[M.D. Holloway]

This assumption has been repeated in various guises for the past 40 years, with little evidence to support it. The fact is, many countries typically perceived as high-scoring on international test score comparisons—such as Austria, France, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom—are not the United States' main economic competitors. The United States outsources technical jobs because U.S. consumers are unwilling to accept higher prices and U.S. workers are unwilling to accept lower wages to compete with computer programmers in India or with computer manufacturers in China. These two countries enroll only about one-third of a given age group by the final years of secondary school. Moreover, the education systems of Western European countries and Japan have not immunized their economies against competition from less developed countries with significantly lower rates of literacy and lower enrollment in secondary and higher education.

Assumption: Testing can help the United States address the problems that poverty has created.

The rhetoric about NCLB ignores the overwhelming impact of poverty, the primary correlate of low academic achievement in every country (Grissmer, Kirby, Berends, & Williamson, 1994). Although the size of the achievement gap among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds may vary among countries, the existence of this gap is universal. The link between poverty and achievement is higher in the United States than in many other industrialized countries. This is not surprising, given the fact that the United States has both larger income gaps between rich and poor (Blackburn, 1997) and fewer social support systems than most industrialized countries do. But high-stakes testing, accountability requirements, and centralization cannot cure the problems associated with poverty. As one educator put it, We believe that schools solve the problem of poverty, and now this program [NCLB] assumes that tests solve the problem of schools. By implication, that means tests are supposed to solve the problem of poverty. (Rotberg, Bernstein, & Ritter, 2001, p. 14)
Assumption: Countries that score high on international test score comparisons hold their educators accountable for students' scores on standardized tests.

In reality, few countries hold educators accountable for students' test scores. Many of the countries that the United States most admires for their rankings on international comparisons— for example, Canada, Finland, France, Japan, and Sweden—do not use tests to hold educators accountable. Some do not even administer standardized tests until secondary school. It is ironic that many countries throughout the world are attempting to reduce their emphasis on rote learning, whereas current testing pressures in the United States promote just that kind of learning. NCLB supporters believe that because the legislation makes schools' “failures” public, it encourages educators to try harder to focus on important academic subject matter and pay more attention to marginalized students. Those opposed to NCLB are concerned that the pressure to raise test scores will encourage educators to narrow the curriculum and make questionable decisions about student assignments and grade retention. For example, schools may be reluctant to recommend their highest-achieving students to gifted programs in other schools because they would lose the advantage of these students' test scores. Schools may also focus on students who are close to meeting proficiency goals rather than on the lowest-achieving students. Moreover, NCLB may further increase attrition rates of the most qualified teachers and principals, especially in high-poverty schools, because these educators may not wish to be publicly associated with schools designated as “needing improvement.” Testing Practices in Other Countries Do other countries use tests to evaluate educators' performance? What role does testing play internationally in tracking students and providing access to universities? How strong is the link in other countries between testing and classroom practice?
The following examples from England, Turkey, Germany, Singapore, Japan, and China illustrate how these countries manage these issues.

...