Diane Ravitch: “The problem was the misuse of testing for high-stakes purposes.”
Diane Ravitch wrote this about high stakes testing: The problem was the misuse of testing for high-stakes purposes, the belief that tests could identify with certainty which students should be held back, which teachers and principals should be fired or rewarded, and which schools should be closed – and the idea that these changes would inevitably produce better education. Policy decisions that were momentous for students and educators came down from elected officials who did not understand the limitations of testing. From page 150 in her 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.
Much has changed during the last three years. By Ravitch’s own admission, her new book is clearer about the abuses of high-stakes testing. She provides clear suggestions and solutions to these ills.
Go HERE to advance order her new book, Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools which will be released on September 17, 2013.
If possible, go to her presentations during her national tour. (See the bottom of this article or visit her site for more up-to-date inclusions HERE.)
Tests created and slanted to fail 70% of students are destructive and purposeful. Every