What's Really at Stake with High-Stakes Testing?

Abstract

High-stakes testing has the potential to make significant differences in the lives of children and adults acrossa variety of educational settings. Decisions related to high-stakes testing can affect individuals and systemsat the local, regional, state, and national levels (Ysseldyke et al., 2004). Advocates of high-stakes testinghope test scores will prompt schools and organizations to reform policy, encourage teachers to adopt moreeffective practices, and motivate students to work harder based on the school's accountability report(Stecher, 2002). However, some studies indicate that high-stakes testing can have negative as well aspositive consequences and that these consequences sometimes result in different experiences for femalesand minorities. In this article, we define high-stakes tests, describe both positive and negative consequencesof these assessments as they relate to females and minorities, discuss reasons for performance differencesamong diverse groups, and share cautions regarding uses of high-stakes tests.