Catherine University SOPHIA Master of Social Work Clinical Research Papers School of Social Work 5-2016 The Impact of High-stakes Testing on the Learning Environment Maddolyn Ritt St. Catherine University, maddolyn.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://sophia.edu/msw_papers Part of the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Ritt, Maddolyn. The Impact of High-stakes Testing on the Learning Environment. Retrieved from Sophia, the St.
Catherine University repository website: https://sophia.edu/msw_papers/658 This Clinical research paper is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Social Work at SOPHIA. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master of Social Work Clinical Research Papers by an authorized administrator of SOPHIA. For more information, please contact amshaw@stkate. Running head: THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKES TESTING The Impact of High-stakes Testing on the Learning Environment Maddolyn L.
Ritt, BSW School of Social Work St. Catherine University/University of St. Paul, Minnesota In Partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Social Work Committee Members Mari Ann Graham, Ph., LISW Deborah Campbell, LT Stephanie Plaster, MSW The Clinical Research Project is a graduation requirement for MSW students at St. Thomas University of Social Work in St.
Paul, Minnesota and is conducted within a nine-month time frame to demonstrate facility with basic social research methods. Students must independently conceptualize a search problem, formulate a research design that is approved by a research committee and the University Institutional Review Board, implement the project, and publicly present the findings of the study. This project is neither a Master’s thesis nor a dissertation. 2 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING Abstract The purpose of this research was to explore the impact of high-stakes testing on the learning environment in public schools, focusing on perceptions by teachers, administrative personnel and school social workers.
This research was based on the literature that documented how the learning environment in public schools has been affected by high-stakes testing implemented as a result of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). While increases in testing has affected all students, the literature shows that it has marginalized sub-groups of at- risk students, including students with disabilities and students of color. The methodology for this research used a qualitative design that focused on obtaining research perspectives from teachers and other school professionals. Following the methodology, the results of the findings was presented through several different themes: English Language Learners are overly tested, teachers are unable to form healthy relationships with their students, and the loss of subjects and the narrowing the curriculum.
This research is important because it provides an important foundation for school social workers and other school personnel given very recent changes in federal legislation designed to improve the learning environment while continuing to hold schools accountable. 3 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING Acknowledgments First I would like to thank my chair, Mari Ann Graham, I am forever grateful for your support, guidance, and belief in me throughout this year. To my committee members, Stephanie Plaster and Deborah Campbell, thank you for your wisdom, time, and guidance throughout this project. Most importantly, I would like to thank my family for believing in me, and encouraging me to believe in myself.
I am grateful for my mom, Deborah, for her support, guidance, and constant reminders that Graduate School is only a small part of my journey and would be over soon. Lastly, I would like to thank my boyfriend Tim, for his endless love and support for me through this challenging, stressful research project. Thank you for making me feel smart, worthy, and capable, you kept me going at times when I wanted to give up. 4 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………2 Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………………3 Table of Contents……………………………………………………………………………4 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………5 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………….……47 Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………………51 Appendix B…………………………………………………………………………………53 Appendix C…………………………………………………………………………………54 5 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING Introduction No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was a national act designed for kindergarten through twelfth grade education.
The NCLB Act was signed into law in 2001 by President George W. Bush, and was an amendment to the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The NCLB Act was created to eliminate the educational achievement gap between socio-economic classes so that “100% of U. students would meet predetermined standards in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year” (Lagan-Riodan, Agilar, pg.
In order to determine if students were meeting standards, NCLB created high-stakes standardized testing as a way of holding schools accountable, ensuring equity between school districts and among various student groups, and providing important services to students with special educational needs. The law required test results to be tracked and reported with the hope of improving schools that were underperforming and by rewarding schools that were doing a good job. High-stakes testing is currently one of the most argumentative issues in education today, and research on human motivation suggests that such incentives and punishments may not work as intended (Partnership, 2014). Defined by the Great School Partnership (2014), “High-stakes testing is any test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, and is most commonly for the purpose of liability to ensure that students are enrolled in effective schools, and being taught by effective teachers” (Partnership, 2014, pg.
“High-stakes” means that test scores are used to determine punishments (such as sanctions, penalties, funding reductions, negative publicity), or rewards (awards, public celebration, positive publicity), or compensation (salary increases or bonuses for administrators and teachers). High-stakes testing was designed in hopes that rewards or sanctions would help students, teachers, and school administrators to take the tests seriously, make personal or 6 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING organizational changes, and then put in the necessary effort to improve test scores (Partnership, 2014). students across the country have not met 100% proficiency. The goal of NCLB was to reduce the reading and math achievement gap between white and non-white students, and to reduce the achievement gap between rich and poor students (National research Council, 2011; Riordan, 2011), but this has not happened.
