... shown to improve student achievement or teacher performance, and even though the testing mandated by the NCLB legislation is widely considered to have undercut, rather than raised, the national achievement levels." (Coulson) Surprisingly, the US slipped from the 18th in the world, to 31st place in 2009, after the NCLB act passed in 2002. "A May 26, 2011 National Research Council ... report, found no evidence that test-based incentive programs were working" (Coulson) This is because ... only is the test itself quite discriminatory, but so is the way schools and colleges look at the resu...

• Word Count: 1616
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... children? Are these tests truly improving instruction or are they forcing teachers to merely "teach to the test"? With the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, critics of standardized tests lament that teachers are now being compelled to do just that. The temptation to teach students to do well on standardized tests is almost unavoidable when performance on such ... an unaffordable luxury. Teachers are too busy prepping students for the state-mandated tests. States have mostly failed to keep a balance between test questions and standards. Many state reading tests emphasize i...

• Word Count: 1016
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School