High Stakes focuses on how testing is used to make decisions in tracking and placement, promotion and retention, and awarding or withholding high school diplomas. This book sorts out the controversies that emerge when a student breaks the seal on that all-important test packet. The expert panel:
-- Proposes how to judge the appropriateness of a test.
-- Explores how to make test, reliable, valid, and fair.
-- Puts forward strategies and practices to promote proper test use.
-- Evaluates the Voluntary National Tests proposed for reading and mathematics.
-- Recommends how decision-makers in education should not use test results.

The book discusses common misuses of testing, political, and social perspectives, issues when test-takers go to court, special student populations, social promotion, and more.

High Stakes will be of interest to anyone concerned about the long-term implications of picking up that Number 2 pencil: policymakers, education administrators, test designers, teachers, and parents.