Content area
Full text
The Case against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools Alfie Kohn. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 2000.104 pp. $10.00. Paperback ISBN 0-325-00325-4
"Standardized testing has swelled and mutated, like a creature in one of those old horror movies, to the point that it now threatens to swallow our schools whole" (1). With this statement, Alfie Kohn begins this book, written to challenge those who defend the tests and those who have resigned themselves to the tests-individuals who must be convinced that the tests are not only unnecessary but highly dangerous. The book is also for other readers who are aware of what is being sacrificed but who need assistance to oppose the tests. It starts with a clear discussion about "Measuring What Matters Least" and ends with a final section about "Fighting the Tests."
Written in question and answer format, the book is devoted to questioning the link between testing well and learning well. Kohn has adapted much of the. material in the book from his 1999 work, The Schools Our Children Deserve: Moving beyond Traditional Classrooms and "Tougher Standards," a book in which he deals with broader issues of teaching and learning and the "tougher standards" sensibility that underlies standardized testing. Although written in succinct and readable language, The Case against Standardized Testing is well-documented with extensive notes, suggestions for further reading, and references. Kohn includes facts about the time spent giving students standardized tests; what accounts for the testing situation, such as the exaggerated and misleading evidence that was used in reports to stir up concerns about schools; and the constituencies, mainly corporations and politicians, who benefit from the tests and misuse the resulting scores. He makes a strong case that the tests are the result of political decisions and force, and they must be challenged and reversed.
According to Kohn, rethinking standardized testing does not mean making minor repairs that do not address the problems connected with using such exams to make judgments about students and schools. Reading Kohn's book, we become increasingly aware of how harmful a test-driven curriculum can be, as we confront the disturbing and real conclusion that increased efforts to raise standardized test scores come at the expense of more meaningful forms of learning. A fact...