Kill the Messenger
Subtitle: The War on Standardized Testing
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2003
Place of publication: New Brunswick, NJ, USA
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 331
Description: In response to public demand, new federal legislation requires testing of most students in the United States in reading and mathematics, for grades three through eight. In much of the country, this new order promotes an Increase in the amount of standardized testing. Many educators, parents, and policymakers who have paid little attention to testing policy issues in the past will now do so. They deserve to have better information on the topic than has generally been available, and Kill the Messenger is intended to fill this gap. Kill the Messenger is perhaps the most thorough and authoritative work in defense of educational testing ever written. Phelps points out that much research conducted by education insiders on the topic is based on ideological preference or profound self-interest. It is not surprising that they arrive at emphatically anti-testing conclusions. He notes that external and high stakes testing in particular attracts a cornucopia of invective. Much, if not most, of this hostile research is passed on to the public by journalists as if it were neutral, objective, and independent. Kill the Messenger describes the current debate, the players, their interests, and their positions. It explains and refutes many of the common criticisms of testing. It describes testing opponents strategies, through case studies of Texas and the SAT. It acknowledges testing's limitations, and suggests how it can be improved. It defends testing by comparing it with its alternatives. And finally, it outlines the consequences of losing the war on standardized testing.
Table of contents: title: Reveille--Prelude to Battle (introduction); title: Chapter 1--The Battlefield (testing systems and testing interests); title: Chapter 2--Attack Strategies and Tactics (arguments and methods); title: Chapter 3--Campaigns: The Big, Bad SAT; title: Chapter 4--Campaigns: Texas, the Early Years; title: Chapter 5--Campaigns: Texas, the Presidential Year 2000; title: Chapter 6--War Correspondence (media coverage); title: Chapter 7--The Fruits of Victory (benefits of testing); title: Chapter 8--The Spoils of War (valid concerns about testing); title: Chapter 9--The Agony of Defeat (the consequences of losing the war/ the alternatives to testing); title: References; title: Glossary; title: Appendix--An Anti-Testing Vocabulary