Standardized Testing

We've been told time and time again that standardized tests aren't perfect but that they're the best tool we have for gauging aptitude and achievement. Is this really true? What are the flaws of such testing? Why is your father's occupation a better predictor of SAT scores than virtually any other factor? And, most important, what can we do to hold one another accountable to standards at all levels of schools and in the workplace?

Standardized Minds dramatically shows how our unhealthy and enduring obsession with intelligence testing affects us all, from the day we enter kindergarten to the day we apply for that corporate job. Drawing creative solutions from the headlines and the frontlines, Sacks demonstrates proven alternatives to such testing and details a plan to make the American meritocracy legitimate and fair.

Parents and community activists around the country complain that the education system is failing our children. They point to students failure to master basic skills, even as standardized testing is widely employed in efforts to improve the educational system. Contradictions of Reform is a provocative look into the reality, for students as well as teachers, of standardized testing. A detailed account of how student "improvement" and teacher "effectiveness" are evaluated. Contradictions of Reform argues compellingly that the preparation of students for standardized tests engenders teaching methods that vastly compromise the quality of education.

"Standard-based accountability" has become a consistent buzzword emanating from the mouths of hopeful politicians-liberal and conservative-for almost twenty years. But does accountability work? The New Accountability explores the current wave of assessment-based school accountability reforms, which combine two traditions in American education-public accountability and student testing.

The Research Review for School Leaders, Volume III is specifically designed as a practical resource for school leaders whose schedules preclude opportunities to locate and review key research on every issue they must address. It places comprehensive, current, and accessible reviews of educational research at their fingertips, and is organized to make the research and practices it summarizes useful to them in their professional endeavors. This is the third volume of the Review. Although the title has changed, its purpose and substance is continuous with the work of the earlier volumes. The first Annual Review of Research for School Leaders (1996) summarized research on the status of public schooling, interdisciplinary curriculum, and educational applications of computers. The second volume (1998) addressed the topics of middle-level education, the extracurriculum, mathematics education reform, and drop outs. The present Volume III offers educational leaders reviews of research on five timely educational issues: * citizenship education; * multicultural education; * gifted and talented education; * classroom assessment; and * scheduling. A basic premise of this volume is that, to make sound decisions, professionals need to be up to date on current research related to the problems with which they grapple. A second premise is that research cannot simply be imposed in a formulaic way on a local setting; the nature of the particular problem to be solved will always bear upon the relevance of research to a specific context. Thus, this volume is envisioned as a helpful resource for school leaders as they engage in important discussions of the research with teachers, school board members, parents, and other interested parties as they collaboratively seek effective resolutions to local educational problems.