ABSTRACT
High-stakes evaluation has become the subject of educational and political debates, often so emotional as to complicate the resolution of the accompanying assessment issues. Assessors have a range of excellent devices to provide data on a variety of educational procedures and products, but in the hands of the inept one or more of these tools can be counterproductive to attaining the goals of schooling. To achieve high standards for everyone requires an extensive assessment program to chart progress and to facilitate learning in a multitude of areas: facts, skills, understandings, self-esteem, metacognition, and interest in continuing to learn. Evidence from learning psychology reveals that assessment properly conducted makes a major difference in student learning and, when incorrectly used, a corresponding negative effect. Music education needs to establish its place in the nation's educational priorities, but it lacks quantitative data necessary for comparison purposes or for use by efficiency experts.
