National Research Council Gives High-Stakes Testing an F

The long experiment with incentives and test-based accountability has so far failed to boost student achievement.

That’s the conclusion of a comprehensive examination of education research by the National Research Council , an arm of the National Academies of Science.

“The available evidence does not give strong support for the use of test-based incentives to improve education,” the NRC concluded. The benefits of these incentives, the group said, have been “small or nonexistent.”

The NRC report is the latest of a long series of research summaries by eminent, mainstream test experts concluding that there is no scientific basis for the current heavy reliance on high-stakes tests for measuring student achievement, teacher quality, and school performance.

The full report can be read here.

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