Compared to what?

June 14, 2011 By Joanne 1 Comment

The National Research Council report dissing test-based accountability is misleading, writes Eric Hanushek in Education Next. The report proclaims:

Test-based incentive programs, as designed and implemented in the programs that have been carefully studied, have not increased student achievement enough to bring the United States close to the levels of the highest achieving countries.

The report actually finds evidence that suggests positive impacts for accountability, he writes. OK, it hasn’t turned us into Finland or South Korea. But it’s helped.

Why would we discard an effective program just because it falls short of our hopes of producing the world’s best education?

. . . Nowhere does the report indicate an alternative educational program that leads to as large an improvement in overall U.S. achievement as accountability. Nowhere does the report suggest any single program or package of reforms that would close the achievement gap with the highest performing countries. Nowhere does the report really make the case that alternative reform packages should not include an accountability component.

The report dismisses estimated achievement gains of 0.08 standard deviations as insignificant. Even very small gains have very big pay-offs, Hanushek writes. “If the future follows the patterns we have seen historically, the present value of achievement gains of this magnitude would be over $13 trillion.”

“Existing but imperfect accountability schemes could be modified in order to improve on the first generation of plans,” Hanushek adds, but the NRC panel ignored this possibility.

Test scores should be audited independently to prevent cheating, writes Herbert Walberg in the Washington Times.

-->Filed Under: Education, Testing Tagged With: accountability, achievement, Finland, National Research Council, South Korea, Testing About Joanne
CommentsLynne says: June 14, 2011 at 10:15 am

I would be willing to bet that in most of the highest achieving countries there is one BIG difference from what we do in America. In America we try to educate EVERYONE to a MINIMUM STANDARD.

Other countries usually have much higher standards for passing each grade (like up to 50% higher per year in elementary school). If you don’t pass a grade, you have two chances to repeat (and many people repeat) during all of the years of your schooling. If you’ve repeated twice anywhere along the line and don’t make it after that, you’re OUT (no matter how young you are).

What this means is that with all the students out who drag down the class either for behavior reasons or for any of the various reasons that cause low achievement, the remaining students are actually able to get to much higher levels. This is at LEAST fifty percent of the way that many of these countries are getting their achievement levels.

Are we in America willing to make that trade-off? I don’t think so.

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