Historical High-Stakes Policies Relating to Unintended Consequences of High-Stakes Testing

Current high-stakes, standardized testing policy is discussed through historical analogy with Chairman Mao's famine in China and the Maginot Line in France. Both of these national, high-stakes policies resulted in catastrophic failure. If the accountability movement's goals are to improve our ability to compete economically with other nations, we may also be heading for failure. Assessment should be aligned with the skills and knowledge crucial to our success in the future such as collaboration, experimentation, and comfort with ambiguity. Funds currently allocated to standardized testing should be reallocated to the development of measures for such skills and knowledge.