Tipping the Scales: Social Justice and Educational Measurement

Abstract

In this work I address foundational concerns at the interface of educational measurement and social justice. Following John Rawls’s philosophical methods, I build and justify an ethical framework for guiding practices involving educational measurement. This framework demonstrates that educational measurement is critical to insuring, or inhibiting, just educational arrangements. It also clarifies a principled distinction between efficiency-oriented testing and justice-oriented testing. In order to explore the feasibility and utility of this proposed framework, I employ it to analyze several historical case studies that exemplify the ethical issues related to testing: (1) the widespread use of IQ-style testing in schools during the early decades of the 20th century; (2) the founding of the Educational Testing Service; and (3) the recent history of test-based accountability associated with No Child Left Behind. I conclude with a set of speculative design principles and arguments in favor of radically democratic school reforms, which address how the future of testing might be shaped to ensure justice for all.