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Note: This is the third in a series of articles on the consequences of the authoritarian standards & high-stakes testing.
Starting tomorrow every American girl and boy in grades 3- 8 will participate in the testing games, an annual competition to determine which schools are good or bad, whether they have a good teacher or a bad one, and what factoids they put to memory or guesswork.… Read more
For some time I have been writing about high-stakes testing and the standards-based corporate movement which are creating havoc with our schools. One of the principal writers on the critique of testing and standards has been Anthony Cody, a 24 year veteran teacher in Oakland. For 18 years he was a science teacher, and is a National Board certified teacher, and now leads workshops on Project Based Learning.… Read more
This is a post I wrote five years ago today, and it sheds some light on the pressure that school districts experience as a result of high-stakes testing. In particular, I draw attention to Atlanta cheating scandal which appears to have had its origins about five years ago when I first wrote this post. There were warning signs then, as I wrote then, that teachers were pressured to focus their attention on reading and math literacy and not be concerned about other subjects, especially at the elementary and middle school levels.… Read more
The Art of Teaching Science has just published a new eBook entitled The Enigma of High-Stakes Testing in Science.
The Enigma of High-Stakes Testing in Science is a new eBook published by the Art of Teaching Science Weblog, and made available free. This eBook is based on blog posts that were written over the past few months. The content of this eBook is based on the position that high-stakes tests, which are used to make life-changing decisions about students, teachers, and schools, should be banned from use as further research is carried out to design alternate systems that are humanistic and student-centered.… Read more
A new eBook will soon be published by The Art of Teaching Science Blog with the title: Why Should High-Stakes Testing be Banned?
Over the past three months, I have written about the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation of Science Standards, and the corporate take-over of public education. Living in the Atlanta area, and having been a professor at Georgia State University (GSU) for many years, the Atlanta test cheating scandal hit very close to home.… Read more
High stakes testing should not be used to make significant decisions about student performance (achievement in a course, passing a course, being promoted, graduating) and should be banned. In this post we explore formative assessment methods, and show how teachers to make decisions and judgments about student achievement should use a combination of formative and summative assessments.
Some would argue that we don’t have the science right to make such a decision.… Read more
In an article in the The Palm Beach News, science teachers discovered that when they threw out the recommended science inquiry and hands on activities, their students improved their scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).
I am not writing this as a protest against these science teachers. They know their students better than you and I, but I want to use this case as a way to talk about the Collateral Damage (as described by Sharon Nichols & David Berliner in their book) caused by high-stakes testing.… Read more
The Art of Teaching Science is the personal blog of Jack Hassard. I am a writer, a former high school science teacher and Professor Emeritus of Science Education, Georgia State University. The blog reflects my opinions on science education and issues related to educational reform from a progressive science and education philosophy.
