z45\doc\web\2000\09\nadtest.txt


Unfortunately, he does not attack "performance based" 
tests which are even MORE harmful than the so-called
"standardized tests" usually pummelled by Fairtest. Still,
I agree on banning "high stakes" tests.




-----Original Message-----
From: Assessment Reform Network Mailing List
[mailto:ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU]On Behalf Of Brian LECLOUX
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2000 5:00 PM
To: ARN-L@listsrva.CUA.EDU
Subject: Nader's newest testing statement




This was just added to Nader's website at
www.votenader.org


The Need for Fair Testing


               Standardized tests fail to measure creativity, thoughtfulness, perceptiveness,
               judgment, diligence, critical thinking, communication skills, problem solving or
               imagination -- to name just a few attributes of genuine intelligence. What they do
               reward is thinking and memorization skills that have little importance in the world of
               work, higher education, family or citizenship.  I have been working on documenting
               and attempting to correct this problem for twenty years.


               Exacerbating the problem, the tests exhibit persistent racial and gender bias,
               disadvantaging people of color, girls and women in competitive spheres from primary
               to graduate school.


               Tests which measure narrow and unimportant learning skills -- perhaps even
               penalizing those who think outside conventional boundaries -- and also suffer from
               racial and gender bias should have no place in our educational system.


               Unfortunately, standardized tests are finding ever-increasing usage.  Beginning at very
               young ages, children throughout their educational careers are increasingly forced to
               pass standardized tests as a prerequisite to advancement. Access to advanced
               classes and later to colleges and graduate schools are overly dependent on
               standardized test performance.


               The result is a corrupted educational system, in which teachers teach for tests,
               pushing memorization and multiple-choice skill-building rather than to foster children's
               critical thinking abilities. Those students who do poorly on tests -- disproportionately
               children of color and children from low-income families -- are vectored into special
               education, remedial or lower-level classes in which they are too frequently presented
               with boring and unchallenging material--ensuring that their academic performance will
               lag.


               Teacher tests, which have little if any correlation with actual teaching ability, block
               tens of thousands of teachers of color from teaching in primary and secondary
               schools. African American teachers who do pass the tests score lower than whites
               on average, but beginning African American teachers earn higher performance ratings
               than their white counterparts, according to "The Effects of Competency Testing on the
               Supply of Minority Teachers," by Dr. G. Pritchy Smith, Professor at the University of
               North Florida.


               The expansive utilization of standardized tests in more and more educational and
               other spheres is due, to a considerable extent, to the effective marketing of their fake
               objectivity by the Educational Testing Service and other testing companies.  It also
               reflects a tragically misguided push by the Clinton/Gore administration to increase
               the use of testing as a facile marker for educational "reform."


               As a first step, there should be a national ban on the use of "high stakes"
               standardized tests, where standardized tests are used as the sole measure to
               determine grade advancement, graduation, tracking or other decisions.  Federal
               incentives should encourage the progressive and rapid diminishment of reliance on
               tests -- a cause I have pioneered since 1979 with the release of the groundbreaking
               report The Reign of ETS.  We can instead assess students primarily through
               integrated methods, based in the classroom, including informal interviews, projects,
               classroom tests and journals.


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