Michelle Harris's List: Data-Based School Reform

• Tests are considered high stakes for students when the results are used  to make critical decisions about the individual's access to educational  opportunity, grade-level retention or promotion, graduation from high school, or  receipt of a standard or alternative diploma.
• In some states, high stakes also are attached to test results for school  systems--teachers, administrators, and schools are rewarded or sanctioned based  on student performance.
• when high stakes are attached to test scores, there is greater potential for  misuse of data and negative consequences:
• multiple administrations of the same type of measure do not improve the  reliability of the scores or reduce the general limitations of such testing.
• There is strong political support for the use of assessment results for  system accountability, as reflected in the new provisions of NCLB.
• these consequences could negatively affect instruction for all students,  including students with disabilities, by dramatically narrowing the curriculum  to emphasize test content and encouraging the use of generally inappropriate  "quick fix" approaches to student learning.
• negative effects on the education provided to all students by narrowing  the curriculum and unduly emphasizing basic skills to the exclusion of the arts,  technology, sciences and humanities; creating a culture of "teach-to-the-test";  increasing the psychological stress on children and families; and decreasing  teacher job satisfaction.
• Tests should inform instruction, not dictate what is taught.
• Myriad factors can impact the performance of any one student at a single point  in time, significantly reducing the reliability of test scores.
• Consequences of high stakes testing
• indicators of
• specific evaluation of learning problems.

  • Special education

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