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Drawing on decades of research and her work with educators, the author explains how testing can inflate scores, distort curriculum, consume instructional time, and demoralize learners while neglecting deeper learning. 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Shepard  \nC  \nlaims that testing will serve equity very often aren’t true. That’s my conclusion from 50 years of studying the impact of high-stakes standardized assessments. Yes, I should have retired years ago. But I feel compelled to call  \nattention to how seemingly well-intentioned efforts to increase student achievement actually diminish student learning—and, more importantly, to offer an alternative vision of assessment so integrated with instruction that it actually furthers learning.  \nHere’s the arc of the last 50 years, at warp speed: minimum competency tests in the ’70s; basic-skills tests in the ’80s; “tests worth teaching to” in the ’90s; high-frequency, high-stakes tests in the ’00s; and added layers of commercial interim tests in the’10s.* After testing ourselves into a maniacal focus on reading and math, there’s now a growing effort to tack on other variables, like social-emotional development, as if that could solve the horrific imbalance of accountability testing over all else.  \nLorrie A. Shepard, distinguished professor and dean emerita of the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been researching assessment and working with educators to enhance student learning for 50 years. She has served as president of the National Council on Measurementin Education, the National Academy of Education, and the American Educational Research Association.  \nWhat has all this testing accomplished? Very little. We’ve known since the 1980s that standardized testing in basic skills, when there are any consequences attached, results in test score inflation and curriculum distortion.1 And we’ve known since 2011 that the high-stakes testing required by No Child Left Behind increased achievement only minimally. One methodologically strong study found an increase of 0.10 of a standard deviation in fourth-grade math,2 while a research synthesis found an average increase of 0.08, with gains mainly in elementary math.3 These findings translate to roughly 3–4 percentile points.  \nWhat has all this testing cost? Far too much. Each year, testing consumes weeks of instructional time, pulls millions of dollars away from student services and enrichment, and demoralizes budding learners across our country.  \nIt’s long past time to reckon with how the accountability testing strategy has failed, accepting that we cannot incentivize our way to equity and excellence, and to redirect our efforts to assessments that support learning. It’s time to value teachers, strengthen local curricula, build on the knowledge students bring to class, foster caring classroom environments, and focus on assessments that enable next steps for instruction.  \n*For a more complete explanation of the dominant testing ideas of the last 50 years, please see this presentation I gave on April 21, [2021: go.aft.org/afg](2021: go.aft.org/afg).  \n28 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | FALL 2021  \nBecause of the pandemic, this school year will be different reading and mathematics because low-scoring students often from the past, even in places where in-person schooling was receive repetitive drills, using decontextualized worksheets and maintained throughout. Many educators and members of the other formats that closely resemble multiple-choice test items. public now more fully understand that relationships matter for I don’t believe that anyone is truly in favor of children receivlearning. Debilitating inequities in educational resources and ing such a dry, uninspiring education—so how did we get to this learning opportunities, known yet effectively ignored by policy- point? To better understand our current situation, let’s look back makers for decades, are now undeniably exposed. And for the a few decades.  \nfirst time, federal monies are available on a scale sufficient to The cognitive researchers who helped politicians launch ","cbCaikAKovlShR8P","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaikAKovlShR8P","pdf",2167542,11,"English","# Ambitious Teaching and Equitable Assessment\n## A vision for prioritizing learning, not testing\n## The evolution of testing over the last 50 years\n## What testing accomplishes and what it costs\n## Redirecting assessment to support learning","[{\"question\":\"Why does the article argue that testing does not serve equity?\",\"answer\":\"It concludes that decades of high-stakes standardized assessment have not produced meaningful equity or educational excellence, and that accountability incentives cannot reliably lead to fair outcomes.\"},{\"question\":\"What negative effects does the author attribute to high-stakes testing?\",\"answer\":\"The article cites score inflation and curriculum distortion, alongside major time and funding costs and demoralization of learners.\"},{\"question\":\"What alternative assessment vision does the author propose?\",\"answer\":\"It calls for assessments integrated with instruction that value teachers, strengthen local curricula, build on students’ knowledge, and focus on next steps for teaching and learning.\"}]","Ambitious Teaching and Equitable Assessment - A Vision for Prioritizing Learning, Not Testing | PDF",1792071041,28]