Measuring what really matters 

In the past 15 years since the passage of No Child Left Behind, large-scale assessments have come to play a central role in federal and state education accountability systems. Across the country, districts, schools, and now teachers are evaluated on the basis of their ability to raise test scores for all students from year to year. 

Opponents of NCLB and high-stakes testing have long argued that testing more students more frequently won’t improve instruction or learning. Opponents also argue that high-stakes testing hurts students by causing test-related anxiety, driving instruction in undesirable ways (such as teaching to the test and test-prep), and leading schools to narrow the curriculum to focus on the tested subjects at the expense of subjects like science, social studies, arts, and physical education that are important to well-rounded child development. Teachers and parents have expressed a number of concerns about their state testing programs, such as too much time devoted to testing and the high-stakes use of testing for teacher evaluation.