Externalities of Testing: Lessons from the Blizzard of 2010

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This article is a May 2010 revision of a paper presented in April 2010 at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association in Denver, Colorado. Work on the paper was completed while I was at the National Research Council of the National Academies. Views and opinions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Council, the Academies, or their constituent boards and committees. I am grateful to Isaac Bejar for inviting me to participate in the AERA session, to Mark Wilson for his encouragement, and to Henry Braun, Mark Wilson, Randy Bennett, and other participants for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Remaining errors of fact or fantasy are mine alone.

Notes

¹Credit for use of the word tragedy to describe these phenomena is due Garrett Hardin for his seminal paper “The Tragedy of the Commons,” 1968. For a more contemporary review and analysis that reaches different conclusions see National Research Council (2002).

²For a useful summary of techniques, including but not limited to benefit-cost analysis, used to evaluate risks in other settings, see National Research Council, 1996, especially pp. 102–106. I am grateful to Henry Braun for asking about how such problems are treated in areas besides education and testing.