Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us

by KORETZ

How do you judge the quality of a school, a district, a teacher, a student? By the test scores, of course. Yet for all the talk, what educational tests can and can’t tell you, and how scores can be misunderstood and misused, remains a mystery to most. The complexities of testing are routinely ignored, either because they are unrecognized, or because they may be―well, complicated.

Inspired by a popular Harvard course for students without an extensive mathematics background, Measuring Up demystifies educational testing―from MCAS to SAT to WAIS, with all the alphabet soup in between. Bringing statistical terms down to earth, Daniel Koretz takes readers through the most fundamental issues that arise in educational testing and shows how they apply to some of the most controversial issues in education today, from high-stakes testing to special education. He walks readers through everyday examples to show what tests do well, what their limits are, how easily tests and scores can be oversold or misunderstood, and how they can be used sensibly to help discover how much kids have learned.

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful book that explains the difference between how you would meaningfully compare students and how you would meaningfully compare schools. You cannot do both with the same test! Koretz clearly explains why that is the case as well as addressing socioeconomic and political factors contributing to test scores.

[Jen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is AWESOME! It's an easy to digest, layman's explanation of testing, written by an expert in the field. It includes what the current accountability testing really can and cannot tell us. I think this book is a great resource for parents and policymakers, as well as educators. Read it and I guarantee you'll learn something really fascinating.