Study Finds Higher Gains in States With High-Stakes Tests.

This article focuses on a study by researchers from Stanford University regarding the debate over whether states' high-stakes testing programs can positively affect academic achievement. Debates over the value of accountability efforts that determine whether students graduate, which teachers win bonuses, and whether schools are taken over by states grew in year 2003 after two Arizona State University researchers published a report arguing that such programs may do more harm than good. In their report, scheduled to be published in May 2003 in the magazine 'Education Next' researchers Margaret E. Raymond and Eric A. Hanushek add some strong wording to that chorus of criticism and offered data of their own. The two researchers contend that the biggest problem with the Arizona study is that the authors, drawing on scores for National Assessment of Educational Progress tests, compare the improvements made by students in states with strong accountability programs with the average national test-score gains made over the same time periods.