Critics of the public release of teacher evaluation scores sometimes liken these ratings to the scarlet letter worn by Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic novel. The comparison is apt. But public school teachers who are subjected to public shaming because of their students' test scores can rarely expect the opportunities for redemption…

Recently, two of the authors (Amrein-Beardsley & Collins, 2012) studied the impact of Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS), a value-added model used to judge Houston teachers' performance. They examined the cases of four teachers who were terminated in summer 2011, at least in part because of their subpar EVAAS scores. Talking to…

The current rationale for standards-based reform goes like this: If standards are demanding and tests accurately measure achievement of those standards, then curriculum and instruction will become richer and more rigorous. By attaching serious consequences to schools that fail to increase test scores, U.S. policymakers believe that educators will…

A growing number of the US schools, under the microscope of increased accountability, are identified as underperforming on the basis of low-test scores. Yet sustained increases in student achievement are problematic for underperforming schools.

How has No Child Left Behind (NCLB) affected you, your students, or your school? Educational Leadership wanted to know so we asked readers to tell us their stories. Some respondents questioned whether NCLB acknowledged the true purpose of education, many bemoan the seeming necessity of having to "teach to the test," and some have…

The societal role of education accountability programs is mainly to see that schools and teachers provide excellent instruction to help kids learn better. The school's educators should collectively determine what kinds of credible evidence, other than No Child Left Behind (NCLB) test scores, could help provide an accurate and honest picture of…

At the heart of No Child Left Behind's accountability system is the requirement that states test nearly every public school student in grades 3-8 and in one high school grade in reading and math. The magnitude of NCLB's testing requirements, the law's demanding deadlines, insufficient federal funding, and other factors have produced an undesirable…

Compared with minimum competency tests, curriculum-based external exit exams provide better measures of students' achievement levels. Analysis of Third Mathematics and Science Study data shows that 13 year-olds from exit-exam countries are ahead of nonparticipating countries. Effects on college enrollment, job success, and test scores are…

The current preoccupation in the United States with test-based accountability is founded on a set of faulty assumptions--about education practices elsewhere in the world, about international test score comparisons, and about the extent to which test scores are valid indicators of the quality of education or the state of the economy. For example,…

The National Education Association has strongly supported the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since its inception in 1965. But the law's most recent reauthorization, the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, is fundamentally flawed, writes NEA President Reg Weaver. Weaver offers NEA's recommendations for revising the law and addressing these…

For almost as long as teacher education programs have existed, there has been controversy about the appropriate balance between liberal arts and pedagogy, theory and practice, and university experiences and school-based experiences. The author of this article, a member of the American Educational Research Association's Panel on Teacher Education,…

An ethnically diverse elementary school committed to coteaching, narrative assessments, and a bias-free ambience performed poorly on 1996 statewide standardized assessments. Initially stymied by a new depersonalized district report card, teachers developed strategic compromises that accommodated the superintendent's bureaucratic directives and…