Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools.Collateral Damage collateral damage Surgery A popular term for any undesired but unavoidable co-morbidity associated with a therapy–eg, chemotherapy-induced CD to the BM and GI tract as a side effect of destroying tumor cells : How High-Stakes Testing A high-stakes test is an assessment which has important consequences for the test taker. If the examinee passes the test, then the examinee may receive significant benefits, such as a high school diploma or a license to practice law. Corrupts America's Schools by Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner, Harvard Education Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2007, 234 pp. with index, $24.95 softcover [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Failure to consider the arguments made in Collateral Damage: How HighStakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools makes each educational leader complicit com·plic·it adj. Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime; having complicity: newspapers complicit with the propaganda arm of a dictatorship. in contributing to the costs of high-stakes testing. Co-authors Sharon Nichols and David Berliner David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist and professor of education at Arizona State University. Berliner received a Doctorate of Education from Stanford University. review research regarding the strengths and weaknesses of testing in public schools, concluding that "high-stakes testing does not work." School leaders will recognize the cover of the text--students sitting in standard attire, row after row, taking a standardized test A standardized test is a test administered and scored in a standard manner. The tests are designed in such a way that the "questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent" [1] . This is not a picture of what a 21st century student should be. Nichols and Berliner use a social science principle, Campbell's Law. This principle states the more any quantitative social indicator is used for decision making, the more apt it will distort and corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor. Any leader in today's public schools can certainly identify with Campbell's Law. Whatever the acronym of the state test, the stakeholders, the news media and policymakers all shine the spotlight on the scores, not on the progress and development of the whole student. Nichols and Berliner also provide extensive research exposing cheating at the campus level, as well as states distorting data and passing rates to manipulate accountability results. Fortunately, the authors also provide alternatives to high-stakes testing. The last chapter reviews the American Educational Research Association The American Educational Research Association, or AERA, was founded in 1916 as a professional organization representing educational researchers in the United States and around the world. position on the appropriate use of testing and research to endorse more authentic assessments that help us measure the development of the whole student. Reviewed by Steve Jenkins, assistant professor of educational leadership, University of Texas of the Permian Basin The University of Texas of the Permian Basin (commonly called UT Permian Basin or simply UTPB) is located in Odessa, Texas. It was authorized by the Texas Legislature in 1969 and founded in 1973. Its fall 2006 enrollment was 3,480. , Odessa, Texas |
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