"No sooner is a child walking and talking than the ABCs and 1-2-3s give way to the full-on alphabet soup: the ERBs, the OLSAT, the IQ, the NCLB for AYP, the IEP for ELLs, the CHAT and PDDST for ASD or LD and G&T or ADD and ADHD, the PSATs, then the ACTs and SATs-all designed to assess and monitor a child's readiness for education. In many public schools, students are spending up to 28% of instructional time on testing and test prep. Starting this...

The author draws on scientific studies of tests and their uses to show how standardized achievement tests must play a central role in improving achievement in K-12 schools. He explains the central considerations in developing and evaluating tests and tells how tests can best be best used, covering such topics as using tests for student incentives, paying teachers for performance, and using tests in efforts to attain new state and national standards....

"Since the 2002 implementation of No Child Left Behind, the American public education system has been fundamentally changed. Excessive testing, standardized curriculums, destructive demands on children, corporate-style evaluations, and top-down mandates have become the norm. In response, record numbers of demoralized educators have quit, and millions of students have been left educationally impoverished. This troubling transformation has been exhaustively...

Accrediting boards, the federal government, and state legislatures are now requiring a greater level of accountability from higher education. However, current accountability practices, including accreditation, No Child Left Behind, and performance reporting are inadequate to the task. If wielded indiscriminately, accountability can actually do more harm than good. This innovative work looks broadly at how accountability is being considered by campuses,...

This book presents the unvarnished first-person accounts of fourteen faculty and administrators about how they grappled, and engaged, with assessment and how - despite misgivings and an often-contentious process - they were able to gain the collaboration of their peers as the benefits for student learning became evident. This is a book for skeptical faculty, for those who have been tasked to spearhead their institution's call to create a culture of...