ABSTRACT
Social studies educators nd themselves in an awkward position today vis-à-vis largescale, standardized testing. On the one hand, many teachers worry that such tests will never approximate the kind of deep and nuanced understandings students should develop, and they object to being held responsible for assessments they have no hand in developing. At the same time, some worry that the absence of social studies from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) agenda will condemn their school subject to second-tier status. The adage that “what gets tested gets taught” may turn out to be true though, in a different sense than has been the case in the past. The murky position in which social studies educators nd themselves vis-à-vis the recent call for increased assessment and accountability is compounded when one explores the current state of theory and research on issues of assessment and accountability in the social studies.
