The Test: What Do Students Need To Succeed and How Do We Know What Works?

A dozen years after No Child Left Behind, our schools, districts, and states are being held accountable for weak, limited, and standardized measures of math and reading skills only. Standardized test scores are being used in an unprecedented way to decide the fates of states, districts, students, schools, teachers and principals. Tests and test prep are increasingly coming to define school for millions of students, with the most intense consequences falling on schools that serve the most vulnerable. Anya Kamenetz is the lead digital education reporter for NPR, and previously covered technology, innovation, sustainability and social entrepreneurship for five years as a staff writer for Fast Company. Her latest book, The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized Testing, But You Don’t Have To Be posits a debate is raging over whether students take too many tests, the quality of the tests themselves, and whether the stakes are too high. How do we fix this and build a future of better tests and real accountability? To answer that question, we need to think deeply about what all children really need to be happy and successful.