Ethical Issues in Assessment
Scenario: In March of the school year, you have been recruited to substitute teach for a middle school history class while the teacher is out on extended sick leave. March happens to be a month of standardized testing for many Arizona schools. In your first week, you begin some test preparation activities as noted in the teacher’s lesson plan. Shortly before class ends, one vocal student declares, “My older brother is a history major in college and told me that tests are racist! Why are you making us take these tests?” Another student yells back, “What?! How’s a test that can’t even talk–an inanimate object–gonna be racist! Not everything is racist!” The rest of the class reacts with a varied mixture of bewilderment, laughter, applause, and disapproval. On that note, the bell rings and students begin exiting the room.
In this paper: Think about what you would say at the start of class the next day to address the students’ statements and concerns. As you do, provide them with a bit of background information regarding historical and ethical concerns on use of assessment. Script a 400-500 word response that synthesizes your key takeaways related to the cautionary and ethical concerns of assessments. Include references for the information you are citing, which must include at least three materials from the documents attached here as well as any other relevant resources you want to include in order to present students with a robust overview and key information of the existing critiques of assessments.
NOTE: Any language that is used from existing sources (e.g., a website, article, or book chapter) MUST be properly quoted and citaqwed with APA 7th ed. formatting.
