ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the results of research on the benefits of standardized testing, particularly high-stakes standardized testing. Here, for example, is how Henry Levin, the "court economist" of public education's royal house, dismisses the findings of standardized testing's benefits from thirty years' work and, literally, thousands of research studies conducted by industrial/organizational psychologists, among them the world's foremost scholars in the field. Despite the fact that some testing opponents have done their best to hide or suppress it, a cornucopia of empirical and logical evidence for high-stakes testing's benefits does exist. Standardized tests can be instrumental in starting the benefit process. For one or more reasons—like motivation or organizational clarity—students learn more with testing programs in place than they otherwise would. This increase in knowledge and skills represents a potential benefit.
