The Case Against Standardized Testing: Raising the Scores, Ruining the Schools

I purchased a used copy through amazon from a Daisy. I am most disappointed with this vendor. I still have not received the book I have purchased, despite my urgent request to deliver book. I was promised that item would arrive between 8/21/09-9/15/09. I have received NOTHING!This makes me hesitate to order any other items from amazon as this vendor was listed on your website. Very disapointed!!

An excellent and straight-forward explanation of the short-comings of standardized tests. It is brief, 66 pages of text, and one-sided; but it does not pull any punches. Although written in 2000, before No Child Left Behind was passed, it should be required reading for those interested in refining that program today.

In the past fifteen years or so Alfie Kohn has become one of the nation's most outspoken critics of the public school system. I'm a teacher myself and sometimes I've found myself in strong disagreement with the hypothesis that Kohn puts forth. Other times I agree with what he has to say. THE CASE AGAINST STANDARDIZED TESTING is a time when I agree with Kohn. The book is a book that average readers should be able to follow. It's an incredibly short book that is written in a question and answer format. Kohn's arguments are well-thought out usually well-supported. The point of the book is to illustrate the reader about the problems of standardized testing and why they should be modified, if not completely eliminated from our schools. The only major complaint I have about the book is that it really doesn't offer any alternatives to the current system. In the section "Fighting the Tests" Kohn offers 16 suggestions that people can do to help alter the current testing system. They range from talking with friends and neighbors to writing letters to running for the school board. These suggestions are good things, but they aren't an alternative to the current system. The book never offers a real alternative. That is the one major weakness of the book.

This is a book I would recommend to parents who have children in public schools because most educators already know why standardized testing is so bad. Just be aware that it doesn't offer anything to take the place of the messed-up system we have right now.

This book is a great overview of what standardized testing really is. The book describes how standardized tests are formulated and debates whether or not they are a real measure of student knowledge. As a teacher teaching in a low-income public school in California, where the population is 100% minorities, this book really helped me understand how unfair standardized testing is. Parents, teachers, adminstrators, take time to read this book!

This book is easily read and speaks volumes about the way testing our students is ruinous. The way Alfie Kohn presents the information is easily followed and gives the reader access to information about the NCLB act and how it is hazardous to the health of education. Testing our children into lowered educational environments is not closing the gap--normed referenced test can't do that. Read this book to get a better picture of what standardized testing really does for children.