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A Review of “High-Stakes Testing and the Decline of Teaching and Learning: The Real Crisis in Education”

A s part of a series focused on contemporary issues in education, David Hursh critiques current education reforms, specifically test-based accountability policies, within the context of neoliberal discourse. Hursh’s work offers a compelling in-depth philosophical analysis of high-stakes testing policy different from the traditional stance of policy implementation. His text is dense and richly constructed with personal reflections, discussions of the historical foundation and evolution of schooling and teaching, and an evidenced-based emergence of the impact of neoliberal policies on education. The predominantly philosophical work is theoretically grounded through the use of specific cases and examples of neoliberal policies at work in New York, Texas, Chicago, and New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Numerous empirical studies have examined the impact of high-stakes testing on those most directly affected by test-based accountability policies—school administrators, teachers and their instructional practice, and students and student-level outcomes. Although these investigations provide insight into the influence of high-stakes testing on programs, individuals, or groups, few studies are situated within a larger philosophical and policy context. Hursh convincingly connects the philosophical neoliberal foundation of current education policy with the practical implications operating in classrooms and argues these “regressive reforms” have undermined educational progress emerging from increased understanding of how students learn and how innovative approaches in public schools can successfully educate the most disadvantaged students. At the center of neoliberal philosophy are tenets designed to promote the individual, markets, privatization, and efficiency. Current education reforms and most specifically the No Child Left Behind legislation were designed in part to promote world-class standards to ensure that America can successfully compete within the global marketplace. Hursh illustrates how this rhetoric embodies neoliberal thinking—in which standardized testing regulates education by serving as a quality index, charter schools offer competitive alternatives to public schooling, and reform legislation incorporates sanctions that result in increased privatization of public education. At the onset of the text, Hursh describes how his experiences as a student and background as a teacher in progressive schools have shaped his thinking about the purpose of education, and says that schools should “support community welfare and the public good over corporate profit” (p. 122). Similar to how John Dewey advocated that education should prepare students for democratic citizenship in opposition to the established doctrine of the social efficiency movement where schools were used to prepare children to become productive workers, Hursh challenges neoliberal politics and calls educators to action to create a “new social movement” to “combat the rise of markets and privatization in all of our social policies” (p. 143) in an effort to return to principles of democratic education. The logic and reasoning of Hursh’s argument are sound and well-documented. However, additional discussion of the empirical research and literature on the implications of highstakes testing for teaching, learning, and schooling more generally could be used to frame the specific discussion of high-stakes testing in New York and Texas in a national context resulting in more compelling conclusions about the widespread implications of test-based accountability initiatives. In addition, drawing on the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing jointly developed by the American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, and National Council on Measurement in Education would bolster arguments related to the fallibility of using single test scores for high-stakes decisions and to serve multiple purposes. Although Hursh touches on the potential of performance-based formative assessment as a more useful alternative to summative, high-stakes tests, other avenues that could further strengthen the contradictions inherent in neoliberal education policy include further exploration of the disconnect between education policy at the federal and state levels and what is known about best instructional practice particularly in the areas of professional collaboration, inquiry-based instruction, and the culture of schools most associated with student academic success. Hursh concludes by describing the failures and contradictions of neoliberal policy. He cautions the reader and challenges educators that without efforts to combat the neoliberal policy dominance, schools and society will be profoundly transformed in ways opposed to the ideals of a democratic education.