A new eBook will soon be published by The Art of Teaching Science Blog with the title: Why Should High-Stakes Testing be Banned?

Over the past three months, I have written about the Common Core State Standards, the Next Generation of Science Standards, and the corporate take-over of public education.  Living in the Atlanta area, and having been a professor at Georgia State University (GSU) for many years, the Atlanta test cheating scandal hit very close to home.  For more than 30 years as a professor at GSU, I worked with teachers and administrators in the Atlanta Public Schools K-12.  I taught science education courses in the Atlanta Public Schools, collaborated with teachers and principals in middle and high schools, and worked closely with graduate students in science education who were pursuing degrees in teacher education and did much of their internship work in the Atlanta schools.

The scandal, which is discussed in the new eBook, shocked many of us, but the investigation into the test scandal has not addressed the fundamental question, Why did teachers and administrators risk their professional careers by participating in a cheating scandal that probably will result in the 180 educators losing their teaching credentials?

In my own view, the cause of the cheating scandal is directly related to the No Child Left Behind Act that put into place a wide-ranging high-stakes testing program that has resulted in an inordinate amount of pressure on students, teachers and parents, so much so, that a culture of fear spread throughout the Atlanta School System.

According to the Georgia Governor’s three-volume report, the Atlanta cheating scandal was caused by “a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation that spread throughout the (Atlanta) district.”  That culture of fear was directly related to the pressure put on administrators, teachers, and students to make sure students scored high on the end-of-year tests at any costs.  The intimidation and the culture of fear that the report describes was part of the school district since at least 2004, two years after the NCLB Act was established by Congress.

Nineteen posts that were written about high-stakes testing, the common standards movement, and the corporate involvement in American schools form the content of this new eBook.

The eBook is organized into  five parts, each posing a question that organizes the posts that were written related to the question.

Part 1: Is High-Stakes Testing an Enigma?

Part 2: Are We Racing to Nowhere?

Part 3: Why Are We Centralizing Standards and Testing in America?

Part 4: What the the Misconceptions about Achievement Testing?

Part 5: Who and What was Responsible for the High-Stakes Cheating Scandal in Atlanta?

Look for this new eBook on this blog in a few days.  In the meantime, you can download and read three previously published eBooks on this blog.