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Off the Mark
How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don’t Have To)
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Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
Schooling has become less about learning and more about the scramble for good grades, high test scores, and spotless transcripts. No one is happy about this, least of all students. But what can be done? Off the Mark explains how we got into this predicament, why our reforms haven’t worked, and how we can reorient our system to advance learning.
Reviews
A probing history and analysis of our most pervasive but largely unchallenged assessment technologies: grades, tests, and transcripts…everyone would do well to read this book’s honest and layered picture of what we’re up against.
-- Jeremy T. Murphy Teachers College Record
-- Jeremy T. Murphy Teachers College Record
A detailed and thoughtful critique of contemporary ‘assessment technologies’—grades, tests, and transcripts—and some suggestions for reform.
-- Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
-- Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
An excellent read for classroom teachers, who will find that it helps them better understand what is happening (and discover that others get it, too).
-- Peter Greene Forbes
-- Peter Greene Forbes
Leaves the reader with a sense of hope…for incremental reforms that might lead to a more humane system of schooling...on the one hand, epic in its ambitions and, on the other hand, accessible in its prose. The authors have synthesized mountains of research and historiography, writing a single volume that is diagnostic of current challenges, historical in its context, and linear in its reform agenda.
-- Wade H. Morris History of Education Quarterly
-- Wade H. Morris History of Education Quarterly
A foundational text for lay readers and educators interested in gaining a better understanding of the assessment landscape in the United States.
-- Cristyne Hébert Historical Studies in Education
-- Cristyne Hébert Historical Studies in Education
If you want to understand how tests, grades, and records of student performance end up eroding classroom learning, Off the Mark is the book to get. A remarkably useful guide for teachers, administrators, parents, and wannabe reformers, it explains not only how tests, grades, and transcripts have chipped away at classroom learning in the past, but also what some schools have done now to curb their effects.
-- Larry Cuban, author of Confessions of a School Reformer
-- Larry Cuban, author of Confessions of a School Reformer
Visitors from another planet would find themselves bewildered by the crazy-quilt set of assessments currently used in our educational system. The good news: No need to reinvent from scratch. Original and useful, Off the Mark provides food for thought and plans for action.
-- Howard Gardner, coauthor of The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be
-- Howard Gardner, coauthor of The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be
In Off the Mark, Schneider and Hutt offer timely and tangible considerations for re-examining the information we rely on to support and measure success for students and schools. Whether you’re a teacher grappling with the question of how to provide effective feedback on learning progress to students and families or a family or community member troubled by the lack of dimension and perspective in our broken school rankings, this book is key to navigating a better way toward equitable, robust, asset-based assessment that will inform and support student success.
-- Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association
-- Becky Pringle, President of the National Education Association
Off the Mark is a timely account of the uses and misuses of standardized tests, grades, and transcripts. The authors offer several pragmatic ideas about how these deeply embedded measures can be revised to lessen their power.
-- Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools
-- Diane Ravitch, author of Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Introduction
1 - Part I: Grading, Rating, Ranking. Undermining Learning
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1. How Grades Fail
19 -
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2. This Is a Test
40 -
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3. Your Permanent Record
56 - Part II. A World of Scores: How We Got Here and Why We’re Stuck
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4. Tools of Necessity
81 -
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5. The Culture of Assessment
113 - Part III: Sustaining Learning. False Starts and Future Prospects
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6. It’s a Small World after All
137 -
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7. Homegrown Experiments
160 -
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8. Sustaining Learning
201 -
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Conclusion
239 -
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Notes
247 -
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Acknowledgments
271 -
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Index
273
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 8, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9780674294776
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
240
eBook ISBN:
9780674294776
Keywords for this book
standardized tests; SAT; ACT; Advanced Placement; AP; teaching to the test; stress; credentialism; gaming; GPA; college; admissions; examination; solutions
