[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-590597-105":59,"doc-detail-590597-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","moving-beyond-the-failure-of-test-based-accountability-read-online","Moving Beyond the Failure of Test-Based Accountability - read online","","Test-based accountability dominates American education by shaping what is taught and how it is taught, including math problems, reading materials, required essays, grading practices, and consequences for teachers and students. The piece links today’s pressure to decades of expanding externally imposed testing under policies such as No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act. It documents harmful outcomes like extreme stress during testing and “score inflation” that creates misleading progress, worsens equity perceptions, and rewards ineffective practices rather than improving learning.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/moving-beyond-the-failure-of-test-based-accountability-read-online/590597/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/moving-beyond-the-failure-of-test-based-accountability-read-online/590597.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Stanley","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-01","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":52},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How does test-based accountability affect what happens in classrooms?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It influences taught content and methods, determines reading and writing tasks, and affects how teachers grade work. It also links educator rewards or punishment to test performance.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What are some reported consequences of high-stakes testing for students?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Students experience intense stress, including illness during testing and refusal to come to school. The text also describes extreme examples such as schools providing test-color-coded cards and planning tools.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why does the article argue standardized test accountability has failed?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"The evidence shows “score inflation,” where scores rise more than actual achievement, creating illusions of progress. The approach can also misreward or punish schools and programs and worsen misleading equity outcomes.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},590597,1792159560,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":52,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":24,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144,"preview_page_count":4},2336477405376,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0","Moving Beyond the Failure of Test-Based Accountability  \nILLUSTRAT IONS BY FR ÉDÉRIC BENAGLIA  \nBy Daniel Koretz  \nP  \nressure to raise scores on achievement tests dominates American education today. It shapes what is taught and how it is taught. It influences the problems students are given in math class (often questions from earlier tests),  \nthe materials they are given to read, the essays and other work they are required to produce, and often the manner in which teachers grade this work. It can determine which educators are rewarded, punished, and even fired. In many cases, it determines which students are promoted or graduate.  \nDaniel Koretz is the Henry Lee Shattuck Professor of Education at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, a member of the National Academy of Education, and the author of Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us. This article is an excerptfrom his new book, The Testing Charade: Pretending to Make Schools Better, by Daniel Koretz, published by the University of Chicago Press. Copyright 2017, The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.  \nThis is the result of decades of “education reforms” that progressively expanded the amount of externally imposed testing and ratcheted up the pressure to raise scores. Although some people mistakenly identify these test-based reforms with the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) enacted in 2002, they began years earlier, and they will continue under the somewhat less draconian Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that replaced NCLBin 2015.  \nExamples abound of how extreme—often simply absurd—this focus on testing has become. In 2012, two California high schools in the Anaheim Union High School District issued ID cards and day planners to students that were color-coded based on the students’ performance on the previous year’s standardized tests: platinum for those who scored at the “advanced” level, gold for those who scored “proficient,” and white for everyone else. Students with premium ID cards were allowed to use a shorter lunch line and received discounts on entry to football games and other school activities.1  \nNewspapers are replete with reports of students who are so stressed by testing that they become ill during testing or refuse to  \n22 AMERICAN EDUCATOR | WINTER 2017–2018  \ncome to school. In 2013, for example, eight New York school principals jointly sent a letter to parents that included this:“We know that many children cried during or after testing, and others vomited or lost control of their bowels or bladders. Others simply gave up. One teacher reported that a student kept banging his head on the desk, and wrote,‘This is too hard,’ and ‘I can’t do this,’ throughout his test booklet.”2  \nIn many schools, it is not just testing itself that stresses students; they are also stressed by the unrelenting focus on scoresand on their degree of preparation for the end-of-year accountability tests. Test-based accountability has become an end in itself in American education, unmoored from clear thinking about what should be measured, how it should be measured, or how testing can fit into a rational plan for evaluating and improving our schools.  \nThe rationale for these policies is deceptively simple. American schools are not performing as well as we would like. They do not fare well in international comparisons, and there are appalling inequities across schools and districts in both opportunities for students and student performance. These problems have been amply documented. The prescription that has been imposed on educators and children in response is seductively simple: measure student performance using standardized tests and use those measurements to create incentives for higher performance. If we reward people for producing what we want, the logic goes, they will produce more of it. Schools will get better, and students will learn more.  \nHowever, this reasoning isn’t just simple, it’s simplistic—and the evidence is overwhel","cbCailQOijWSReYi","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailQOijWSReYi","pdf",317652,"English","# Moving Beyond the Failure of Test-Based Accountability\n## How testing pressure reshapes instruction and grading\n## Evidence of stress and absurd testing practices\n## Why accountability reasoning fails\n## Score inflation, misleading progress, and equity impacts","[{\"question\":\"How does test-based accountability affect what happens in classrooms?\",\"answer\":\"It influences taught content and methods, determines reading and writing tasks, and affects how teachers grade work. It also links educator rewards or punishment to test performance.\"},{\"question\":\"What are some reported consequences of high-stakes testing for students?\",\"answer\":\"Students experience intense stress, including illness during testing and refusal to come to school. The text also describes extreme examples such as schools providing test-color-coded cards and planning tools.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article argue standardized test accountability has failed?\",\"answer\":\"The evidence shows “score inflation,” where scores rise more than actual achievement, creating illusions of progress. The approach can also misreward or punish schools and programs and worsen misleading equity outcomes.\"}]","Moving Beyond the Failure of Test-Based Accountability - read online | PDF",1792069998,13]