552 African-American high school students with low skills were expelled from school in Birmingham, Alabama, just before a big state test. Test scores went up and the superintendent got a bonus.
"Maybe in the twenty-first century, satire about the schools is no longer even possible," says U.S. testing critic Susan Ohanian.
In recent years, and without much public scrutiny, large-scale testing projects have become firmly established in Canada and around the world. These tests are now self-perpetuating industries. They divert large sums of public monies from resource-starved schools. Teachers and students are pressured to increase the school's test scores. Low ranking schools are publicly stigmatized. Does any of this improve learning?
In this collection, researchers, teachers, parents and students speak out about the problems of standardized testing and the growing opposition to it.
Where are school tests taking us?