The Test: Why Our Schools Are Obsessed with Standardized TestingBut You Don#39 [Paperback]

[The anti-testing] movement now has a guidebook. . . . Kamenetz shows how fundamentally American it would be to move toward a more holistic system. --New York Times Book Review

The Testis an essential and critically acclaimed book for any parent confounded by our national obsession with standardized testing. It recounts the shocking history and tempestuous politics of testing and borrows strategies from fields as diverse as games, neuroscience, and ancient philosophy to help children cope. It presents the stories of families, teachers, and schools maneuvering within and beyond the existing educational system, playing and winning the testing game. And it points the way toward a hopeful future of better tests and happier kids.Anya Kamenetzis the lead digital education correspondent for NPR. Previously she worked as a staff writer forFast Companymagazine. She's contributed to theNew York Times, Washington Post, New York Magazine, Slate, andO, the Oprah Magazine, and has won multiple awards for her reporting on education, technology, and innovation. She is the author of three books on education and technology,Generation Debt, DIY U, andThe Test. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. [Kamenetz's] journalistic talents coupled with her role as a mother of a student on the brink of testing humanizes this book, making it a perfect entry for parents who are too deep in the muck of testing to have the clarity of distance. Boston Globe High-stakes testing in our public schools puts enormous pressure on everyone in the system. Using real-and often quite moving-stories, Anya Kamenetz shows teachers, parents, administrators, and students how to survive, even thrive, in an education system that many understandably believe needs a course correction.
Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and To Sell Is Human Thorough research and illuminating interviews... With abundant data assembledlSâ