Student assessment in an era of accountability

In this research paper, the assessment practices of mathematics teachers at an urban high school in the USA who primarily taught racial and ethnic minority students and low-income students are described. We found that the teachers' assessment practices were largely influenced by the pressures to prepare students for success on the state's standardized test. For instance, teachers regularly used the language found on " the test" to classify students by their performance ( i. e., Unsatisfactory), was regularly used by the teachers to label students, and was used in both assessment design and assigning student grades. Moreover, student performance on the test influenced how teachers viewed students, and consequently, how they viewed them in the assessment process. This is problematic given the long history in the USA of low-income, diverse students being denied access to challenging mathematics instruction.