping K-16 students with these twenty-first-century competencies requires new thinking not only about what should be taught in school but also about how to develop valid assessments to measure and support these competencies. In Stealth Assessment, Valerie Shute and Matthew Ventura investigate an approach that embeds performance-based assessments in digital games. They argue that using well-designed games as vehicles to assess and support learning will help combat students' growing disengagement from school, provide dynamic and ongoing measures of learning processes and outcomes, and offer students opportunities to apply such complex competencies as creativity, problem solving, persistence, and collaboration. Embedding assessments within games provides a way to monitor players' progress toward targeted competencies and to use that information to support learning. Shute and Ventura discuss problems with such traditional assessment methods as multiple-choice questions, review evidence relating to digital games and learning, and illustrate the stealth-assessment approach with a set of assessments they are developing and embedding in the digital game Newton's Playground. These stealth assessments are intended to measure levels of creativity, persistence, and conceptual understanding of Newtonian physics during game play. Finally, they consider future research directions related to stealth assessment in education.
Download or read book More Than a Score written by Jesse Hagopian and published by Haymarket Books. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jesse Hagopian brought a rare moment of truth to the corporate-dominated Education Nation show when he spoke on behalf of his colleagues at Garfield High in Seattle. He instantly became the voice and face of the movement to stop pointless and punitive high-stakes testing."—Diane Ravitch, author of Reign of Terror In cities across the country, students are walking out, parents are opting their children out, and teachers are rallying against the abuses of high-stakes standardized testing. These are the stories—in their own words—of some of those who are defying the corporate education reformers and fueling a national movement to reclaim public education. Alongside the voices of students, parents, teachers, and grassroots education activists, the book features renowned education researchers and advocates, including Nancy Carrlson-Paige, Karen Lewis, and Monty Neill. Jesse Hagopian teaches history and is the Black Student Union adviser at Garfield High School, the site of the historic boycott of the MAP test in 2013. He is an associate editor of Rethinking Schools, and winner of the 2013 "Secondary School Teacher of Year" award from the Academy of Education Arts and Sciences. He is a contributing author to Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation and 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History, and writes regularly for Truthout, Black Agenda Report, and the Seattle Times Op-Ed page.
Download or read book High Stakes written by Committee on Appropriate Test Use and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1998-12-30 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone is in favor of "high education standards" and "fair testing" of student achievement, but there is little agreement as to what these terms actually mean. High Stakes looks at how testing affects critical decisions for American students. As more and more tests are introduced into the country's schools, it becomes increasingly important to know how those tests are used--and misused--in assessing children's performance and achievements. High Stakes focuses on how testing is used in schools to make decisions about tracking and placement, promotion and retention, and awarding or withholding high school diplomas. This book sorts out the controversies that emerge when a test score can open or close gates on a student's educational pathway. The expert panel: Proposes how to judge the appropriateness of a test. Explores how to make tests reliable, valid, and fair. Puts forward strategies and practices to promote proper test use. Recommends how decisionmakers in education should--and should not--use test results. The book discusses common misuses of testing, their political and social context, what happens when test issues are taken to court, special student populations, social promotion, and more. High Stakes will be of interest to anyone concerned about the long-term implications for individual students of picking up that Number 2 pencil: policymakers, education administrators, test designers, teachers, and parents.
