University of Chicago Press
The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better
Key Metrics
- Daniel Koretz
- University of Chicago Press
- Paperback
- 9780226644882
- 8.9 X 6 X 0.8 inches
- 0.9 pounds
- Education > Testing & Measurement
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
For decades we've been studying, experimenting with, and wrangling over different approaches to improving public education, and there's still little consensus on what works, and what to do. The one thing people seem to agree on, however, is that schools need to be held accountable--we need to know whether what they're doing is actually working. But what does that mean in practice?
High-stakes tests. Lots of them. And that has become a major problem. Daniel Koretz, one of the nation's foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed--it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. In this powerful polemic, built on unimpeachable evidence and rooted in decades of experience with educational testing, Koretz calls out high-stakes testing as a sham, a false idol that is ripe for manipulation and shows little evidence of leading to educational improvement. Rather than setting up incentives to divert instructional time to pointless test prep, he argues, we need to measure what matters, and measure it in multiple ways--not just via standardized tests.
Right now, we're lying to ourselves about whether our children are learning. And the longer we accept that lie, the more damage we do. It's time to end our blind reliance on high-stakes tests. With The Testing Charade, Daniel Koretz insists that we face the facts and change course, and he gives us a blueprint for doing better.
Author Bio
Daniel Koretz is an expert on educational assessment and testing policy. A primary focus of his work has been the impact of high-stakes testing. His research has included studies of score inflation, the effects of testing programs on educational practice, the assessment of students with disabilities, international differences in the variability of student achievement, the application of value-added models to educational achievement, and the development of methods for validating scores under high-stakes conditions.
His current work focuses on the equity implications of high-stakes testing, the effects of high-stakes testing on postsecondary outcomes, the characteristics of traditional tests that encourage inappropriate test preparation, and the design and evaluation of new testing designs tailored for accountability. Koretz is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association.
His doctorate is in developmental psychology from Cornell University. Before obtaining his degree, Koretz taught emotionally disturbed students in public elementary and junior high schools.
Source: Harvard Graduate School of Education
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