Some subscribers to Phys-L might be interested in a recent post "The
Injurious School Culture Enforced by High-Stakes Testing" [Hake
(2012)]. The abstract reads:
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Abstract: Richard Flarend of the Physoc list relayed an AP press
release "Fourth-graders who flunk reading have faces marked" at
<http://usat.ly/QTRkd8> and concluded that an injurious school
culture led to this mistake. More generally an injurious culture with
consequences more serious than face marking is currently being forced
upon most U.S. schools by the high-stakes testing mandated by NCLB.
In "Public Defender: Diane Ravitch takes on a movement," David Denby
at <http://nyr.kr/RPfOkF> wrote (paraphrasing; supplemented by
references to Ravitch's critiques in "The New York Review of Books";
bracketed by lines "#####. . . . "):
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Diane Ravitch has emerged as one of the leading opponents of the
education-reform movement. She has:
2. Written some two thousand posts on a blog
<http://dianeravitch.net/ > she started in April, which has received
almost a million and a half page views.
3. Published "The Death and Life of the Great American School System:
How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education"[Ravitch (2010a)] at
<http://amzn.to/pAjeZU>.
4. Barnstormed across the country giving speeches berating the reform
movement, which, in addition to test-based "accountability," also
supports school choice and charter schools (public institutions that
often receive substantial private funding and are free from many
regulations, such as hiring union teachers in states that require
it), and which she calls a "privatization" movement. The reform
movement has the support of President Obama and his Education
Secretary, Arne Duncan; it is also championed by the Republican
Party; by many governors, mayors, and schools chancellors; and by a
variety of wealthy entrepreneurs and fund managers, including Bill
Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Whitney Tilson. It has changed
educational thinking in states such as Florida, Wisconsin, and
Louisiana, and in cities such as Washington, D.C., New York, Los
Angeles, and Chicago.
5. Argued that the reform movement is driven by an exaggerated
negative critique of the schools, and that it is mistakenly imposing
a free-market ethos of competition on an institution that, if it is
to function well, requires cooperation, sharing, and mentoring.
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REFERENCES [URL shortened by <http://bit.ly/> and accessed on 19 Nov 2012.]
Hake, R.R. 2012. "The Injurious School Culture Enforced by
High-Stakes Testing," online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at
<http://bit.ly/SaQB3W>.Post of 19 Nov 2012 17:25:15-0800 to AERA-L
and Net-Gold. The abstract and link to the complete post are being
transmitted to several discussion lists and are also on my blog
"Hake'sEdStuff" at <http://bit.ly/QqZrOd> with a provision for
comments.