Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us (Hardcover)

~ Daniel Koretz (Author)
Key Phrases: testing students, score inflation, proficient standard, United States, Reporting Performance, American Kids (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

This is the most easily understood presentation I know of the deceptively complex world of educational testing, and the most important current issues. It should be welcomed with relief by a very broad audience, much of which is ignored in most presentations on testing. I would love to see it used in courses for virtually all future administrators, policy makers, and teachers. Anyone directing testing programs in school districts and states will find this invaluable when they have to explain what they're doing. This book is badly needed.
--H.D. Hoover, Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa (20090102)

Here we are, lost in Testland, bombarded by data about how well or poorly we or our kids have done on the latest exam. What do test results mean? Every expert has a different explanation. What to do? Read Daniel Koretz's new book, as soon as possible. Never have I seen a clearer or more sensible exploration of our testing frenzy. I thought one chapter, "What Influences Test Scores, or How Not to Pick a School," was all by itself worth the price of the book. Read it and relax.
--Jay Mathews, Washington Post education reporter and columnist (20081201)

Deconstructs the complexities of achievement testing for the educational layman. (Education Week )

Every parent who uses league tables as a basis for placing his or her child in a school, whether in the U.S. or anywhere else, should read this book.
--Lee Harvey (Times Higher Education Supplement )

Test scores are objective, scientific, and easy to understand--so what's the problem? It turns out that there are a lot of problems and that we would do well to try and understand them better. Daniel Koretz's Measuring Up is an excellent place to start. The book is hard to classify. It is too sophisticated to be called a primer. There are no equations, so it can't be a measurement book. (Also, it is entertaining to read.) It says good things about testing and test use and takes apart some arguments of testing opponents, so it can't be an anti-testing book. But, it raises profound challenges to the interpretation of score trends on high-stakes tests, to the meaning of achievement trend and gap reports in terms of percent proficient, to the interpretation of crossnational achievement comparisons, and to popular assumptions about testing of students in special populations (including some assumptions written into law). So, it can't be a protesting book, either...He does a great service by clarifying measurement principles in the context of widespread testing uses and misuses.
--Edward Haertel (Science )

Koretz has written the book on educational testing most educators and educational policy makers have been waiting for, even if they don't know it. In a culture defined by whether one is attacking or defending the messenger, the author's endeavor is to explain what educational testing does, and does not, reveal about how students and their schools are performing...For someone looking for a good lay explanation of essential topics such as score reliability and validity, measurement error, and the relationship between high-stakes testing and score inflation, this is the book. The style is eminently readable and the topics are profoundly important.
--D. E. Tanner (Choice )

Product Description

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.

(20080521)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674028058
• ISBN-13: 978-0674028050
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #132,778 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for parents, teachers, politicians and anyone else who cares about schools, June 24, 2008

By	Alexander Hoffman - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is incredibly hard to figure out how good a school is, especially compared to other schools. For a long time, we have used test scores to judge schools -- and even students!! But what do those scores really mean? We all remember teachers who were easy graders or hard graders, or even inconsistent graders. It turns out that "standardized tests" are no more straightforward than the grades we all got in school. Measuring Up explains how and why. Because test scores are now used as to judge students, schools and even to compare schools, this might be the single most important topic in education, certainly for non-educators and perhaps for educators as well.

The brilliant thing about this book is how clear and easy to follow it is. Educational testing is a technical field, but the author explains it in terms that those outside the field can understand. Through generous use of examples and personal anecdotes, Daniel Koretz shows both how thing work and how they fail to work. Having read this, you will not only know the ways are supposed to be, but the reality of how things really are. Koretz shares stories from his own experiences the illustrate what is really going on.

Because testing is here to stay, this book will remain a gem for many years, but it is especially timely today. NCLB is up for reauthorization soon, and testing remains the most controversial part of the law. Most of the debates about the law are about testing, and it looks like the the most active voices in the debates -- be they politicians, parents or the press -- have rather little understanding of the underlying issues.

Measuring Up does not shy from the controversial or most difficult questions about testing. There's a chapter about testing and special education, a chapter about test bias and one about inflated test results. Do not think, however, the author is an opponent of standardized testing. Rather, he want them to be used properly and their results to be understood. He does not want students or schools to be rewarded or punished because tests are misused or are poorly designed in the first place.

If you are a parent trying to choose a school for your children or a neighborhood to live in, this book will make you a really smart consumer of test score information. If you are a teacher working in the NCLB paradigm, this book will help you to understand both the real strengths and the real weaknesses of this system. If you work in or care about education policy -- local school board member, policy analyst, department of education worker, elected official, member of a PTA or concerned member of the community -- this book will show you what you really need to understand to make informed decisions about testing and how your schools and/districts ought to respond to respond to test results.

This truly is a great book. If I were ran a school, I'd make every teacher read it. If I ran a school leadership program, I'd make it a core text. And if I worked for an elected official, I'd make him/her read it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fair and Balanced Presentation of the What Standardized Tests Can and Cannot Do, February 22, 2009

By	Steven L. Weinberg (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Professor Koretz teaches a course on standardized testing for non-statisticians at Harvard. This book is based on that course. There is no complicated math, but lots of clear explanations and easily understood examples. What I found most interesting was that much of the information about the limits of these tests came not from their critics, but from their developers. This should be required reading for all who work with the results of these tests. I only wish that more of Professor Koretz's examples had come from the California Standards Tests that I have to give each year.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Educator "Must Read" Book, February 11, 2009

By	Anthony J. Augustin (Loretto, TN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While not always a page-turner, this book is an eye-opener for both proponents and opponents of high stakes testing in America's schools. The author describes what inferences we can make based on test data and explains why so many of the inferences currently being made can not be adequately supported by the data. A "must read" book for parents, administrators, superintendents, and education policy makers.