Truth about Testing by W James Popham

Truth about Testing by W James Popham

With public and political demand for educational accountability never higher, educators are under enormous pressure to raise students' scores on standardized achievement tests. Policymakers are backing large-scale, high-stakes testing programs as the best way to determine which schools are failing and which schools are succeeding, and the only way to ensure the quality of students' schooling.

Nonsense, says distinguished educator and author W. James Popham.

In The Truth About Testing: An Educator's Call to Action, Popham explores both the absurdity and the serious destructive consequences of today's testing programs. He uses actual items drawn from current standardized achievement tests to show what these tests really measure and why they should never be used to evaluate school quality or teacher ability.

But, Popham insists, there's a way out of this measurement mess. And it's up to educators to take the first steps. Throughout this commonsense and conversational resource, the author appeals to educators to build their own assessment literacy, spread the word about harmful testing, and reexamine how they use test data in the classroom. He provides

• Advice for distinguishing between sound and unsound large-scale tests.
• Guidelines to help teachers maximize the instructional benefits properly constructed classroom tests can bring.
• Evidence-gathering strategies for teachers and administrators trying to survive and thrive in an accountability-driven environment.

The book closes with a series of action items for educators interested in ending the score-boosting game, halting the erosion of educational quality, and establishing the kind of testing that can improve student learning.

James Popham, a former test developer and professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles, is a nationally recognized authority on educational testing. He taught prospective teachers instructional methods courses at UCLA for 30 years, as well as master's and doctorate candidates evaluation and measurement courses. Several prestigious teaching prizes have been bestowed upon him. In January 2000, he was named one of UCLA's top twenty professors of the twentieth century. Dr. Popham has published 20 books, 180 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 150 papers in professional journals.

He has served as the president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in the past. He was also the founding editor of AERA's quarterly publication Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. On educational testing, he now consults with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and various state boards of education.