Unequal By Design: High-Stakes Testing and the Standardization of Inequality

by Wayne Au

Overview

Unequal By Design critically examines high-stakes standardized testing in order to illuminate what is really at stake for students, teachers, and communities negatively affected by such testing. This thoughtful analysis traces standardized testing's origins in the Eugenics and Social Efficiency movements of the late 19^th and early 20^th century through its current use as the central tool for national educational reform via No Child Left Behind. By exploring historical, social, economic, and educational aspects of testing, author Wayne Au demonstrates that these tests are not only premised on the creation of inequality, but that their structures are inextricably intertwined with social inequalities that exist outside of schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415990714
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/27/2008
Series:	Critical Social Thought
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Wayne Au is Professor in the School of Educational Studies at the University of Washington Bothell, USA. A long-time educational activist and scholar, his work critically examines issues of power and justice in educational policy and practice.

Table of Contents

Series Editor's Introduction Michael W. Apple vii

Acknowledgments xi

Chapter 1 The Zip Code Effect: Educational Inequality in the United States 1

Chapter 2 We Are All Widgets: Standardized Testing and the Hegemonic Logics of the Educational Assembly Line 19

Chapter 3 The Educational Enterprise: NCLB, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Equality 51

Chapter 4 Steerage at a Distance: High-Stakes Testing and Classroom Control 81

Chapter 5 Devising Inequality: High-Stakes Testing and the Regulation of Consciousness 105

Chapter 6 Standardizing Inequality: The Hidden Curriculum of High-Stakes Testing 137

Afterword Zeus Leonardo 147

Notes 155

Bibliography 163

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

"If equity and transformation of current schooling conditions are to be attained, Unequal by design: high-stakes testing and the standardization of inequality is a beacon to help realize ‘the potential to be equal by design should we so choose’ (p. 145)."—Michael Vavrus, Journal of Education Policy, 25:1, 113-114

From the Publisher