ng will increase academic achievement. However, it is also assumed that all students have equal opportunity to learn the material that will be tested, and that all schools are equal in financing and qualified teachers. With these assumptions in mind, the authors noted that it is "not surprising" that there is an issue of adverse impact resulting from high-stakes testing. This outcome has become the center of controversy for the school reform movement. Thus it is argued that setting high standards for achievement may result in negative outcomes for students who are not receiving optimal education. African-American and Hispanic students have lower passing rates than white students and they therefore receive fewer diplomas. This gap represents the adverse affect of high-stake testing and standard-based reform efforts.
Valencia and Villarreal (2003) stated that in addition, this approach to raising academic achievement has a negative impact on teachers. Teachers are held accountable for the reaching of standards and tests now drive curriculum and teaching strategies. The setting of standards as a school reform may attempt to treat the symptoms of school failure but this movement does not address the cause of the problem. If school failure is due to minority or low-SES limitations, raising standards will not change the outcome and it will have the negative effect of reducing numbers of diplomas for students in this category.
Potential Implications for Education
Implications of the educational research findings are that use of high-standards based reform for increasing educational achievement will backfire. In fact the pressure of holding students back a grade due to academic failure will have little more effect than to make the job harder for teachers. The underlying assumption of such a method is that all students receive an equally optimal education and that it is only the lack of motivation that keeps them from p...