William C. Smith An Introduction to the Global Testing Culture, 7-23
THE GLOBAL TESTING CULTURE AND THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AGENDA
D. Brent Edwards Jr A Perfect Storm: the political economy of community-based management, teacher accountability and impact evaluations in El Salvador and the global reform agenda, 25-42
Rie Kijima, Jane Leer Legitimacy, State-building and Contestation in Education Policy Development: Chile's involvement in cross-national assessments, 43-61
Hilla Aurén, Devin Joshi Teaching the World that Less is More: global education testing and the Finnish national brand, 63-83
Ji Liu Student Achievement and PISA Rankings: policy effects or cultural explanations?, 85-99
Angeline M. Barrett Measuring Learning Outcomes and Education for Sustainable Development: the new education development goal, 101-114
Karen E. Andreasen, Christian Ydesen The International Space of the Danish Testing Community in the Post-war Years, 115-130
THE ABSENCE OF FORMATIVE TESTING AND THE POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Sumera Ahsan, William C. Smith Facilitating Student Learning: a comparison of classroom and accountability assessment, 131-151
Renáta Tichá, Brian Abery Beyond the Large-scale Testing of Basic Skills: using formative assessment to facilitate student learning, 153-169
Anthony Somerset Questioning across the Spectrum: pedagogy, selection examinations and assessment systems in low-income countries, 171-191
Sean W. Mulvenon, Sandra G. Bowman An Evaluation of How the 'Policies of K-12 Testing' Impact the Effectiveness of Global Testing Programs, 193-212
Mariam Orkodashvili How Much Stakes for Tests? Public Schooling, Private Tutoring and Equilibrium, 213-229
THE GLOBAL TESTING CULTURE IN NATIONAL CONTEXT
Kristine Kousholt, Bjørn Hamre Testing and School Reform in Danish Education: an analysis informed by the use of 'the dispositive', 231-247
Pearl J. Chung, Hyeonwoo Chea South Korea's Accountability Policy System and National Achievement Test, 249-260
David Balwanz The Discursive Hold of the Matric: is there space for a new vision for secondary education in South Africa?, 261-278
Tracey Burns, Patrick Blanchenay, Florian Köster Horizontal Accountability, Municipal Capacity and the Use of Data: a case study of Sweden, 279-294
Notes on Contributors, 297-302
An Introduction to the Global Testing Culture
William C. Smith
The global testing culture permeates all areas of education, reconceptualizing the role of educational actors, the aims of education, and the accepted practices of education, as well as the general position of education in society. Characterized by census-based standardized testing with links to high-stakes outcomes, the global testing culture can be seen in the expansion of testing and accountability systems around the world and the increasingly ‘common-sense’ notion that testing is synonymous with accountability, which is synonymous with education quality. This chapter describes the foundational attributes, including the core assumptions, values, and cultural models, that define the normative expectations of actors in the global testing culture. The final section introduces the rest of the volume, which seeks to explore how the global testing culture is embedded in and reinforced by policy and practices of stakeholders at all levels, and to provide case studies exploring the incorporation of testing in national contexts.
^^ Back to contents list
THE GLOBAL TESTING CULTURE AND THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION AGENDA
A Perfect Storm: the political economy of community-based management, teacher accountability and impact evaluations in El Salvador and the global reform agenda
D. Brent Edwards Jr
During the 1990s and 2000s, a policy known as Education with Community Participation (EDUCO) not only became the cornerstone of education reform in El Salvador but also became a global education policy, one which is known for instituting teacher accountability by decentralizing to rural families the responsibility for hiring and firing them. As is shown in this chapter, the rise to fame of EDUCO was not only a product of the particular political-economic context in which it was born, but was also a product of the (erroneous) impact evaluations produced by the World Bank, which served as the evidence base through which this and other international institutions could legitimately promote the EDUCO model, a model which has helped to extend outcomes-based accountability for teachers.
^^ Back to contents list
Legitimacy, State-building and Contestation in Education Policy Development: Chile's involvement in cross-national assessments
Rie Kijima, Jane Leer
Participation in cross-national assessments (CNAs) has grown exponentially over the last 50 years. This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of one country’s participation in CNAs: Chile, one of the first non-OECD countries to participate in CNAs. Through interviews with Chilean education policy officials, the authors explore the global and domestic factors influencing the Chilean government’s decision to participate in CNAs. They find that Chile participates in CNAs in order to compare the country’s education performance with other countries, build institutional capacity, align the curriculum with international standards and improve public accountability. They argue that these findings are best explained by compensatory legitimization theory, whereby the State participates in CNAs in order to improve state legitimacy. By analyzing Chile’s involvement in CNAs, these findings contribute to an understanding of the historical, political, socioeconomic and educational contexts that influence a country’s decision to participate in CNAs – above and beyond simply measuring the quality of education.