Ironically, high-stakes testing has been criticized as taking over public education, widening the achievement gaps, exacerbating educational inequalities based on race, culture, and economic status, and forcing teachers to "teach to the test" (Ladson-Billings, 2006). The NCLB Act created annual testing requirements which appear to be negatively affecting public schools by effecting the learning environments, students, administration, and teachers. “Over the past decade, the high-stakes testing regime has squeezed out much of the curriculum that can make schools an engaging and enriching experience for students, and teachers have been forced to dilute their creativity to teach to the test” (Walker, 2014, pg. Walker (2014) goes on to speak about how today’s classroom educators are producing future test takers instead of creative, critical thinkers.
He continues to speak about the needs of testing in public schools, and how testing has changed into a high-stakes event, rewarding and punishing schools, and causing the focus of education to no longer be about the student’s educational needs, but rather a mere test score. Today there are over 500 school social workers employed in the United States who are often the ones called upon to work with students who are having school related difficulties, including but not limited to, difficulties associated with high-stakes testing (Walker, 2014). School social workers play a critical role in school settings by working with students to enhance 7 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING their emotional well-being and improve their academic performance (Walker, 2014). School social workers help students with issues related to truancy, social withdrawal, overaggressive behaviors, rebelliousness, and the effects of special physical, emotional, or economic problems.
School social workers and clinical social workers need to be more aware of how the current learning environment has been impacted by high-stakes testing. Educators are losing the love for learning due to the amount of test prep that happens all year long (Au, 2011), and students between kindergarten and high school graduation are taking 8 tests a year, which amounts to an average of 112 mandatory standardized tests taken by students by the time they graduate high school (Zernike, 2015). No single assessment should ever be the sole factor in making an educational decision about a student, an educator or a school (Zernike, 2015). “Our children are being treated with a one-size-fits-all education approach, which is causing unreliable test scores” (Popham, 2015, pg.
Popham (2015) goes on to explain how teachers are losing power within their classrooms and are being punished for test scores that are not proficient. She continues to raise awareness of the unfairness of measuring student’s abilities on a mere test score by addressing how important it is to be aware of student’s disabilities, language barriers, and/or mental illnesses that can make a test challenging for a student. Testing what a student knows and excels at is beneficial and uplifting for a child, but right now high-stakes testing is only looking at what a student does not know and shaming them for low test scores (Flannery, 2015). The Obama Administration recently declared testing has gone too far and has urged schools to step back and make exams less time consuming and more purposeful (Zernike, 2015).
Currently, testing is consuming the learning environment and there has been no evidence to support that more time spent on tests improves academic performance (Zernike, 2015). The 8 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING recently enacted Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will provide school social workers and other school personnel an opportunity to respond to the unintended consequences of NCLB, but only if they have clear data about those consequences. As schools transition from NCLB to ESSA, they need not only empirical data about the impact of high-stakes testing, they also need to better understand the qualitative impact of high-stakes testing on teachers, students and the learning environment as a whole. ESSA has now given the power to individual states to identify and provide support for struggling schools, and prohibits the federal government from interfering (Singer, 2015).
That is why this study and the timing of it now is so critical. The need for ESSA to improve education is a must because students are suffering due to narrowed curriculum, and this can lead to failure in the future economy if our nation continues to rely too heavily on high- stakes testing to improve educational equality (Au, 2011). Au (2011) goes onto say that our children are our future and narrowing the gap of learning to teach to the test will only cause future problems, and instead of creating future test takers schools should be generating creative, critical thinkers. The purpose of this study is to explore the impacts of high-stakes testing on the learning environment in public school.
High-stakes testing has increased since the passing of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Teachers now feel that high-stakes testing has resulted in a rigid, unbalanced and narrowed curriculum (Phelps, 2015). The research done about high-stakes testing has shown that teachers and administrators are facing high pressure that is effecting the learning environment negatively. Today the pressure is so high that schools are being caught cheating, excessively test prepping, and changing test scores to ensure that test scores appear to meet required standards in fear of sanctions (Berliner, 2011).
Awareness of this 9 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING issue needs to be addressed. Therefore, the literature review will explore what is already known about high-stakes testing in education today. 10 THE IMPACT OF HIGH-STAKE TESTING Literature Review In education today, high-stakes standardized test scores are representing at-risk students as failures due to nationwide test scores (Apple, 2006). Zernike (2015) explains that tests have been seen as a federal takeover and also seen as a “one size fits all” approach.
The unreliability of these test is beginning to be recognized nationwide. Test scores cannot fully and fairly represent student’s knowledge without recognizing outside environmental risk factors (Apple, 2006; Byrnes, 2015, Hidden Curriculum, 2014).