Voices from the Frontlines: Teachers' Perceptions of High-Stakes Testing.
By Brett D. Jones, R. Egley. 2004
145 citations recorded by the source corpus.
The purpose of this study was to investigate whether teachers perceived Florida’s high-stakes testing program to be taking public schools in the right direction. More importantly, we sought to understand why teachers perceived the tests to be taking schools in the right or wrong direction. Based on the survey results of 708 teachers, we categorized their concerns and praises of high-stakes testing into ten themes. Most of the teachers believed that the testing program was not taking schools in the right direction. They commented that the test was used improperly and that the one-time test scores were not an accurate assessment of students’ learning and development. In addition, they cited negative effects on the curriculum, teaching and learning, and student and teacher motivation. The positive effects cited were much fewer in number and included the fact that the testing held students, educators, and parents accountable for their actions. Interestingly, teachers were not opposed to accountability, but rather, opposed the manner in which it was currently implemented. Only by understanding these positive and negative effects of the testing program can policymakers hope to improve upon it. To this end, we discuss several implications of these findings, including: limiting the use of test scores, changing the school grading criteria, using alternative assessments, modifying the curriculum, and taking steps to reduce teaching to the test.
Subfields: Education, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Information Systems and Management
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f8642807661224767b1715d55675227f4be8461a
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In Education
- Fani Lauermann
- Jacob J. Mishook
- Stuart A. Karabenick
- David C. Berliner
- M. Kornhaber
- Johannes Alexander König
- M. Kunter
- Kenneth M. Zeichner
In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences
In Information Systems and Management
Citations in the corpus
- Taking Teacher Responsibility Into Account(ability): Explicating Its Multiple Components and Theoretical Status (2011, background): “Whereas teachers understand the importance of professional accountability, many of them also perceive the emphasis on standardized test scores in accountability systems as unfair (Jones & Egley, 2004).”
- Arts Integration in an Era of Accountability (2006, background): “…reported a “narrowing of the curriculum” without specifying which subjects are receiving less emphasis (Clarke, Shore, Rhoades, Abrams et al. 2003; Jones and Egley 2004; Jones, Jones, Hardin, Chapman et al. 1999; Koretz, Barron, Mitchell, and Stecher 1996; Smith 1991; Smith and Rottenberg 1991;…”
- Rational responses to high stakes testing: the case of curriculum narrowing and the harm that follows (2011, background): “A Florida teacher says (Jones & Egley, 2004): Our total curriculum is focused on reading, writing, and math.”