ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses important moral issues in the context of state mandated high-stakes tests and the moral responsibilities of school leaders to respond to these moral issues. It describes the moral responsibility of school leaders to prevent harm—in the case, the harm that falls with particular severity on various segments of student learners as a result of high-stakes testing. The chapter presents several implications for those designing Learner-Centered Leadership programs. It explores the intrinsic morality of the learning process itself, connecting that process with the moral agenda of students to become authentic persons. The chapter suggests that a proactive, moral leadership response that offers a beginning balance to the current curriculum and pedagogy of the high-stakes accountability agenda. Learner-centered leaders will find themselves challenged to correct the all-too-pervasive promotion and acceptance of inauthentic learning as “the real thing.” The principal feels that the failing students, already in at-risk circumstances, are being unfairly victimized by the imposition of high stake tests.