^^ Back to contents list
Teaching the World that Less is More: global education testing and the Finnish national brand
Hilla Aurén, Devin Joshi
Finland’s impressive performance on international education tests has led to considerable interest in Finland’s education model and education-related exports. Moreover, Finland stands out because it has completely eschewed a disciplinary testing culture involving high-stakes standardised testing in basic education. Rather, as the authors argue in this chapter, Finland’s long-lasting educational success has been achieved by means of a supportive testing culture emphasising educational equality. They analyse this development through in-depth interviews with Finnish education experts and systematic content analysis of global media reports covering Finland since the year 2000. The evidence reveals that through international testing Finland has successfully developed a positive global reputation in education, which has enhanced its national brand and demand for its educational exports. However, the successful adoption of Finnish educational practices outside Finland appears to depend on the extent to which others are willing to embrace equality as a means and end of education.
^^ Back to contents list
Student Achievement and PISA Rankings: policy effects or cultural explanations?
Ji Liu
A central assumption underlying international large-scale testing, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD’s) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), is that cross-national variation in student test scores is attributable to national policy environments. This assumption, coined as PISA reasoning, has taken center stage at the heart of the global testing culture. Feniger and Lefstein’s (2014) critical analysis of this assumption suggests that cultural and historical background may be a more powerful alternative explanation. This chapter presents important limitations to the current dichotomous debate in two major ways. First, by adding school fixed effects, the effects of cultural origin were reduced by half, indicating that the country-of-origin effect is taking credit for school-level variances. Second, findings from an exhaustive list of origin–destination pairs indicate an inconsistent pattern cross-nationally, and suggest that prior results may not be generalizable to global student achievement patterns.
^^ Back to contents list
Measuring Learning Outcomes and Education for Sustainable Development: the new education development goal
Angeline M. Barrett
The education Sustainable Development Goal for 2015-2030 will be the first development goal to include targets for learning outcomes. The prevalent global culture of testing has acted to promote standardised measures of literacy and numeracy as the preferred tools for monitoring learning globally. These are not sufficient to the task of ensuring education quality for all, as understood from a social justice perspective. They also do little to promote the kind of social learning that is integral to sustainable development. This chapter contrasts the learning agenda within Education for All with a broader conceptualisation of education quality offered by social justice perspectives and key ideas on learning in the literature on education for sustainable development.
^^ Back to contents list
The International Space of the Danish Testing Community in the Post-war Years
Karen E. Andreasen, Christian Ydesen
International forums and organisations, as well as non-governmental organisations, have played a considerable role in societal developments since the end of World War II. Many changes in post-war Danish public schools, such as standardised educational testing, were formed in dialogue with or initiated in such forums or organisations. This chapter explores the importance of these connections by focusing on the period from 1945 to around 1990 – that is, from the end of World War II, when Danish education was characterised by a high degree of national unity as a contrast to the strife of the inter-war years, and up to the end of the Cold War. Exploring the transnational angle is a highly relevant and interesting research topic because it contributes to a deeper understanding of the origin, development and design of Danish school policy and school practice, and the influence from transnational spaces.
^^ Back to contents list
THE ABSENCE OF FORMATIVE TESTING AND THE POLITICS OF ACCOUNTABILITY
Facilitating Student Learning: a comparison of classroom and accountability assessment
Sumera Ahsan, William C. Smith
Student learning should be a central feature in any educational activity. Drawing from the social constructivist learning theory and the work of Vygotsky, this chapter explores the type of assessment most likely to facilitate student learning by comparing classroom assessments with accountability assessments. The comparison makes it clear that classroom assessments have space for the spontaneous social interaction necessary for learning, while accountability assessments tend to be independent isolated activities. Through engagement with teachers and opportunities for self-reflection, students taking classroom assessments are better able to connect the assessment with their socio-historical context and teachers are able to adapt assessment prompts to make them culturally relevant to their students. Accountability assessments, on the other hand, tend to be monolithic in origin, lacking the flexibility to capture cultural differences. Although accountability assessments may be able to address secondary educational goals, such as efficiency or identifying demographic trends, we fear that real student learning will wither away in a global testing culture where classroom assessments are reduced, accountability assessments entrenched, and learning superseded by achievement.
^^ Back to contents list
Beyond the Large-scale Testing of Basic Skills: using formative assessment to facilitate student learning
Renáta Tichá, Brian Abery
Assessment is an integral part of educational accountability at the local, national and international level. Educational assessment can have many forms and be administered for a variety of purposes. This chapter outlines the characteristics and functions of summative and formative assessment, two key assessment types in education. The authors point out the strengths and limitations of each of the assessment types and discuss a recent trend of ‘adapting’ formative assessments for use as screening tools of basic skills administered to large numbers of students. The chapter concludes with recommendations focused on the use of assessments for the purposes for which they were intended and the need to validate assessments for implementation in local contexts to monitor teacher instruction and student learning.
