Gail Jones, Brett Jones, and Tracy Hargrove, Rowman and Littlefield
2003
A perfect example of educationists' propaganda campaign against high-stakes testing mentioned above, this is a 180-page rant complete with students' drawings meant to illustrate their "stress and anxiety." If you accept the authors' underlying assumptions, which are unadulterated education progressivism/constructivism, then you, too, may share their conclusion that high-stakes testing has side effects that are bad for children and other living things (including teachers). They trace the current wave of test-based reform to A Nation at Risk and of course they don't much like No Child Left Behind (though, like all of that measure's critics, they claim to agree with its goals). If you want a single-volume recapitulation of all the arguments against high-stakes testing that you've ever encountered, this is the book for you. The one point they make that resonates with me is the curricular narrowing that is apt to result when such testing is done in only two or three subjects. The rest you can have. Published by Rowman & Littlefield, the ISBN is 0742526275, and you can get additional information at http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742526275.
