The purpose of this study was to examine students' perspectives of writing instruction to gain insights into their awareness of the impact of high-stakes writing assessments on instructional practices and teaching strategies. Students in grades four and five who attended the 2004 Suncoast Young Author's Celebration (SYAC) served as the sample for this study. Data were gathered through surveys and interviews with 20 students who attended the SYAC. Survey questions were used to obtain general information about the students' perceptions of writing instruction and assessment. Interviews were conducted to gain a richer understanding of their perceptions of classroom experiences.The participants in this study provided descriptive data about their perceptions of writing in school. Fourteen distinct patterns emerged from the data which fell into three overarching categories: Writing, Teacher Instruction, and Testing.Findings suggest that students write for various purposes at school: for pleasure, to express themselves, to acquire and share knowledge, and because they are tested. The participants in this study spent a great deal of time discussing content area writing. During content area writing, students interacted with their peers which provided meaningful support to their writing development.According to the students, most teachers used a combination of grading methods when assessing writing. The students provided a great deal of data regarding the comments their teachers made on their writing assignments.A major finding was the amount of emotion that the students expressed regarding timed writing assessments. The data from this study do not specify whether or not teachers overtly discussed the significance of the FCAT. I expected the emphasis on high-stakes writing assessments to impact the individual attention that the students received; however, according to the students, their teachers' provided a great deal of support and guidance.Although the data did not produce what I expected, when I began analyzing the data it became apparent that FCAT Writing does influence many facets of the writing curriculum including grading, feedback, and conferencing.

Once viewed as a way to establish educational placement, high-stakes testing is used to establish benchmarks for success within school systems. Within a local Utah school district, raising these benchmarks has been deliberated due to a steady decline in Grade 8 language arts scores, which has heightened concerns among local school administrators and teachers. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions of teachers on how to improve declining Grade 8 language arts test scores. Based on the theoretical concepts of constructivism, 3 research questions were created to examine the underlying factors of the steady decline in Grade 8 language arts test scores, teachers' perceptions of decline in Grade 8 test scores, and current instructional practices used by teachers to prepare students for high-stakes testing. Through semi-structured interviews, data were collected from a sample of 7 language arts teachers who held an academic degree in language arts area and were a faculty member at the selected school. Comparative analysis and the open coding process were used to find themes in the data. Specific themes included the need for change, different influences, and varying instructional practices to increase test scores each academic year. An individualized instructional curriculum might help increase test scores. A 3-day, in service workshop focused on helping teachers recognize current issues with test preparation and offered methods to help improve student learning through multiple intelligence-based instruction. This study contributes to social change within local Grade 8 language arts classrooms by providing information to educators on how to increase high-stakes test scores on an annual basis and increase overall student achievement.

African American and Hispanic students and students from families with lower income are particularly at-risk for differential academic achievement and dropout. When students underachieve at school or dropout, they often face severe consequences such as increased risk of incarceration and unemployment. School social workers strive to prevent poor academic achievement and the associated negative outcomes. In recent years, federal and state education policy has focused on reducing disparities in academic achievement through the creation of policies that use high-stakes testing requirements to hold schools accountable for student learning. Research studies on teacher perceptions of high-stakes testing indicate that it is having a negative impact on their job tasks and on school systems. However, there are few studies that examine school social worker perceptions about the impact of high-stakes testing. This study examines school social workers’ perceptions about high-stakes testing. Specifically, it assesses school social worker perceptions about the impact of high-stakes testing on school systems and how school ratings and student performance might influence these perceptions. It also examines school social workers’ perceptions about the impact of high-stakes testing on their abilities to perform their work tasks. The study sample is drawn from respondents to the Texas School Social Work Survey (n=177). Data were analyzed through secondary data analysis using factor analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings indicate that school social workers perceive high-stakes testing as having a largely negative impact on school systems and their job tasks. School social workers who predominantly worked with students from ethnic minority backgrounds were more likely to have negative opinions about the impact of high-stakes testing on their job tasks. School social workers from schools with lower school ratings and those who felt that the students on their caseload tended to struggle on high-stakes tests had more negative perceptions about the impact of high-stakes testing on school systems. Results indicate the need for school social workers to become more involved in education policy and macro practice, to connect their services to improved academic outcomes for students, and to find new ways to provide school social work services in the “age of accountability.” / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of English, 2005. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-155).

