Audrey Amrein and David Berliner
Arizona State University
December 2002
In last week's Gadfly, Jay Greene reported on the failings of a much-publicized study of high-stakes testing by Arizona State University's Audrey Amrein and David Berliner. [http://www.edexcellence.net/gadfly/issue.cfm?issue=6#412] It turns out this dynamic duo has done TWO related studies. The second one, published electronically by the Education Policy Studies Laboratory (and also paid for by teacher unions), reviews data from 16 states with high-stakes graduation exams, and, as you might expect, purports to find all sorts of dire things happening in them: more high school dropouts, more teacher dropouts, etc. This is a cooked-to-order "study" that isn't really worth your time but if you're a glutton for punishment - or just trying to monitor the efforts of the anti-testing crowd and their fellow-traveling Panglosses - you can find it online at http://www.greatlakescenter.org/pub/H-S%20Analysis%20final.pdf.
