ISSUES IN HIGH-STAKES TESTING PROGRAMS OF SCHOOLS

Issues in high-stakes testing programs of schools in the U.S



Issues in high-stakes testing programs of schools in the U.S

Introduction

Accountability testing in the United States started in 1965 as part of the same legislation (Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act [ESEA]) those first allocated federal funds to improve the academic achievement of children from low-income families(Airasian 1996). Federal dollars came with a mandate that programs be evaluated to show their effectiveness. The early accountability movement did not assume, however, that public schools were bad. In fact, the idea behind ESEA was to extend the benefits of an excellent education to poor and minority children(Office of Technology Assessment 1992).

Discussion

The public's generally positive view of America's schools changed with the famous SAT test score decline of the early 1970s(Nitko 1996). Despite the fact that a blue-ribbon panel commissioned by the College Board in 1977 later found that two-thirds to three-fourths of the score decline was attributable to an increase in the number of poor and minority students gaining access to college and not to a decline in the quality of education, all subsequent accountability efforts were driven by the belief that America's public schools were failing(National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 1989).

The minimum competency testing movement of the 1970s was the first in a series of educational reforms where tests were used not just as measures of the effectiveness of reforms, but also as the primary drivers of reform. Legislators mandated tests of minimum academic skills or survival skills (e.g., balancing a checkbook), intending to "put meaning back into the high school diploma." By 1980, thirty-seven states had taken action to mandate minimum competency standards for grade-to-grade promotion or high school graduation(Madaus 1983). It was not long, however, before the authors of A Nation ...