ABSTRACT
In conversations with new teachers, we have heard again and again about the problems they face due to the current climate of high-stakes testing. While testing has always been a feature of schooling, the notion of “highstakes testing” is a recent phenomenon. Increasingly, tests are the primary, if not the sole factor, on which teachers are evaluated, and students judged ready to advance from grade to grade, and even to graduate from middle school and high school.
