Undercutting Learning

In his provocative book, The Feedback Fix:  Dump the Past, Embrace the Future, and Lead the Way to Change, Joe Hirsch writes that in the current high-stakes testing culture, schools are allowing grades and performance data to undercut real and meaningful learning.  He reports that study after study has found that students — from elementary school to graduate school and across multiple cultures — demonstrate less interest in learning as a result of being graded and that the real victim is the knowledge that students might have otherwise gained had the feedback amounted to more than a rating.