^^ Back to contents list
Questioning across the Spectrum: pedagogy, selection examinations and assessment systems in low-income countries
Anthony Somerset
This chapter presents an overview of the spectrum of contexts in which questioning is employed to assess student learning, ranging from the grassroots level of the classroom to the central level of the national examinations authority and the national or international assessment agency. The respective roles of formative and summative questioning are compared, and an example of the effective use of formative questioning in the development of problem-solving skills discussed. Following an analysis of the negative backwash effects of low-quality, high-stakes selection examinations on the quality of classroom pedagogy, the chapter concludes with suggestions as to how various initiatives, across the full assessment spectrum, could contribute to the strengthening of student learning, in low-income countries especially.
^^ Back to contents list
An Evaluation of How the 'Policies of K-12 Testing' Impact the Effectiveness of Global Testing Programs
Sean W. Mulvenon, Sandra G. Bowman
A culture of testing has evolved globally as societies focus on education as a method to expand opportunities for all students and strengthen local economies. A common metric used to evaluate student achievement, teacher effectiveness and school systems as part of these efforts has been through an expanded use of standardized exams and testing. The use of standardized exams has both advocates and critics, but an element missing in the discussion is the impact of educational policies implemented in support of testing and accountability programs. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a narrative of the role of educational policies on testing programs and their impact on our global testing culture.
^^ Back to contents list
How Much Stakes for Tests? Public Schooling, Private Tutoring and Equilibrium
Mariam Orkodashvili
This chapter analyzes the influence of stakes on tests and examinations. It reveals that when public schooling is poor or unsatisfactory, the stage at which students resort to private tutoring may affect TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) results. If tutoring starts at an early stage, TIMSS and PIRLS scores may be a by-product of the intensive preparation for high stakes examinations. If tutoring happens at a later stage, the results of TIMSS and PIRLS are low. Therefore, depending on the school grade at which high-stakes examinations appear, in a number of countries, students increasingly resort to private tutoring to succeed at school, or at university or college entry examinations; hence, the influence on international projects can be vividly observed.
^^ Back to contents list
THE GLOBAL TESTING CULTURE IN NATIONAL CONTEXT
Testing and School Reform in Danish Education: an analysis informed by the use of 'the dispositive'
Kristine Kousholt, Bjørn Hamre
This chapter is in two parts, consisting of both the theoretical development of Foucault’s concept of the dispositive and an analysis of documents concerning national standardised tests and school reform in the Danish primary and lower secondary school. The Danish national standardised tests are recently implemented in the school system with different political ambitions. We argue that the tests are a crucial new form of assessment among others based on their adaptive character and of the political intentions connected to them. The article stems from an ambition to contribute with an adequate critique of the tests and related discourses. This is done by reading documents related to the national test through the dispositives (‘dispositive’ is a Foucauldian term for a rationale of power) of discipline, security and optimisation.
^^ Back to contents list
South Korea's Accountability Policy System and National Achievement Test
Pearl J. Chung, Hyeonwoo Chea
South Korea made a decision to implement performance-based accountability in 2008 by expanding the national achievement test from a sample-based to a census-based test. The decision influenced schools of all levels across the nation through the use of publicized school report cards, sanctions and rewards, and through the designation of schools as low performing. However, the performance-based accountability policy system has taken a shift under the new administration recently; the national achievement test and corresponding accountability system has been discontinued in elementary schools. Based on a Decision Making Action Cycle, this chapter analyzes factors that have contributed to the implementation and discontinuation of performance-based accountability and discusses their effects at the national, district and school levels.
^^ Back to contents list
The Discursive Hold of the Matric: is there space for a new vision for secondary education in South Africa?
David Balwanz
High-stakes secondary school leaving exams are a feature of many national education systems. In many low- and middle-income economies, exam performance, which mediates access to scarce university places and formal-sector jobs, significantly influences the life chances of youth. This chapter draws on a small-scale qualitative study in South Africa to describe the influence of a high-stakes exam, the National Senior Certificate (NSC) exam, in schools in two historically marginalized communities. Data indicate that learners in South Africa’s poorest schools are also the least likely to pass the NSC. However, an NSC pass offers these same learners their best chance at securing a bright future. This chapter discusses the influence of a testing culture on conceptualizations of and practices in secondary education and identifies grassroots perspectives which could be drawn on to articulate a new vision for secondary education in South Africa.
^^ Back to contents list
Horizontal Accountability, Municipal Capacity and the Use of Data: a case study of Sweden
Tracey Burns, Patrick Blanchenay, Florian Köster
The global testing culture is part of the accountability challenge faced by many countries. This chapter provides an in-depth look at Sweden, which undertook a radical decentralisation of its education system in the 1990s. This has proven to be challenging to implement, and student performance has deteriorated consistently since 2000. Many municipalities have fallen short on delivering on new responsibilities, in particular in the use of data aimed at increasing local accountability. Lacking strategic guidance and capacity building from the centre, the smaller municipalities in particular have tended to use truncated indicators or traditional methods of attributing funding rather than a comprehensive analysis and plan to improve education. In addition, parents have not filled the local accountability gap, despite wide availability of comprehensive data and the liberalisation of school choice. Sweden is now faced with a serious challenge and must find a way to improve school achievement and equity
^^ Back to contents list
Notes on Contributors
^^ Back to contents list