Do tests really help students learn? Or was a new study misreported? -- Kohn
This was written by Alfie Kohn, the author of 12 books about education and human behavior. His latest, the forthcoming "Feel-Bad Education . . . And Other Contrarian Essays on Children & Schooling," will be published this spring by Beacon Press. He lives (actually) in the Boston area and (virtually) at www.alfiekohn. He blogs at The Huffington Post.
By Alfie Kohn
The relationship between educational policies and educational research is both fascinating and disturbing. Sometimes policy makers, including those who piously invoke the idea of "data-driven" practice, pursue initiatives they favor regardless of the fact that no empirical support for them exists (e.g., high-stakes testing) or even when the research suggests the policy in question is counterproductive (e.g., forcing struggling students to repeat a grade).
Sometimes insufficient attention is paid to the limits of what a study has