Four Effects of the High-Stakes Testing Movement on African American K-12 Students

Abstract

In order ensure that American are competitive with in other countries, since the 1980s, U.S. policymakers have been trying improve the K-12 public school system. Recent reform efforts have led the current high-stakes testing movement, which measures student achievement and school effectiveness mainly by standardized test scores. In this article, the authors explain how the current high-stakes testing movement has harmed African American through (1) instructional practices that have not resulted in widespread higher test scores; (2) increasing student apathy; (3) more punitive discipline policies and pushing more youth into the prison pipeline, and also by (4) creating a narcissistic education system that strives make schools look good, even if are not really learning information that will help them improve the quality of their lives. The authors conclude with recommendations that can improve the schooling experiences of African American youth.Key words: apathy, achievement gaps, prison pipeline, narcissism, NCLB, school reformIntroductionFrom its creation until the present time, there has been an on-going quest improve the U.S. ?? 2 public school system, and promises of reform have been a foundation of many political campaigns. Nevertheless, the school system has continuously failed live up its potential (Spellings, 2012). Consequently, some receive a quality education that prepares them for college or enter the workforce, and others receive an education that prepares them for lowpaying jobs or perpetual unemployment (Hale, 2001). One of the most far-reaching reforms began in the 1980s after Nation at Risk. . (The National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) was published. This report revealed that U.S. were not performing as well academically as their counterparts in other nations. A flurry of educational reforms followed, include: the 1987 High Schools That Work Reform (Smith, 2005), 1993s Success For All (Smith, 2005), and the Comprehensive School Reform of 1997 (Smith, 2005).The latest reform endeavor was codified in 2002, when the U.S. Congress enacted the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which amended the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (U.S. Department of Education, 2002). According its statement of purpose, NCLB was created to ensure that all children obtain a high-quality education and reach a minimum proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments (U. S. Congress 2002, p. 15). These goals would be accomplished through a twelve-step process that includedmeeting the educational needs of underperforming from historically underserved backgrounds; closing the achievement gap especially. between high- and low-performing children and their more advantaged peers; and significantly elevating the quality of instruction by providing staff in participating schools with substantial opportunities for professional development. (U.S. Congress, 2002, p. 15)Although the authors of NCLB explicitly outlined a multifaceted approach school reform, in the end, NCLB became equated with one ultimate objective: producing high test scores. A major consequence has been the current high-stakes testing movement that has made standardized test scores the main criteria by which student knowledge, teacher efficacy, and school quality are assessed. An even greater problem has been that although the authors of NCLB had good intentions, a decade after the reform was enacted most of its goals have not been met (Hightower, 2012; Klein & Rice, 2012).Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings stated, Half of our minority don't graduate from high school on time. And of move through the system without having basic reading and math skills (Spellings 2012, p. 42). Among the millions of students whom Spellings referred are African Americans, a group who has historically been underserved and even harmed through low expectations, culturally irrelevant instructional practices, unfair discipline practices, underrepresentation in gifted classes, and overrepresentation in special education classes by the U. …