High Stakes Testing

High Stakes Testing - 2014

National Standardized Tests. For those interested in the current state of K-12 education in the United States.

The 2014 round of standardized exam administration got underway in several states this week. As predicted by FairTest and our Testing Resistance & Reform Spring (TRRS) allies, opt-out campaigns and other forms of protest exploded in many communities. See http://www.resistthetest.org

The CCSS, Common Core of States Standard, is more-or-less a set of national standards aimed at improving K-12 education. In mathematics, its goal is to increase thought provoking curricula with an emphasis on problem solving in all grades. Of coruse, this sounds great. It sounds as though at least someone has found the true path. And 47 state agreed. Currently, only Indiana has opted out. Of course, in the interest of accountability, there are the associated high stakes tests to measure compliance and achievement of the so-called "Core." An unsurprising controversy has emerged. But why should it with the ultimate goal achieved.

These tests seem to be not an untended consequence of the CCSS but rather an unexpected consequence. For years we've been hearing about resentment of state standards with their concomitant high stakes testing - for an assortment of reasons. As long it was confined to states the resentment enjoyed no national platform, and had particularly no extended organizational mechanism. With the CCSS, we see a pointed example of a human self-organizing system with sufficient numbers obtained.

This is not a disclaimer of the CCSS, but rather what can happen when a program, regardless of its merits, goes national. There becomes a resistance to a further intrusion by the new and now unified multitude against something long viewed as undesirable. In analogy to the so called orphan diseases, those with small numbers infected, high stakes testing has now emerged from relative, local obscurity to reach the front page of educational issues.

For adherents of the CCSS, there is seems remedy in sight. For opponents, the same.
High stakes testing may need serious revision and then rebirth down the road. But high stakes testing there will be.

This situation is not uncommon these days. Those in favor of a failing program say we haven't done enough. Pull out the stops, do more, spend more. Those against can only say it "doesn't work." This presents us with yet another impossible problem, or a problem with little hope for a solution.

For information in favor of the common core see http://www.shankerinstitute.org/curriculum/

For a rebuttal of this see http://disted6.math.tamu.edu/newsletter/newsletters_new/Closing_the_Door-manifesto-text.pdf

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