The Testing Charade

The Testing Charade PDF

Author: Daniel Koretz

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-08-31

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 022640871X

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America's leading expert in educational testing and measurement openly names the failures caused by today's testing policies and provides a blueprint for doing better. 6 x 9.

Measuring Up

Measuring Up PDF

Author: Daniel Koretz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-09-15

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0674254988

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How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be—well, complicated. Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing—from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

Beyond Test Scores

Beyond Test Scores PDF

Author: Jack Schneider

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2017-08-14

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674976398

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Test scores are the go-to metric of policy makers and anxious parents looking to place their children in the best schools. Yet standardized tests are a poor way to measure school performance. Using the diverse urban school district of Somerville MA as a case study, Jack Schneider’s team developed a new framework to assess educational effectiveness.

The Myth of Achievement Tests

The Myth of Achievement Tests PDF

Author: James J. Heckman

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 022610012X

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Achievement tests play an important role in modern societies. They are used to evaluate schools, to assign students to tracks within schools, and to identify weaknesses in student knowledge. The GED is an achievement test used to grant the status of high school graduate to anyone who passes it. GED recipients currently account for 12 percent of all high school credentials issued each year in the United States. But do achievement tests predict success in life? The Myth of Achievement Tests shows that achievement tests like the GED fail to measure important life skills. James J. Heckman, John Eric Humphries, Tim Kautz, and a group of scholars offer an in-depth exploration of how the GED came to be used throughout the United States and why our reliance on it is dangerous. Drawing on decades of research, the authors show that, while GED recipients score as well on achievement tests as high school graduates who do not enroll in college, high school graduates vastly outperform GED recipients in terms of their earnings, employment opportunities, educational attainment, and health. The authors show that the differences in success between GED recipients and high school graduates are driven by character skills. Achievement tests like the GED do not adequately capture character skills like conscientiousness, perseverance, sociability, and curiosity. These skills are important in predicting a variety of life outcomes. They can be measured, and they can be taught. Using the GED as a case study, the authors explore what achievement tests miss and show the dangers of an educational system based on them. They call for a return to an emphasis on character in our schools, our systems of accountability, and our national dialogue. Contributors Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin–Madison Andrew Halpern-Manners, Indiana University Bloomington Paul A. LaFontaine, Federal Communications Commission Janice H. Laurence, Temple University Lois M. Quinn, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Pedro L. Rodríguez, Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration John Robert Warren, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

The Harlem Charade

The Harlem Charade PDF

Author: Natasha Tarpley

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 0545783895

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Fans of Chasing Vermeer will love this clever mystery about art, artifice, and the power of community. WATCHER. SHADOW. FUGITIVE.Harlem is home to all kinds of kids. Jin sees life passing her by from the window of her family's bodega. Alex wants to help the needy one shelter at a time, but can't tell anyone who she really is. Elvin's living on Harlem's cold, lonely streets, surviving on his own after his grandfather was mysteriously attacked.When these three strangers join forces to find out what happened to Elvin's grandfather, their digging leads them to an enigmatic artist whose missing masterpieces are worth a fortune-one that might save the neighborhood from development by an ambitious politician who wants to turn it into Harlem World, a ludicrous historic theme park. But if they don't find the paintings soon, nothing in their beloved neighborhood will ever be the same . . .In this remarkable tale of daring and danger, debut novelist Natasha Tarpley explores the way a community defines itself, the power of art to show truth, and what it really means to be home.

The Testing Charade

The Testing Charade PDF

Author: Daniel Koretz

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2017-08-31

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 022640885X

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For decades we’ve been studying, experimenting with, and wrangling over different approaches to improving public education, and there’s still little consensus on what works, and what to do. The one thing people seem to agree on, however, is that schools need to be held accountable—we need to know whether what they’re doing is actually working. But what does that mean in practice? High-stakes tests. Lots of them. And that has become a major problem. Daniel Koretz, one of the nation’s foremost experts on educational testing, argues in The Testing Charade that the whole idea of test-based accountability has failed—it has increasingly become an end in itself, harming students and corrupting the very ideals of teaching. In this powerful polemic, built on unimpeachable evidence and rooted in decades of experience with educational testing, Koretz calls out high-stakes testing as a sham, a false idol that is ripe for manipulation and shows little evidence of leading to educational improvement. Rather than setting up incentives to divert instructional time to pointless test prep, he argues, we need to measure what matters, and measure it in multiple ways—not just via standardized tests. Right now, we’re lying to ourselves about whether our children are learning. And the longer we accept that lie, the more damage we do. It’s time to end our blind reliance on high-stakes tests. With The Testing Charade, Daniel Koretz insists that we face the facts and change course, and he gives us a blueprint for doing better.

