Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Interesting Study on High Stakes Testing

The School-to-Prison Pipeline Exposed, a new study that's thus far received very little attention, has revealed that in states that use high-stakes exit exams, students who fail these tests were more than 12 percent more likely to face incarceration and had lower graduation rates than states without exit exams. Meanwhile, the study found no consistent effects of exit exams on employment or the distribution of wages.
"I don't want to come across as somebody who is absolutely opposed to testing. I have a more moderate opinion on that. But what we are not finding--this is consistent with what everyone else has found--we're not finding large positive effects. We are finding some noticeably negative effects...If we're going to reform education, we're going to have to think much more broadly and not think that just by doing a bunch of testing, things are going to change, 'cause they're not going to change significantly for the better, and possibly for the worse" - Prof. Kevin Lang, Boston University
-- Interview by Jaisal Noor, The Real News Network, Baltimore

No comments: