Collateral Damage

by Nichols, Sharon L.; Berliner, David C.

• ISBN13: 9781891792359
• ISBN10: 1891792350
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-03-05
• Publisher: Harvard Education Pr

Summary

For more than a decade, the debate over high-stakes testing has dominated the field of education. This passionate and provocative book provides a fresh perspective on the issue and powerful ammunition for opponents of high-stakes tests.Drawing on their extensive research, Nichols and Berliner document and categorize the ways that high-stakes testing threatens the purposes and ideals of the American education system. Their analysis is grounded in the application of Campbell's Law, which posits that the greater the social consequences associated with a quantitative indicator (such as test scores), the more likely it is that the indicator itself will become corrupted-and the more likely it is that the use of the indicator will corrupt the social processes it was intended to monitor.Nichols and Berliner illustrate both aspects of this "corruption," showing how the pressures of high-stakes testing erode the validity of test scores and distort the integrity of the education system. Their analysis provides a coherent and comprehensive intellectual framework for the wide-ranging arguments against high-stakes testing, while putting a compelling human face on the data marshalled in support of those arguments

Author Biography

Sharon L. Nichols is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. David C. Berliner is the Regents' Professor of Education at Arizona State University in Tempe. He is a past president of the American Educational Research Association and a member of the National Academy of Education.

Table of Contents

A Short History of High-Stakes Testing, Arguments For and Against Its Use, Its Place in Contemporary Society, and a Brief Introduction to Campbell's Law	p. 1
The Prevalence and Many Forms of Cheating and the Problem of Absolute and Relativistic Standards for Judging Such Occurrences	p. 33
Excluding Students from Education by Design and by Neglect, the Crisis of Caring in Our Schools, and the Special Case of the "Bubble Kids"	p. 57
States Cheat Too! How Statistical Trickery and Misrepresentation of Data Mislead the Public	p. 79
What Happens to Validity When Indicators Are Distorted and Corrupted, the Many Ways That High-Stakes Testing Promotes Such Distortion and Corruption, and How Those Practices Lead to Confusion About What Test Scores Mean	p. 109
How High-Stakes Testing Undermines Public Education and the Teaching Profession While Also Destroying Both Teacher and Student Morale	p. 145
We Conclude That High-Stakes Testing Provides Perfect Conditions for Campbell's Law to Operate, Ignores Standards for Professional Conduct and Appropriate Test Use, and Is Unnecessary Because Alternative Systems of Accountability Exist	p. 175
Notes	p. 203
About the Authors	p. 225
Index	p. 227
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