High-Stakes Testing and U.S.-Mexican Youth in Texas: The Case for Multiple Compensatory Criteria in Assessment

Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy - Click Here

"With the recent re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
(ESEA) that calls for testing at virtually every grade level, a growing debate is taking
place regarding the utility of mass, but especially high-stakes, testing whereby schools,
principals, teachers, and students are held accountable for increased children’s
achievement (e.g., Scheurich et al. 2000; Scheurich and Skrla 2000; Valencia et al.
2001).1 Proponents of the current system of accountability in Texas, which does have
high-stakes testing as its linchpin, see the system as bringing attention to previously
under-served African American and Mexican American children, the majority of whom
are poor (Scheurich et al. 2000; Scheurich and Skrla 2000; Skrla et al. 2000a, 2000b).2
“High stakes” testing extends beyond the concept of standardized testing to denote the
attaching of high-stakes consequences (like retention, promotion, or graduation) to test
performance (Heuber and Hauser 1999).

Opponents take issue not with the concept of accountability, but rather with the
high stakes that are attached to the tests themselves, as well as to their collateral effects,
including the marginalizing of curriculum, children, or both (McNeil 2000; McNeil and
Valenzuela 2001). Sloan (forthcoming) reconciles these perspectives by suggesting that
while proponents have an “outside-in” view, critics possess an “inside-out” perspective.
In other words, proponents view the classroom from the outside (i.e., a “top-down”
perspective) and note that previously under-served children have been accorded greater
teacher and administrative attention. Critics, on the other hand, look at high-stakes
testing policies from the perspective of the classroom where they witness the collateral
effects brought about by such high pressures to generate positive performance. These
include narrowing the curriculum by “teaching to the test”; marginalizing children, their
languages and cultures; and “gaming” the system such as by retaining children in grade
or relegating them to test-exempt status categories to produce positive test results and
school ratings."

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A Texas student's testimony on standardized testing

From Houston Chronicle

Updated 08:26 p.m., Friday, April 13, 2012

OpinioninSha

Sad testimony on testing  There have been many articles and news reports over the past few months about the effects of standardized testing on schools in Texas. I am a ninth-grade student attending a Houston Independent School District school, and I'm in pre-AP classes and one AP class. I haven't written this to complain about the testing because I don't like it or because it's hard; I've written this letter because I am angry, disappointed and concerned. Testing has disrupted schedules to the point where teachers can't teach, and I can't learn. In my pre-AP English class for this year, we have read one novel ("Ender's Game"), one short story ("The Most Dangerous Game") and one play ("Romeo and Juliet"). None of these works was really discussed because we had to prepare for the STARR test instead.  I also had practice testing and spent five solid hours in a room for several days. It took about two hours for the actual practice test; the rest of the time I read, others slept. There was no learning, no biology class, no English class, no math class. Before and during this, we were learning "Romeo and Juliet," and it took us more than five weeks to read it and we never discussed it, courtesy of testing and practice testing.
Like most students, I actually want to learn something. Why won't the Texas school system let me? Carl Teegerstrom, Houston