The Perils of High-stakes Testing

"Far from improving education, high-stakes testing marks a major retreat from fairness, from accuracy, from quality and from equity."
           The Late Senator Paul Wellstone, (1944-2002)

What happens when schools give high-stakes tests?  Corruption, pure and simple, according to Drs. Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner.

In their book, Collateral Damage: How High-stakes Testing Corrupts America' s Schools, [Harvard Education Press, 2007] Nichols and Berliner lay out a compelling analysis of the effects of high-stakes testing.  They believe that the costs associated with high-stakes testing, summarized in the opening quotation from the late Senator Paul Wellstone, a teacher, are simply not worth it.

For teachers, administrators, parents, citizens, and policymakers, these are serious charges that demand attention.  They require us to re-examine decisions made at all levels about using high-stakes tests.

Nichols and Berliner cite Campbell' s Law, brought to the attention of social scientists in 1975 by Donald Campbell, which stipulates that:

"the more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor."

Using examples from business, sports, and government, Nichols and Berliner point out multiple instances of what happens when indicators have high-stakes consequences attached.   "the more importance that an indicator takes on, the more likely it, and the people who depend on it, will be corrupted."

Nichols and Berliner are not against accountability.  They are not against standardized testing.  They are against high-stakes tests, because they result in cheating, in exclusion of students, in erosion of test validity, and in damage to the professionalism of educators.

Some of the ways in which education has been corrupted to make school test scores appear higher, and to make it appear that students have learned more, include:

1. a narrowing of the curricula,
2. an increase in time devoted to activities focused on how to take the test,
3. apparent increases in cheating by administrators and teachers,
4. forcing out low-performing students,
5. manipulation of dropout, special education and ELL rates, and
6. increased retention rates.

These are exactly the opposite of the stated goals of ESEA/NCLB.  Yet the high-stakes tests required by NCLB are making things worse by the year.

Increased use of high-stakes tests is not having the intended effect on student performance, either.   Achievement on audit tests (like NAEP) is not increasing and learning gaps are not closing.

What should be done?  Nichols and Berliner call for a moratorium on high-stakes testing.  They believe that alternative systems of accountability exist and should be used.  These include:

1. formative assessments, for example, assessments for learning,
2. reviews of schools by independent, expert teams,
3. end of course examinations, or
4. performance tests, including project and portfolio defenses, before judges.

In  Wyoming, what should you do to lessen the corrupting influences of high-stakes testing and ease the testing burden?

At the local level:

1. Identify how much testing you do.  Use a matrix to identify grade-by-grade and subject-by-subject, all the kinds of tests that are given to your students.  Include norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, state-mandated, teacher-made, textbook driven, all the different kinds.
2. Determine if some of the tests provide duplicate information or information that does not inform the instructional process.  Work with your administrators and local board of education to understand and eliminate the excess assessments.
3. Make sure your professional development program includes opportunities for teachers and administrators to improve skills in assessing student learning.
4. Provide time for teachers to work together to plan instruction and assessment, develop common assessments, and analyze students results.
5. Find out how much money is spent on external sources of testing.  [Tests like ITBS, Stanford, etc., run $6-$8 per student; NWEA/MAP testing costs over $12 per student]

At the state level:

1. Communicate with your school board members and legislators about high-stakes testing.  Help them understand the damage it does. 
2. Provide evidence that other forms of assessment exist that provide alternate kinds of accountability.
3. Suggest that Wyoming spend its testing dollars on classroom-based, teacher-developed assessments. 
4. Ask for technology funding so that testing done via computer does not deprive other students and classrooms of needed technological learning resources.

At the federal level:

1. Contact your congressperson.  Educate him/her about the damaging, corrupting effects of high-stakes assessments.
2. Provide evidence about alternative accountability measures that emphasize classroom-based, teacher-developed assessments.

The following resources provide additional information about the negative impact of high-stakes testing:

www.fairtest.org   The National  Center for Fair and Open Testing.  This  organization's Web site includes fact sheets about testing, resources for alternative assessment strategies, and links to other organizations.

www.rethinkingschools.org   This online journal includes information on standardized testing and its alternatives.  Do a search on the term "standardized testing"

www.alfiekohn.org   Alfie Kohn's website provides information on standards, assessments, and "top down, test driven school reform."

www.teachers.net   This is a Web site where people contribute information on a variety of educational topics.   Search "standardized testing" for starters.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/03/12/27berliner.h26.html   At this link you can read a summary, written by Berliner and Nichols, of the arguments in Collateral Damage.