Daniel Koretz, an expert on educational testing and achievement, has been appointed a full professor at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), the school announced this week.

“We’re very excited to have him. The testing area has been heating up a lot recently both regionally and nationally,” said GSE spokesperson Christine Sanni.

While his work focuses more broadly on measurements of educational achievement, Koretz’s work has a specific focus on so-called “high-stakes” testing, like the Massachusetts MCAS exams or the New York Regents exam. This field has been the subject of widespread controversy in recent years.

“One theme that has characterized recent educational policy is test-based accountability. It’s becoming a hotter and hotter topic every day,” he says.

Recent efforts have been taken—both on the state level and on the national level by President Bush—to hold teachers accountable for the performance of their students through testing and even to hold students back unless they can successfully pass tests. Using testing for such important decisions is often referred to as “high-stakes” testing.

Koretz’s research has shown that under such “high-stakes” circumstances the scores on tests rise quickly and that there is often a “substantial inflation” of scores.

“There are rapid rises in test scores when people are told it matters more,” he says. “[Educators are] basically saying: ‘one way or the other get the scores up.’”

He explains that teachers begin to focus more on “teaching to the test,” and not on the broader areas that the test is supposed to represent.