The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized TestingA-But You Don't Have to Be

by Anya Kamenetz

Overview

"[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system." -New York Times Book Review

The Test is an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it points the way toward a hopeful future of better tests and happier kids.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610396011
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	01/05/2016
Edition description:	First Trade Paper Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Anya Kamenetz is the lead digital education correspondent for NPR. Previously, she worked as a staff writer for Fast Company magazine. She's contributed to the New York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, Slate, and O, the Oprah Magazine, and has won multiple awards for her reporting on education, technology, and innovation. She is the author of four books on education and technology, Generation Debt, DIY U, The Test, and The Art of Screen Time. She lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Table of Contents

Part I The Problem

Introduction 3

Chapter 1 Ten Arguments Against Testing 11

Chapter 2 The History of Tests 39

Chapter 3 The Politics of Tests 71

Part II The Solutions

Chapter 4 Opting Out 115

Chapter 5 The Four Teams 129

Chapter 6 Measuring What Matters 157

Chapter 7 Playing and Winning the Testing Game 191

Acknowledgments 221

Notes 223

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

"[Kamenetz's] journalistic talents coupled with her role as a mother of a student on the brink of testing humanizes this book, making it a perfect entry for parents who are too deep in the muck of testing to have the clarity of distance."—Boston Globe

"High-stakes testing in our public schools puts enormous pressure on everyone in the system. Using real-and often quite moving-stories, Anya Kamenetz shows teachers, parents, administrators, and students how to survive, even thrive, in an education system that many understandably believe needs a course correction."
—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human

"Thorough research and illuminating interviews... With abundant data assembled in an accessible format, the book is a must-read for anyone in the educational system or any parent who has a child old enough to enter preschool... An informative and enlightening appraisal of the regimented tests that American schoolchildren of all ages are subjected to taking on a regular basis."
—Kirkus Review

"Anya Kamenetz's The Test is a fearless expose of how testing permeates our schools, our homes, even kids' psyches. People will be talking about this important, provocative book for years to come."
—Ashley Merryman, co-author of NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children and Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing

"A must-read. The Test is a vital contribution to the growing debate about how to evaluate our students, schools, and teachers. And Kamenetz offers invaluable guidance to the people so often caught in the middle: parents."
—Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap and Creating Innovators

"The Test is a brilliant, passionate, insightful, and useful look at America's destructive obsession with high stakes testing. Anya Kamanetz yet again shows why she is one of America's truly original thinkers on how we should be educating the next generation- and how we are failing. If I still believed in grades after reading this book, I'd give The Test an A+."
—Cathy N. Davidson, author of Now You See It and Distinguished Professor and Director, The Futures Initiative

From the Publisher

American students may be the most tested kids on Earth. According to recent statistics, youngsters take more than 100 million standardized tests every year—and the trend might be growing: Starting this year, Common Core State Standards Initiative tests roll out in 45 states, raising taxpayer bills, and elevating stress and confusion to both students and parents. In this melee steps education specialist Anya Kamenetz (Generation Debt) who here provides a test tutorial that provides parents (and indirectly kids) with everything they need to know about our latest national obsession.

…to characterize [The Test] as simply a polemic would be to overlook the sophistication of Kamenetz's thinking. She provides a short yet incisive history of testing…probes psychometry, or the science of testing…[and] shows why today's achievement tests, designed to evaluate ability on a specific day, typically at the end of the school year, are poor tools for helping either teachers or students improve their practices in real time…But the book's most urgent contribution is its exploration of how we might hold our schools, teachers and students accountable if we were to scrap high-stakes standardized testing entirely.

The New York Times Book Review - Dana Goldstein

10/27/2014
The buzzwords and counterarguments of the nationwide testing debate are enough to make any parent’s head spin, and Kamenetz’s book adds to the confusing array as much as it clarifies it. NPR blogger and mother Kamenetz seeks to understand the counterintuitive world of standardized testing, hoping to “resolve a personal dilemma about how to educate child.” She wants her daughter to succeed in school and on tests, but doesn’t want the girl’s creativity and individuality snuffed out by the high-stakes environment. Kamenetz runs readers through a battery of familiar arguments against testing: the tests waste time and money, they make teachers hate teaching, they require teaching to cater to the test, they penalize diversity, and they test the wrong things. She then summarizes the history of testing in the U.S. from 1795 to the present day and digs deep into the business practices that govern current testing systems and policy. As Kamenetz acknowledges, important tests and teacher accountability are not going away, so she offers several strategies to keep students balanced and calm while preparing for such exams, but her suggestions for students and parents, ranging from meditating to opting out, are not always practical. She also devotes considerable discussion to the appealing idea of “game-based” assessments as the future of standardized testing, while admitting that the effectiveness of the approach is still largely unproven. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 12/01/2014
Kamenetz's (lead education blogger, NPR; Generation Debt; DIY U) provocative, well-researched book looks at the $13 billion standardized testing industry. Controlled by a handful of companies, it determines grade promotion and graduation rates and has been shown to discriminate against minorities, the poor, and individuals with learning disabilities. The first part of the work examines frequent complaints: tests emphasize the wrong subjects, waste time and money, and make both teachers and students hate school. Also mentioned is that tests penalize diversity, result in teaching to the test, lead to cheating, and are full of errors. Important historical figures in standardized testing, such as Francis Galton, were undeniably racist, and Kamenetz, along with authors such as Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System) and Alfie Kohn (The Case Against Standardized Testing), raises many concerns. What will be heartening to the parents and educators who read this book, however, is that Kamenetz doesn't stop there. She offers a range of solutions: opting out of tests, creating better and less frequent exams and testing unconventional but key qualities like mind-set and grit. VERDICT With the Common Core upon us, this timely book should be required reading for anyone concerned with education today.—Elizabeth Safford, Nevins Memorial Lib., Methuen, MA

Library Journal

2014-10-20
New debates about the worthiness of standardized testing in schools.Beginning with a comprehensive history of standardized testing, NPR education blogger Kamenetz (DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, 2010, etc.) shows how this method of analysis morphed into standard practice in the American school system to assess the abilities of students and teachers alike. The author identifies 10 major problems associated with this form of testing, including the fact that these tests analyze the wrong data, waste time and money, put undue stress on students, parents and teachers, cause teaching to the test and disregard the diversity of the test-takers. When the Common Core State Standards initiative takes effect in 2015, American students will be subjected to even more tests, which Kamenetz believes will only exacerbate the problems already identified with this method. Not only are standardized tests asking the wrong questions, but they are being used the wrong way: "as a single, stand-alone measure of the performance of teachers, students, schools, and districts." Using thorough research and illuminating interviews, the author provides readers with effective solutions to implement on both the individual level—opt out of taking standardized tests or work on individual projects that emphasize a variety of skills, not just language arts and math—and the national level, where assessments of student performance should be used for the greater good of the community as well as the individual. With abundant data assembled in an accessible format, the book is a must-read for anyone in the educational system or any parent who has a child old enough to enter preschool. The author amply shows why the current process of evaluation must be upgraded to meet future needs. An informative and enlightening appraisal of the regimented tests that American schoolchildren of all ages are subjected to taking on a regular basis.

Kirkus Reviews