Running Head: LITERATURE REVIEW #1

Unintended Consequences
I vividly remember my first day of teaching. I was taking over a class which had been
without a regular teacher for four months, that teacher having quit unexpectedly at the holiday
break. I walked into the classroom so excited to have finally landed a teaching job, eager to put
into practice everything I had been studying in my teacher preparation classes. I stepped in front
of the packed classroom, adjusted my tie, cleared my throat and was promptly ignored. I spent
the better part of a week just getting that class to acknowledge my presence. It is because of this
experience that the extended metaphor of invisibility for the unintended shift in emphasis from
student and teacher to test and standard is so striking for me. I know how it feels. There is
nothing so infuriating at going unseen.
What does it mean to say that the emphasis on standards-based education and
standardized testing to assess mastery of these standards is making teachers and students
invisible to each other? Elish-Piper, Matthews, and Risko share a number of stories which show
the effects of this invisibility: teachers are more focused on the goal of student preparedness for
tests than developing the whole child as a person, or preparing the student for life outside of
school both now and in later life; students become distressed, disaffected, and disconnected by
frustration with testing from discovering and developing their unique strengths and
characteristics, which is the real purpose of schooling.
No one wants to marginalize and dehumanize students; these effects are unintentional.
They are, nonetheless, real and damaging, particularly because the negative consequences of
standardized testing disproportionately effect young men and women of color and are likely to
affect these students throughout their public school career and into college acceptance. Students
of color are more likely to fail high school graduation exams, to be academically retained, to

LITERATURE REVIEW #1

score lower on college admissions tests and be denied scholarships, and to be misplaced into
special education classes, which fail to fully educate these students (FairTest, 2011). Schools
under pressure to keep test scores high counsel out students with low test scores, narrow the
curriculum to more precisely target just those competencies addressed by standardized tests, and
track students into less rigorous curricula on the basis of poor standardized test scores (Fine,
2005, p. 25-26). All of this without any concrete evidence that standardized testing accrues any
benefit to society, to students, or to the schools that serve both.
It is precisely the students who need to be welcomed into schools, to be made to feel like
part of the school community, to be related to, to be accommodated, to be enveloped by caring
who are most frequently dehumanized, disenfranchised, and given the choice to either conform
to a model of instruction and assessment which is unresponsive to their language and culture or
to be shown the door (FairTest, 2011; Fine, 2005, p. 26-27).
I work in an inner-city charter school. I work with a population that is 74% Hispanic,
24% Black, and 2% Other. I know all too well the importance that administration placed upon
standardized test preparation and scores. Our school recently moved to a one-to-one technology
model in our classrooms, putting Chromebooks into every students hands to take to each class
and home each night. Why the sudden massive investment in technology? So that students are
comfortable enough with computers to complete the computer-based version of the PARCC
assessment.
I have been fortunate enough to be a leading figure in my department and to be able to
advocate for social justice, cultural responsiveness, student choice and student voice in Language
Arts instruction. I feel that the poetry slam and literary journal activities I have championed have
given students the opportunity to use that we teach them to speak out about their lives, their

LITERATURE REVIEW #1

hopes, their dreams, their fears, and their concerns. Were I not so fortunate, though, this article
would show me that there is always a way to be more human when we interact with our students,
even if sometimes you have to dig deep and work a little harder to make it happen.
This article is meaningful because retelling as an instructional technique seems to
naturally support and correspond to the ways by which we as humans gain any kind meaningful
and persistent knowledge. Students should be scaffolded and encouraged in their
References
Elish-Piper, L., Matthews, M.W., & Risko, V.J. (2013). Invisibility: An unintended consequence of
standards, tests, and mandates. Journal of Language & Literacy Education, 9(2), 4-23,
retrieved from: http://jolle.coe.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Invisibility.pdf

FairTest (2011). Racial justice and standardized education testing. Retrieved from:
http://fairtest.org/sites/default/files/racial_justice_and_testing_12-10.pdf
Fine, M. (2005). High stakes testing and lost opportunities: The New York state
Regents exams.
Encounter, 18(2), 24-29.