The NCLB act came out of a mindset that American students were falling behind internationally and sought to make schools accountable through the institution of testing. The act put an emphasis on boosting the achievement of students in ELL, minority, lower-socioeconomic, disabled, and special education groups by mandating that schools and states increase achievement. The schools that were unable to do so would risk losing Title I funding. (Klein)
However, the argument that yearly testing would bridge the achievement gap and create equity fails to take into account that outcomes are tied to access and opportunity. (Kamenetz). Access and opportunity are also connected to a diverse group of factors such as home life, community, and economic status.
The school that I currently work at is Advanced Learning School in Saudi Arabia. It is a full IB Work School and offers inquiry-based instruction across the grade levels. We use MAP testing as a diagnostic tool for student reading, writing, and math. The test are used by teachers to judge student levels and create differentiation. The tests are used for purely diagnostic and data gathering and the students are not taught by the teachers to prepare for the tests. They are simply used to measure student levels in order to focus teaching and learning. They are also used to help assess students for additional help in these subject.
In the student's senior year, they have IB exams in their subjects. These are dependent upon the courses that the student has selected for the IB Diploma program. The tests are a kind of high-stake in that they reflect on the school in the IB World schools depending on the scores and the amount of students who pass. However, unlike high-stakes assessment in America, the tests are not connected to policy or funding.
Apart from that, the assessment at the school uses authentic assessment, portfolios, and performance-based assessment. The school uses an inquiry-based model that focuses on the fact that students will need to be able to think and adapt to real world problems in an increasingly unpredictable world. High-stakes testing may provide an objective assessment of student knowledge, there are things that cannot assessed by a test such as coupling project-based learning with service. When students go out into communities with real need and use their skills to solve real world problems whether it be helping to design a community garden or teaching an art class at an orphanage, the real life application of knowledge is infinitely more valuable, yet much less easy to quantifiably measure.
The lack of high-stakes testing in the school is positive in that we are free to focus more on teaching and learning rather than on satisfying a requirement.
If I were to consider a similar-sized school in the US, but with an emphasis on annual tests to satisfy federal mandates, it seems that something considerable would be lost.
Works Cited:
Klein, A. (2015, April 10). No Child Left Behind: An Overview. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definition-summary.html
Kamenetz, A. (2017, January 22). The Past, Present And Future Of High-Stakes Testing. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/01/22/377438689/the-past-present-and-future-of-high-stakes-testing
Fast Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved January 27, 2017, from https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=1
