fact sheets

Tests are called "high-stakes" when they used to make major decisions about a student, such as high school graduation or grade promotion. To be high stakes, a test has to be very important in the decision process or be able to override other information (for example, a student does not graduate if s/he does not pass the test regardless of how well s/he did in school). Currently, 17 states require students to pass a test to graduate, and 7 more are planning such tests.

HOW STANDARDIZED TESTING DAMAGES EDUCATION

How do schools use standardized tests?

Why “No Child Left Behind” Will Fail Our Children

A FairTest Position Statement on NCLB

“No Child Left Behind,” the name of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, describes a worthy goal for our nation. Tragically, the legislation will exacerbate, not solve, the real problems that cause many children to be left behind.

The current wave of test-based "accountability" makes it seem as though all assessment could be reduced to "tough tests" attached to high stakes. The assumption, fundamentally unproven, is that such tests produce real improvements in student learning better than do other educational methods.

WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE THAT A NEW OR REVISED EXAM WILL PREDICT COLLEGE GRADES MORE ACCURATELY THAN CURRENT TESTS DO? The manufacturers of both the SAT and ACT admit that a student's high school grades provide better forecasts of undergraduate performance than their tests do. How will changing the format or contents of an entrance exam improve its "predictive validity"? Can test proponents provide independent data to back up their claims?

WILL CHANGING THE TESTS LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD FOR STUDENTS FROM DIVERSE BACKGROUNDS?

Despite many unresolved technical and equity-related problems, test-makers are plunging headlong into new computerized methods of administering multiple-choice exams. Unfortunately, simply automating bad tests does nothing to solve their long-standing problems and may actually compound them.

The SAT I
Approximately 1.3 million high school students annually take the Educational Testing Service's SAT I, America's oldest and most widely used college entrance exam. It is composed of two sections, Verbal and Math, each scored on a 200-800 point scale. Test questions are almost exclusively multiple-choice; a few "student-produced response" questions require the student to "grid in" the answer.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) use of test scores to determine freshman athletic eligibility means that female athletes have two strikes against them. Not only do women have access to fewer athletic opportunities and less athletic financial aid than men, they are also more likely to be disqualified from even competing for these slots. This discrimination is based not on women's athletic or academic skills, but on biased tests that do not accurately predict their ability to succeed in college studies.