Before NCLB, every state had its own tests and its own accountability measures, but none was as harsh, punitive, and unrealistic as NCLB. None required every school to reach 100 percent proficiency or face mass firings or closure or both.”
I reviewed Daniel Koretz’s book, “The Testing Charade” in the current issue of The New Republic.
The review is behind a paywall, but you can get a free 30-day pass or a one-year digital subscription for $10 for the year. When it comes out from the paywall in a couple of weeks, I will post it in full.
The review starts like this:
“In 1979, the psychologist Donald Campbell proposed an axiom. “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making,” he wrote, “the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” He also wrote: “Achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose…
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Crazy Normal - the Classroom Exposé 