Anti-High-Stakes Testing

Children are More than Test Scores is a blog run by teacher Jesse Turner, called the “Walking Man” due to his passionate trekking for children from Connecticut to Washington, DC in 2011, and for a myriad of other activist activities fighting for public schools. He is for those who are against No Child Left Behind and Race to the top and it is truly worth hearing him out.

Class Size Matters: A nonpartisan, nonprofit Clearinghouse for information on the proven benefits of smaller classes advocates for class size reduction in New York City, and the website provides information for all school districts. It is a non-profit, non-partisan organization “that provides information on the benefits of class size reduction to parents, teachers, and concerned citizens.” Executive Director Leonie Haimson has received numerous awards and has been presented in the media discussing this and other important issues relating to school reform. The website has recently addressed the serious student privacy issues surrounding inBloom.

Critical Classrooms is a blog about testing in general and more specifically in New York City. Katie Lapham is an ESL teacher in Brooklyn who can no longer remain silent about the overuse and amount of time spent preparing for standardized testing and Common Core assessments. Her blog posts are interesting and provide a good sense of the problems surrounding high-stakes testing and how they affect children.

Fair Test: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing provides updated information concerning testing and educational issues. Special emphasis is placed on “eliminating the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests and preventing their damage to the quality of education.” The testing concerns focus on technical assistance and advocacy, covering K-12, university admissions, and employment tests.

Opt Out Orlando works to assist parents in Florida to opt their children out of harmful high-stakes tests. The blogging on this site is excellent and full of valuable information. While it is an essential website for Florida, it provides insight into the testing problems around the country. I like that they advocate for “multiple measures.” Here is the description of Opt Out Orlando taken from their site: “Opt Out Orlando advocates for multiple measures of authentic assessments, such as a portfolio, non-high stakes standardized tests (Iowa Test of Basic Standards (ITBS) or the Stanford Achievement Test(SAT10)), which are used to inform teachers’ instruction of their students and which do not result in punitive consequences for students, teachers, and schools. Formal and informal, teacher-designed classroom assessments provide the best indicators of children’s progress, growth, and mastery of concepts and skills. Opt-Out Orlando rejects high stakes testing as meaningless and detrimental to developing a creative, nurturing, and supportive learning environment.”

United Opt Out National is a movement to end corporate education reform. Tired of watching your child be repeatedly tested? Are you sick of seeing high-stakes testing close public schools and destroy the careers of teachers? The goal is to encourage parents and educators to “opt out of high stakes testing and resist all market-based reforms seeking to privatize and destroy public education.” The organization provides a “Back to School Protest Pack” and additional resources. There are also “Opt Out Guides by State.” Check to see what your state is doing and how you can help with this critical effort. I’m not sure if states have continued this.

Reports

10 Strategies to Fight Mandatory Retention & Other Damaging Policies by Suzanne Health, Research Editor, Wrightslaw

Thinking About Tests and Testing: A Short Primer in “Assessment Literacy.” by Gerald W. Bracey

Film Documentary and YouTube Videos

Beyond Measure  Challenges  Americans to look beyond test scores at the students themselves. This is from the author of Race to Nowhere. By Vicki Abeles

Defies Measurement Is about the unique Chipman Middle School, closed after the implementation of NCLB. A variety of leading education experts discuss the problems involved with high stakes testing. By Shannon Puckett.

Race to Nowhere is a documentary that describes the troubled high-stakes testing emphasis in schools today.  By Vicki Abeles

Books

The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools

by Alfie Kohn

The Class Size Debate by Lawrence Mishel & Richard Rothstein-Editors

Caught in the Middle: Nonstandard Kids and a Killing Curriculum by Susan Ohanian

Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools by Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner

Educational Genocide: A Plague on Our Children by Horace (Rog) Lucido

Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right by Richard Rothstein

Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us by Daniel Koretz

The Mismeasure of Education by Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn

The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould

The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don’t Tell You What You Think They Do by Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith, and Joan Harris

One Size Fits Few: The Folly of Educational Standards by Susan Ohanian

Pencils Down: Rethinking High Stakes Testing and Accountability in Public Schools Edited by Wayn Au and Melissa Bollow Tempel

The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving Beyond Traditional Classrooms and “Tougher Standards,” by Alfie Kohn

This is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and the Future of Education by José Luis Vilson

Standardized Minds: The High Price of America’s Testing Culture and What We Can Do to Change It by Peter Sacks

The Sum of Our Discontent: Why Numbers Make Us Irrational by David Boyle

The Truth About Testing: An Educator’s Call to Action by W. James Popham