The Emotional Impact of High-stakes Testing on Students and Teachers: a Holistic, Culturally Contextual Case Study of One Group of High-risk Students and Their Teachers

Standardized high-stakes testing has become an established part of the grand narrative of America's public school system; America's students are tested at a rate that far surpasses that of students in other industrialized nations. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has prescribed an increase in high-stakes teting of students that has created the most stress-filled learning environment in this country's history. This holistic phenomenological case study is an intimate account of how one group of academically and behaviorally at risk students and their teachers are being impacted by this current culture of testing. Through classroom and campus observations, student drawings, teacher reports and comprehensive community and school profiles, the study becomes a vehicle for allowing the voices of the student and teachers to be heard. The author's deep reflections and critiques are offered from both clinical and pedagogical perspectives, contributing to a clearer understanding of the impact of high-stakes teting on the emotional, physical, social and academic well-being fo students and teachers in America's schools.