Annotated Bibliography 3/17/16

Kohn, Alfie. The case against standardized testing: Raising the scores, ruining the schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2000. ""Few countries today give these formal examinations to students before the age of sixteen or so," two scholars report. " In the U.S., we subject children as young as six to standardized exams, despite the fact that almost all experts in early childhood education condemn this practice" (Pg 1).  "After all, if your goal was to serve up our schools to the marketplace, where the point of reference is what maximizes profit rather than what benefits children, it would be perfectly logical for you to administer a test that many students would fail in order to create the impression that public schools were worthless" (Pg 2).  Big standardized tests corporations making money on distributing tests and selling products to help student do better on their own tests "The more a test is made to "count"—in terms of being the basis for promoting or retaining students, for funding or closing down schools—the more that anxiety is likely to rise and the less valid the scores become" (Pg 3).  Standardized tests do not get you ready for the real world or for a real job. Jobs look for what you're physically capable of doing not how well you can memorize and perform on a test/  Financial status=test scores  "Only someone ignorant or dishonest would present a ranking of schools' test results as though it told us about the quality of teaching that went on in chose schools when, in fact, it primarily tells us about socioeconomic status and available resources" (Pg 5).  Tests do not measure quality of education, only focus on if you can get the answer right and not your process of coming to that answer. "studies of students of different ages have found a statistical association between high scores on standardized tests and relatively shallow thinking?. (Pg 6).  shallow understanding=high test scores  deep understanding=low and sometime high test scores  "Norm-referenced tests" are tests that don't determine how well a student is doing, but rather where they are placed in accordance to other student in the same grade "Second, because every distribution of scores contains a bottom, it will always appear that some kids are doing terribly. That, in turn, reinforces a sense that the schools are failing. Worse, it contributes to the insidious assumption that some children just can't learn—especially if the same kids always seem to show up below the median" (Pg 10).