美国反高厉害考试思潮High-Stakes Testing

Why So Many People Say ‘Enough is Enough’ to High

-Stakes Testing

In

this

op-ed,

Lisa

Guisbond

of

FairTest

shares

why

she,

and

many

others,

are

joining

the national rebellion against standardized tests.

A nationwide controversy has emerged over high-stakes standardized

testing. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

October 31, 2012 By Lisa Guisbond

About a month and a half ago, astute journalists covering the historic

Chicago teachers’ strike realized the issues brought up by the strike

weren’t just about money, but

were also a reaction to the tsunami of

testing that is overwhelming teachers and students.

It

was

part

of

a

growing

national

rebellion

against

high-stakes

testing.

It

was

also

an

opportunity

to

challenge

the

idea

that

we

can

test

our

way

to better schools and smarter students.

And it’s not just teachers who refuse to take it anymore.

Across the nation, hundreds of school boards have passed resolutions

saying things like,

testing ... is strangling our public schools.

are expanding. Academic researchers are also speaking out. A group of

Chicago researchers issued a statement backing up t

eachers’ concerns

that too much testing is harming students. New York professors issued a

similar statement.

To help spread the word, FairTest organized education, civil rights, and religious groups to launch

The National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing

. It now has more than 13,600 individual and 460

organizational endorsers.

Why a testing rebellion? As long as most of us can remember, there have

been standardized tests. They may have made students sweat, but they

didn’t

drive

thousands

of

teachers

into

the

streets

or

cause parents

to

organize protests. That’s because the problem isn’t just the tests

themselves. It is the way state and federal policies have made raising

test scores the primary mission of schools

. It’s the way high

-stakes