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Chesney Brakhage

Dr. Saynes

Article Review #1 for Test and Measurements

24 September 2015

The Ineffectiveness of High-Stakes Testing

Au, W., & Gourd, K. (2013). Asinine Assessment: Why High-Stakes Testing Is Bad for
Everyone, Including English Teachers. English Journal, 103(1), 14-19. URL:
http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.bryan.edu/docview/1442776578/
fulltext?accountid=9770

The spring is full of rainy weather, baseball, new life, and high-stakes testing. Every year

the majority of students take standardized tests in order to assess the learning that took place

throughout the year. Many in education and politics have debated the benefits of high-stakes

testing. Some strongly oppose high stakes testing. Wayne Au and Karen Gourd, the authors of

Asinine Assessment: Why High-Stakes Testing Is Bad for Everyone, Including English Teachers,

fall into this category. Au and Gourd believe that high-stakes testing has negative effects on

students, especially students from minorities. In their article they discuss the history of testing,

problematic assumptions concerning testing, the effects of high-stakes testing, and ways that

teachers can create resistance to the test in the classroom.

According to Au and Gourd, the political beginning of high-stakes standardized testing

dates back to 1983 when A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform was

published. This report told of an educational crisis, which did not exist; however, many states

reformed their education systems, and all but one state instituted state-mandated testing by 2001.

This also led to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 (NCLB). NCLB required students to take

tests in reading and math during grade school, middle school, and high school, and it utilized the

test scores to determine the availability of federal funding. While this is the accepted history of
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mandated testing, Au and Gourd argue that the true origin is found in IQ testing that began in

1904 and was eventually used to determine both learning groups in school systems and college

acceptance. According to early proponents of IQ tests, different races had different inherited

intelligences in which students of Western European heritage were most intelligent and African

Americans were least intelligent.

Au and Gourd address several problematic assumptions of standardized testing. The first

is that a 100% pass rate can be reached, but in reality the results of the test can only be valid and

reliable if there is less than 100% percent of students pass. The second assumption is that the

idea of removing the gap in education means that everyone is successful. In reality the goal is to

have an equal representation from each social class or ethnic group in the population that pass

and in the population that fails. The final problematic assumption is that tests can measure the

amount of information that students learn, and therefore it can measure the quality of the teacher.

This is incorrect because as Au and Gourd also address, there is an issue of inaccuracy in

scoring. While tests are assumed to be accurately scored, but they show that according to

previous graders, the tests were often scored in a way to obtain a certain score average and only

received around a minute of the graders attention per test.

Au and Gourd are writing from the perspective of an English educator, so they give ways

that teachers can combat standardized tests that they deem to be founded in racism and classism.

They label this creative maladjustment (Au and Gourd, 2013, 18-19). The first way to combat

this is to give students assignments in which they learn about standardized tests so that they may

be informed citizens after graduation. English educators can give students work that is

challenging and requires creativity so that they develop complex thinking skills. Finally English
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educators should incorporate multicultural literature even though it is not tested. The goal of

creative maladjustment is to develop higher order thinking in the classroom.

This article was written in opposition of high-stakes testing. There was a degree of

frustration because the authors seemed to believe that those who supported testing were nave

and chose to ignore the racist and classist ideals behind testing. Au and Gourds theme was to

inspire teachers, particularly English teachers, to rise up against the system for the benefit of

their students because testing does not allow students to develop higher level thinking abilities.

This rebellion that is sensed towards the end of the article adds some excitement to the article

because it plays on the concept of something that is going against the tides of society and the

government in which testing is encouraged. The authors are systematic in presenting their

information, and it was a very readable article. They present evidence to support their views by

giving examples such as the stories from graders and the history of testing. The ideas in this

article seem to be original, and one of the authors even quotes one of his previous works. While

it gives ideas to make the high-stakes classroom a place of creative learning, it does not give any

results that have been observed after these changes have been made. The authors appear to be

valid because they have evidence, experience in the public education systems, and are professors

at the University of Washington.

I agree with the points made in the article, because I believe that high-stakes testing is

more detrimental than beneficial. Testing not only burdens students and teachers with stress, but

it also strips the classroom of creativity and individuality. Students often simply learn facts, but

they never learn how to put those facts together or to think critically because that is supposedly

not needed for the test. Au and Gould touched on this when addressing the hierarchy of subjects

that are taught, high stakes testing is controlling both what and how subjects are taught (2013,
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17). I think that creative maladjustment is an interesting concept, and depending on the level of

students that I teach, I would be interested in implementing the assignment on standardized

assessment, assigning higher order projects, and incorporating multicultural literature in my

classroom.