What are the risks of high-stakes testing?
Experts continue to debate the wisdom of employing high-stakes tests – tests that carry significant consequences for schools, educators, or students. For schools, those consequences may involve the amount of future funding or the threat of sanctions. For educators, they may include reassignment or termination. For students, they may affect the ability to graduate or advance to the next grade. Many educators and parents credit their districts use of high-stakes testing for prompting students to get serious about learning. A survey conducted by Public Agenda in conjunction with Quality Counts 99, found that 68 percent of high school students queried said exit exams “make them work harder” (Education Week, 1999, pp. 53-54). But sometimes high-stakes tests produce undesirable and unintended consequences, such as teaching the test or excluding some students from testing (Fuhrman, 1999). Tying assessments to students graduation or promotion can prompt students to drop out or increase the num
