0.8 Mirci, p., loomis, c., & Hensley, p. (september 2011). social  (Page 4/19)

The movement was challenged with people asserting that such tests were not neutral but occurred within the context of culture (Anatasi, 1937). White (1886) wrote about the abuse of testing: “The use of examination results as a means of comparing the standing of schools and pupils has narrowed and made mechanical the instruction of many a corps of teachers capable of better work” (p. 148). Terman (1916) challenged opponents stating that the idea some students were more advantaged than others was “an entirely gratuitous assumption” (p. 115). Terman advocated for gifted programs and tracking students that have continued to exist to present day. In the mid-1950s, toward the end of his career, Terman seemed to temper some of his racist views (Minton, 1988; Vialle, 1994).

The enduring ideology of sorting students in spite of neuroscience research

Intelligence or ability as primarily innate and unitary has remained an enduring ideology with standardized tests legitimizing sorting of students into hierarchical groups based on perceived ability (Kohn, 2000). This has continued in spite of more complex understandings of how the physiology of the brain is changed by learning (Damasio, 2010; Little, Klein, Schobat, McClure,&Thulborn, 2004; Lohman, 2006) and that such standardized assessments do not test the ability to think (Marsick, 1998). Given the brain’s neural plasticity, immersion in “stimulus rich environments can increase our intelligence” (Skoyles&Sagan, 2002, p. 76). Within this research there has existed recognition of the importance of relationships between learners and their mentors (Johnson, 2006). Forming neural networks has involved emotions and interpretations of experiences (Sheckley&Bell, 2006; Wolf, 2006).

The federal No Child Left Behind Act has based accountability regarding schools and student achievement on a single standardized test while ignoring the dangers of standardized testing (Brantllinger, 2001; Price, 2003). These dangers, stated as early as White in 1886, have remained: using a single test for multiple purposes ranging from comparing students and schools. This has been counterproductive given that low achievement on standardized tests has been equated with low ability (Howard, 1991). The primary reason this historical ideology has endured is that educational stakeholders accept the ideas involving race, social class, and the content and structure of schooling as being correct and common sense without considering this reality has been socially constructed to fit beliefs about intelligence, testing, and accountability (Howard, 1991; Kincheloe, 2010; Oakes, Wells, Jones,&Datnow, 1997). These social constructs influence perceptions of the world:

Once we have internalized the external culture and made it our ‘second nature’ it becomes a basis for our own interpretation of our experiences and for our giving them meaning. In other words, this is the psychological consciousness. This consciousness is both learned and validated within the culture and points us to the way that our own interpretation of our own experiences is socially constructed (Jarvis, 2006, p. 61).