Collateral damage
Subtitle: how high-stakes testing corrupts America's schools
By: Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner.
Contributors: Berliner, David C.
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Published: 2007
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 234
ISBN-13: 9781891792366; 9781891792359
Subjects: Educational tests and measurements -- United States; Cheating (Education) -- United States; Public schools -- United States
Description: Documents the threat high-stakes testing poses to the field of education, arguing that high-stakes testing undermines the purposes and ideals of the American education system.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-234) and index.
Table of contents: title: For more than a decade, the debate over high-stakes testing has dominated the field of education. This passionate and provocative book provides a fresh perspective on the issue and powerful ammunition for opponents of high-stakes tests. Drawing on their extensive research, Nichols and Berliner document and categorize the ways that high-stakes testing threatens the purposes and ideals of the American education system. Their analysis is grounded in the application of Campbell's Law, which posits that the greater the social consequences associated with a quantitative indicator (such as test scores), the more likely it is that the indicator itself will become corruptedand the more likely it is that the use of the indicator will corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor. Nichols and Berliner illustrate both aspects of this "corruption," showing how the pressures of high-stakes testing erode the validity of test scores and distort the integrity of the education system. Their analysis provides a coherent and comprehensive intellectual framework for the wide-ranging arguments against high-stakes testing, while putting a compelling human face on the data marshalled in support of those arguments. - Publisher.