High Stakes: Poverty, Testing, and Failure in American Schools

By Dale D. JohnsonBonnie GrantCarl A. Johnson, et al.

Book Overview

High Stakes brings the voices of students and teachers to our national debates over school accountability and educational reform. Recounting the experiences of two classrooms during one academic year, the book offers a critical exploration of excessive state-mandated monitoring, high-stakes testing pressures, and inequities in public school funding that impede the instructional work of teachers, especially those who serve children of poorer families. Redbud Elementary has no playground, no library, no hot water, and no art classes. Ninety-five percent of the children qualify for a free breakfast or lunch. Most of the children live with a single parent or relative; some live in homes without electricity, running water, or floors. The authors, who moved from comfortable college professor positions to teach in a poor school district, offer an eye-opening examination of the daily school lives of children who live in crushing poverty and teachers who work under extraordinary stress. Their tale is at times heartbreaking, heartwarming, or infuriating. They explain why many recent educational reforms are off track and argue for more meaningful reforms that can empower teachers and students and better meet the challenges of our communities and the national interest. This second edition updates the story of Redbud Elementary and takes a hard look at the national expansion of accountability from preschool through college. A new final chapter focuses on the national effects of the No Child Left Behind Act as well as states' experiences with mandates and the role of big business in the testing process. This edition concludes with coverage of the so-called silent professionals and opposition to high-stakes testing, and a consideration of the future prospects for American education.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0742535320
• ISBN13: 9780742535329
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A second look at standardized testing

Increasingly since the early 1980's, standardized testing has been appropriated not as a general measure of institutional comparision, but punnitative measures towards students who can't quite measure up. Using a case study in Lousianna, Johnson and Johnson demonstrate standardized testing sounds great in political propaganda (what individual wants to be against academic excellence?) but implementation is sharply at odds with the complex reality of learning styles and economic limitations. Because standardized tests rely on rote memorization and repition of facts in a multiple choice format, they are not the best format for people who have other learning styles. Additionally, different groups of students are educationally tracked (advanced placement, special education) but this system and it's real effects on the individual student are too convienently downplayed during test administration time. The tests real function is to ultimately provide quickie reassurance to elected officials and parents alike that their communities are 'smart' while continuing to avoid and/or underaddress the curricular and economic issues which would actually enable these students to succed on the same programs.