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A Dangerous Game: The Dehumanization Of Children In Massachusetts Testing And Data Discourse, Gregory Shea

The Graduate Review

A great deal has been written about the ills of standardized testing, most of which focuses on their lack of validity and negative impacts on students. One topic that has not been explored in depth is the ways in which the discourse around testing can dehumanize public school students. This paper turns its attention to utterances of the Massachusetts Commissioner of Education, Mitchell Chester, along with the utterances of the superintendents of two large urban districts in Massachusetts. The thesis of this discourse analysis is that the words of these administrators betray an unconscious but troubling ideology of dehumanization. The …