A LIVE BROADCAST OF
NPR'S TALK OF THE NATION listen to the recorded broadcast
Program Schedule and Guests
Hour One: STANDARDIZED TESTS—WHAT ARE WE TRYING TO MEASURE?
When the landmark report "A Nation at Risk" was released in 1983, it warned that America's schools were failing and that this failure would not only hurt future Americans and their ability to compete in the workforce, but also affect the nation's ability to compete globally. The need to establish standards became the rallying cry for many politicians and business leaders. Standardized tests became the answer to ensuring that these standards were being met. Now nearly two decades later, all fifty states have adopted some form of standards and standardized tests to measure them. But with different states applying different standards and different tests it begs the question: are we measuring different things? What are we trying to measure?
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JEFF HOWARD, founder and president of the Efficacy Institute
• Efficacy Institute web site
• Howard's biography
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DAN KORETZ, Professor of Educational Assessment, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• HGSE faculty profile
• Interview with Dan Koretz on the current state of standards-based reform in the United States
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JOHN MERROW, host of the PBS education series "The Merrow Report," and the correspondent for the Frontline documentary, "Testing Our Schools"
• "The Merrow Report" web site
• NPR commentary by Merrow on Bush's education plan
Back to the Testing Our Schools home page
Photo credits: John Merrow (Carol Palmer); Jeff Howard (TECHNOS Press); Dan Koretz (Jane Buchbinder)