- Web site style:
- Normal |
- Large fonts |
- High visibility
- Arts
- Bilingual Education
- Copyright and Fair Use
- Education Support Professionals
- General Interest
- History
- Special Subjects: War in Iraq
- K-12 Education
- Librarians/Media Specialists
- Math
- School Nurses
- Paraprofessionals
- Science
- Special Subjects: Black History Month
- Special Subjects: Pandemic Flu
- Special Subjects: Martin Luther King
- Special Subjects: Terrorism and Tolerance
- Special Subjects: Women's History Month
- Special Needs
- High-Stakes Testing Links
- Vocational Education Links
High-Stakes Testing Resources
MCAS Basics & Test Prep from the Department of EducationMassachusetts Dept. of Education
Official news and information on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System, including test dates, the alternative assessment process, sample test items, and past results. Separate sections for teachers, parents, and students.
Media Coverage
Education Week
A collection of articles on Standards from the respected independent journal of American education. There are also sections on Assessment and Accountability.
Boston Globe
Look up scores for your school district and access selected testing materials.
Cape Cod Times
Scores for Cape school districts.
New Bedford Standard-Times
Archive of the newspaper's articles on MCAS in southern Massachusetts.
PBS Frontline: Testing Our Schools
"A business school graduate and self-styled "CEO President," Bush envisions a business model where educators set objectives, measure performance, and hold students and teachers accountable for results. But will the business model work in education?" Information and reaction to the March 2002 documentary.
Springfield Union-News
Grading MCAS special section includes results for western Massachusetts districts and articles about local results.
WGBH-TV
This Eye on Education Web site gives a thorough history of MCAS and presents pro and con viewpoints.
High-Stakes Testing Advocates
The testing and standards movement has a long history that has spawned many advocacy organizations. Many of these ostensibly non-partisan groups are connected to one another and financed by business interests.
Achieve
Achieve, Inc., an education reform organization backed by the Education Trust, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and the National Alliance of Business. Massachusetts is one of five states selected for Achieve's American Diploma Project. The project has three main objectives: "assist states in strengthening and/or revising their current standards-based systems; develop and solidify demand -- from higher education and employers -- for standards-based high school assessment data in their admissions and hiring process; and create new high school graduation benchmarks in English language arts and mathematics that all states may use to analyze the quality and rigor of their current standards and assessments."
The Education Trust
A national organization whose stated mission is to "work for the high academic achievement of all students at all levels, kindergarten through college."
Fair Test
The National Center for Fair and Open testing is a Cambridge-based group "working to end the abuses, misuses and flaws of standardized testing and ensure that evaluation of students and workers is fair, open, and educationally sound."
CARE Mass
The Massachusetts Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education wants to stop the use of MCAS scores in graduation and promotional requirements and works toward "a fair accountability system that uses multiple ways of measuring student and school progress."
Mass Parents
Mass Parents lists information about local events and organizing, petition drives, school committee resolutions and other anti-MCAS measures organized by concerned parents and students.
Alfie Kohn
Kohn writes and lectures extensively about the standards movement, including MCAS in his home state of Massachusetts. (See Poor Teaching for Poor Students: One More Reason to Boycott the MCAS.)
Rethinking Schools
Developed by a group of Milwaukee-area teachers 15 years ago, now a national publication and Web site addressing education issues, including assessment, from a progressive perspective.
Research
CRESST
National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at UCLA.
Educational Disinformation Detection and Reporting Agency
Education researcher and writer Gerald Bracey has been publishing annual reports on education for 11 years. Much of his work centers on the misuse and misrepresentation of test-score based educational data.
Education Policy Analysis Archives
Based at Arizona State University, this site has been publishing online. peer-reviewed articles on education issues since 1993.
Harvard Civil Rights Project
Includes a section of research on high-stakes testing.
Latino Students and the Massachusetts Public Schools
Report by Miren Uriarte, Ph.D., and Lisa Chavez of the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy at UMass Boston cited MCAS test scores among Hispanic students.
Myth of the Texas Miracle in Education
A report by Walt Haney, a Boston College professor, contends that the Texas educational turn around is "more hat than cattle."
Teachers College Record High-Stakes Testing Collection
Online journal from the Columbia University Teachers College's collection of articles on high-stakes testing. (Requires a free registration to use the site.)
AERA
American Educational Research Association position on high-stakes testing in PreK-12.
International Reading Association
Position paper and suggestions for teachers and parents concerned about high-stakes testing.
National Board on Educational Testing and Public Policy
Supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation, this Boston College-based organization monitors tests for "appropriate use and technical accuracy." Several reports are posted on the site.
National Center for Educational Statistics
NCES is the primary federal entity for collecting and analyzing data that are related to education in the United States and other nations.
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
Position paper on high-stakes testing in math.
NEA
Resources and resolutions on accountability and testing from the National Education Association.
National Research Council
Testing for Tracking, Promotion, and Graduation, a report prepared by the National Academy of Science.
For Parents
NEA's Parents Guide to Testing
As states implement the new federal education law and make decisions about tests, the guide provides advice and information to help parents advocate for tests that promote quality teaching and learning.
PTA
National Parent-Teacher Association position on high-stakes testing.