abstract: ABSTRACT External accountability is embedded in every school system across the United States. This dissertation study focuses on how ten principals negotiate the accountability system placed upon their school by the state of Arizona. The federal accountability policy, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), requires that states use a standardized assessment to document student achievement. Arizona's policy to meet the federal requirements of NCLB is Arizona Learns (AZLearns). AZLearns outlines the formulas for determining which schools are achieving and which schools need to improve. Each school is tagged with a label annually. The labels are Excelling, Highly Performing, Performing Plus, Performing, Underperforming and Failing. The foundation of this study lies in the interpretation, application and negotiation of a school's label by its principal. To investigate the relationship between external accountability and the daily life of a principal, I interviewed ten Arizona elementary school principals. The research questions of this study are: (R1) What effects do external accountability measures have on the development of the organizational capacity of a school? (R2) How do Arizona principals negotiate their school's assigned label in their everyday professional practice? (R3) What are Arizona principals' views of the state accountability process? A qualitative, phenomenological research methodology was used to interview the participants and analyze their stories for common themes. The commonalities that surfaced across the experiences of the principals in response to the labels placed on their school are Accountability, Achievement and Attitude. This study found that Accountability was based on multiple interpretations of policies enforced by the federal government, state or district guidelines and parent or school expectations. Achievement was a result of multiple factors including data collected from test scores, the quality of teachers or instruction and the personal goals of the principals. Attitude was a process embedded in the high stakes testing era, boundaries or conflicts within the location of the school and the personal experiences of the principals. This research is an attempt to share the multiple voices of principals that may lead to alternative meanings or even provoke questions about the labeling system in Arizona schools. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2011

Education policies tend to target failing schools that are often located in disadvantaged communities. However, the use of high-stakes testing to identify and punish failing schools has become increasingly controversial. An overemphasis on test scores to determine school quality has led to unintended consequences and overshadows other valuable school-based resources that parents feel meaningfully contribute to students' academic experiences. To better understand how low-SES parents describe their children's low performing schools, I interviewed 92 families in an under-served community. Through these interviews I illuminate the school-based resources that contribute to school quality. In fact, these additional elements were often more important signifiers of school quality for low-SES parents than were test scores.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of high-stakes testing under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act on school culture. Individual interviews and focus groups were conducted with first grade through sixth grade teachers and principals from two of Nebo School District's schools located in Utah. Their responses were categorized into twelve themes. Most of the teachers and principals reported that high-stakes testing negatively impacted student and teacher motivation, teaching and learning, and curriculum. They also discussed negative effects of the application questioned the accuracy of high-stakes testing. Fewer teachers and principals communicated positive effects of high-stakes testing. Among these positive effects were that testing data provided some useful information about teaching and learning and provided some accountability. Implications regarding these findings are discussed. This in-depth case study analysis of two elementary schools will add to the growing number of qualitative studies about the effects of high-stakes testing under the NCLB Act.

This study was designed to examine the ideal and actual teaching practices of sixth through eighth grade teachers in the Rankin County School District whose students take the Mississippi Curriculum Test in an effort to raise student achievement whose students take the Mississippi Curriculum Test. It was also designed to examine whether ideal or actual teaching practices align with constructivist or behaviorist teaching practices. Eighty nine sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers whose students took the Mississippi Curriculum in the Spring 2006 semester participated in the study. Teachers responded to two surveys whose questions were identical but from two different frames of reference: one with high stakes testing and one without high stakes testing. Teachers also responded to a third survey that asked for their perceptions of the Mississippi Curriculum Test. A two-way Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), supported by a tukey post hoc comparison on the scale scores of the questionnaires were used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between teachers? ideal and actual teaching practices to improve student achievement on the Mississippi Curriculum Test. Further findings from the study did conclude that there was a statistically significant difference in teachers use of behaviorist and constructivist instructional practices. Data obtained from the study indicated that there are significant differences in teachers actual and ideal instructional practices in relation to their behaviorist and constructivist instructional practices. Data obtained from the participants indicated that they use favor constructivist practices to raise student achievement on the Mississippi Curriculum Test.

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