In response to public demand, federal legislation now requires testing of most students in the United States in reading and mathematics in grades three through eight. Many educators, parents, and policymakers who have paid little attention to testing policy issues in the past need to have better information on the topic than has generally been available. Kill the Messenger, now in paperback, fills this gap.This is perhaps the most thorough and authoritative work in defense of educational testing ever written. Phelps points out that much research conducted by education insiders on the topic is based on ideological preference or profound self-interest. It is not surprising that they arrive at emphatically anti-testing conclusions. Much, if not most, of this hostile research is passed on to the public by journalists as if it were neutral, objective, and independent. Kill the Messenger explains and refutes many of the common criticisms of testing; describes testing opponents' strategies, through case studies of Texas and the SAT; illustrates the profound media bias against testing; acknowledges testing's limitations, and suggests how it can be improved; and finally, outlines the consequences of losing the "war on standardized testing."

About the Author
Richard P. Phelps has devoted most of his working life to the world of education. His work on testing has been published in Evaluation Review, the Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, and Educational and Psychological Measurement. Herbert J. Walberg, a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and a member of the Koret Task Force on K-12 Education, is a University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago and chairman of the board of directors of the Heartland Institute in Chicago. J. E. Stone is the founder and moderator of the Education Consumers Clearing House, and a professor of education at East Tennessee State University.

Reviews
"[A]n embattled book. Incensed by the partisan tactics of anti-testing groups, Phelps deliberately goes to great lengths to expound and analyze the differing points of view, helped by scrupulous and scholarly documentation and a robustly empirical approach." - Martin Turner, Intelligence "With standardized testing prominently featured in the No Child Left Behind Act, Kill the Messenger should be required reading. Our children deserve it!" - Charlene K. Harr, author of The Politics of the PTA"



Book Information
ISBN 9781412805124
Author Richard Phelps
Format Paperback
Page Count 352
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
Weight(grams) 589g