The
US and Singaporean education systems differ in many important respects, so it’s
interesting to see similar concerns being voiced in each one. Singapore has recently begun
to move away from so much standardized testing and there are the beginnings
of skepticism from those who have until now been pushing the ‘Big Standardized
Test’ agenda in the US (which largely started with the No Child Left Behind programme in 2001).
In
each case, the use of data to drive accountability and measure success is not
in question. The question is what data is the right data to measure?
and it should be a familiar one to anyone in social policy. The problem is that we cannot wait twenty
years to measure the success of an educational programme, so we look to
shorter-term measures – like academic tests.
But results from academic tests can mislead, and an example from medicine is instructive.
 |
| The use of tests has been increasingly policy-driven over the last 20 years, but often relies on limited data |
We know that high cholesterol levels can increase mortality
from heart disease; so reducing cholesterol levels seems to make
sense. However, medical researcher DuBroff
has argued that some medicines
are able to lower cholesterol levels without reducing mortality from heart
disease. We should
all stop and think about that for a minute – especially those of us who take
statins – as it is potentially devastating claim; if DuBroff is correct, it
means we don't know if what we are doing makes sense, because just looking
at the reduced cholesterol levels would be to mistake the means (reduced cholesterol) for the
ends (improved mortality rates). Now I am no expert in medicine,
but the nature of the issue is at least clear.
It’s less clear in education - often because it is buried in articles
that talk opaquely about ‘the reliability of near-term indicators as proxies
for later life outcomes’. In medicine
it’s literally a matter of life and death; in education it’s a matter of life
and life-chances.
The point is, however, the same in principle – that we are in
danger of confusing the means with the ends; and while we can in general associate success in school
with later success in life, it is the latter that is the goal, not the former. School should not be just about getting
better at school, any more than medicine should be just about reducing
cholesterol. Medicine and School are both about much more than just themselves. In education, professional have long known anecdotally that
there is a difference between teachers who make a difference and those who help
students nail the tests, and some recent studies are now backing this up and
getting some interest at policy level in various places. Hitt
et al have shown that the teachers who produce improvements in
student behaviour and non-cognitive skills are not particularly likely to be the
same teachers who improve test scores. Schanzenbach and Bauer have, furthermore, shown
that some of the preschool programs that produced the most impressive
improvements in later-life outcomes did so without producing lasting gains
on test scores. Let me repeat; there is a difference between teachers who
make a difference and those who help students nail the tests.
Perhaps, though, the most
compelling reason to worry about using tests to measure educational effectiveness
– at least in the US – is that after almost two decades of very significant testing, the the evidence that it works is just not there. As Paul Greene, writing in Forbes
asks “Where are the waves of students now
arriving on college campuses super-prepared? Where are the businesses
proclaiming that today's grads are the most awesome in history? Where is the
increase in citizens with great-paying jobs? Where are any visible signs that
the test-based accountability system has worked?”
What’s really interesting is that
these ideas are being presented by the hitherto-supporters of big testing, such
as the Brookings Institute and conservative American Enterprise Institute. It’s a welcome change that the complexity
of education is finally being recognized – but that this simply echoes what
classroom teachers have been saying for about 20 years is less a cause for
celebration than a cause to wonder why the professionals were ignored in the
first place. The impoverished
experiences of millions of children, and the wasted billions of dollars are little short of tragedy. Greene's comment should be read by all educational policymakers: After 20 years, folks are
starting to figure out that teachers were actually correct.
References
Journal of Cardiology.
2015;7(7):404-409. doi:10.4330/wjc.v7.i7.404.
Greene P (2018) Is The Big
Standardized Test A Big Standardized Flop? Forbes
Online. September 20, 2018
McShane, M., Wolf, P. and Hitt,
C. (2018) Do impacts on test
scores even matter? Lessons from long-run outcomes in school choice research. American Enterprise Institute,
Schanzenbach, D. and Bauer, L.
(2016), The Long-Term Impact
of the Head Start Program. Brookings Institution, August 2016.
Wood, J. (2018) Children in Singapore will no longer be ranked by Exam
results. Here's Why World Economic Forum.
This article also links to how the measuring of educational attainment is shaping what schools are looking like. https://newint.org/features/2016/04/01/edu-businesses-impact/
ReplyDelete(what data we collect and how it is used as...)....objective evaluation data, since it depends on your view of what education is and what it is for. If education is a commodity, deliverable with the aid of scripted lessons and the rest of the paraphernalia of an ‘Academy-in-a-box’ and measurable through a few simple standardized tests, then there’s probably nothing to worry about. Pearson will indeed be always learning – and always earning.
If, on the other hand, education that is worth the name is not reducible to these processes and these products