Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Yet the debates in Washington over the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act largely ignore the harm and misdirection of these test-focused reforms. [...] These parents point to the time spent administering the tests themselves as well as to the diversionary effects of high-stakes testing on curriculum and instruction—which include narrowed curriculum, teaching to the test, and time spent preparing for the high-stakes assessments.11 Nevertheless, the debate in Washington, D. C., largely ignores the fundamental criticism leveled by parents and others [...] Some also want to eliminate the federal push to use the tests for teacher evaluation while at the same time leaving untouched the test-driven accountability policies at the center of education reform. [...] Looking at the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), however, any test score increases over the pre-NCLB trend are very small, and they are miniscule compared to what early advocates of NCLB promised.14 We as a nation have devoted enormous amounts of time and money to the focused goal of increasing test scores, and we have almost nothing to show for it. [...] Again and again, experts have pointed to the violation of basic rules for test use, to the weaknesses in the scope and capacity of tests, and to the limited ability of growth models to make valid inferences about whether a given input (such as an individual teacher) actually caused a given student’s measured changes in test scores.