A Measure of Failure: The Political Origins of Standardized Testing

Asks how and why standardized tests have become the ubiquitous standard by which educational achievement and intelligence are measured.

Winner of the 2011 Critics Choice Award presented by the American Educational Studies Association

How did standardized tests become the measure of performance in our public schools? In this compelling work, Mark J. Garrison attempts to answer this question by analyzing the development of standardized testing, from the days of Horace Mann and Alfred Binet to the current scene. Approaching the issue from a sociohistorical perspective, the author demonstrates the ways standardized testing has been used to serve the interests of the governing class by attaching a performance-based value to people and upholding inequality in American society. The book also discusses the implications that a restructuring of standardized testing would have on the future of education, specifically what it could do to eliminate the measure of individual worth based on performance.

Mark J. Garrison is Associate Professor and Director of Doctoral Programs at D'Youville College.