Symbolic Validation: The Case of State-Mandated, High-Stakes Testing

Abstract

Because the wisdom and likely effects of educational innovations rarely are established before their adoption, the innovations must seek their legitimacy in nonempirical sources. This paper uses the example of the rapid rise of state-mandated, high-stakes testing programs to suggest that proposed innovations find their way into practice by virtue of their potency as symbols of prevalent value orientations in the wider culture. Thus, innovations undergo a type of consensual, symbolic validation that determines their acceptability. State-mandated, high-stakes testing programs have gained widespread popular support in the quest for heightened educational standards because they symbolize order and control, desired educational outcomes, and traditional moral values.