Standardized Minds The High Price Of America's Testing Culture And What We Can Do To Change It

by Sacks, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780738204338
• ISBN10: 0738204331
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-11
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Summary

We've been told time and time again that standardized tests aren't perfect but that they're the best tool we have for gauging aptitude and achievement. Is this really true? What are the flaws of such testing? Why is your father's occupation a better predictor of SAT scores than virtually any other factor? And, most important, what can we do to hold one another accountable to standards at all levels of schools and in the workplace?Standardized Mindsdramatically shows how our unhealthy and enduring obsession with intelligence testing affects us all, from the day we enter kindergarten to the day we apply for that corporate job. Drawing creative solutions from the headlines and the frontlines, Sacks demonstrates proven alternatives to such testing and details a plan to make the American meritocracy legitimate and fair.

Author Biography

Peter Sacks is a journalist and essayist. His essays on education and American culture have appeared in Change, Thought & Action, The American Enterprise, and the New York Times. He lives in Boise, Idaho.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii
List of Acronyms	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction	1	(4)
Meritocracy's Crooked Yardstick	5	(12)
Inventing Intelligence: The Origins of Mental Measurement	17	(18)
Babes in Test Land: The Sorting Begins	35	(30)
Crusade: Rise of the Test-Driven Accountability Machine in Our Schools	65	(30)
Crime and Punishment: How the Accountability Machine Hurts Schoolchildren	95	(22)
Great American Dumb-Down: How the Accountability Machine Harms Schools	117	(36)
Do No Harm: Stopping the Damage to American Schools	153	(14)
Unnatural Selection: Testing in the American Workplace	167	(34)
Standardized Minds: Thinking Styles and the Testing Game	201	(20)
The Big Business of Testing	221	(10)
Authentic Achievement: Assessing Performance in American Schools	231	(28)
Harmful Admissions: Why the Meritocracy Needs Fixing	259	(32)
Beyond the SAT: Merit that Matters	291	(26)
Notes	317	(18)
Index	335