An Age of Accountability

How Standardized Testing Came to Dominate American Schools and Compromise Education

John L. Rury

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781978832275, 9781978832282
• eBook ISBN: 9781978832312
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

An Age of Accountability highlights the role of test-based accountability as a policy framework in American education from 1970 to 2020. For more than half a century, the quest to hold schools and educators accountable for academic achievement has relied almost exclusively on standardized assessment. The theory of change embedded in almost all test-based accountability programs held that assessment with stipulated consequences could lead to major improvements in schools. This was accomplished politically by proclaiming lofty goals of attaining universal proficiency and closing achievement gaps, which repeatedly failed to materialize. But even after very clear disappointments, no other policy framework has emerged to challenge its hegemony. The American public today has little confidence in institutions to improve the quality of goods and services they provide, especially in the public sector. As a consequence, many Americans continue to believe that accountability remains a vital necessity, even if educators and policy scholars disagree.
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Introduction: School Accountability and Standardized Testing in American History
• 1. The Origins of Test-Based Accountability: Assessing Minimum Competencies in the 1970s
• 2. Standardized Testing and Race: Continuity and Change, 1975–2000
• 3. A Time of Transition: Testing Takes a Back Seat in the 1980s
• 4. New Standards and Tests: Accountability on the National Stage
• 5. A Millennium Dawns: The Origins and Impact of NCLB
• Conclusion: A Troubled History and Prospects for Change
• Appendix: Oral History Sources
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author