Beyond Testing

Beyond Testing PDF

Author: Deborah Meier

Publisher: Teachers College Press

Published: 2017-07-14

Total Pages: 160

ISBN-13: 0807758523

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Beyond Testing describes seven forms of assessment that are more effective than standardized test results. These assessments are more honest about what we can and cannot know about children's knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Readers can compare and contrast each approach to determine which is most appropriate for their school.

Winners Take All

Winners Take All PDF

Author: Anand Giridharadas

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2018-08-28

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 0451493257

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The groundbreaking investigation of how the global elite's efforts to "change the world" preserve the status quo and obscure their role in causing the problems they later seek to solve. An essential read for understanding some of the egregious abuses of power that dominate today’s news. "Impassioned.... Entertaining reading.” —The Washington Post Anand Giridharadas takes us into the inner sanctums of a new gilded age, where the rich and powerful fight for equality and justice any way they can—except ways that threaten the social order and their position atop it. They rebrand themselves as saviors of the poor; they lavishly reward “thought leaders” who redefine “change” in ways that preserve the status quo; and they constantly seek to do more good, but never less harm. Giridharadas asks hard questions: Why, for example, should our gravest problems be solved by the unelected upper crust instead of the public institutions it erodes by lobbying and dodging taxes? His groundbreaking investigation has already forced a great, sorely needed reckoning among the world’s wealthiest and those they hover above, and it points toward an answer: Rather than rely on scraps from the winners, we must take on the grueling democratic work of building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world—a call to action for elites and everyday citizens alike.

EBOOK: The Stata Survival Manual

EBOOK: The Stata Survival Manual PDF

Author: David Pevalin

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

Published: 2009-07-16

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0335240275

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Where do I start? How do I know if I’m asking the right questions? How do I analyze the data once I have it? How do I report the results? When will I ever understand the process? If you are new to using the Stata software, and concerned about applying it to a project, help is at hand. David Pevalin and Karen Robson offer you a step by step introduction to the basics of the software, before gently helping you develop a more sophisticated understanding of Stata and its capabilities. The book will guide you through the research process offering further reading where more complex decisions need to be made and giving 'real world' examples from a wide range of disciplines and anecdotes that clarify issues for readers. The book will help with: Manipulating and organizing data Generating statistics Interpreting results Presenting outputs The Stata Survival Manual is a lifesaver for both students and professionals who are using the Stata software!

Spare the Rod

Spare the Rod PDF

Author: Campbell F. Scribner

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 022678584X

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Spare the Rodtraces the history of discipline in schools and its ever increasing integration with prison and policing, ultimately arguing for an approach to discipline that aligns with the moral community that schools could and should be. In Spare the Rod, historian Campbell F. Scribner and philosopher Bryan R. Warnick investigate the history and philosophy of America’s punishment and discipline practices in schools. To delve into this controversial subject, they first ask questions of meaning. How have concepts of discipline and punishment in schools changed over time? What purposes are they supposed to serve? And what can they tell us about our assumptions about education? They then explore the justifications. Are public school educators ever justified in punishing or disciplining students? Are discipline and punishment necessary for students’ moral education, or do they fundamentally have no place in education at all? If some form of punishment is justified in schools, what ethical guidelines should be followed? The authors argue that as schools have grown increasingly bureaucratic over the last century, formalizing disciplinary systems and shifting from physical punishments to forms of spatial or structural punishment such as in-school suspension, school discipline has not only come to resemble the operation of prisons or policing, but has grown increasingly integrated with those institutions. These changes and structures are responsible for the school-to-prison pipeline. They show that these shifts disregard the unique status of schools as spaces of moral growth and community oversight, and are incompatible with the developmental environment of education. What we need, they argue, is an approach to discipline and punishment that fits with the sort of moral community that schools could and should be.