Put to the test
James Gubb, 21 September 2007
‘Pressure to reform tests’ runs the headline on the front of today’s Times Education Supplement (TES). The article reports that newly published evidence presented to the House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee shows that criticism of current testing arrangements in schools have reached a climax. The TES reveals that out of the 52 submissions to the Committee, just one depicted today’s testing regime favourably. Needless to say, that one submission came from the old DfES.
That only the government will testify to the success of its testing arrangements (pulling out the tired – and highly out of place in this context – mantra of the necessity for ‘transparency’) is highly apt. The problems which beleaguer the current testing regime relate directly to the government’s use of test scores as proof that ineffective policies are effective. Those involved in education are under inordinate pressure to demonstrate that frequently misguided policy works well. Cue teaching to the test, lowering test standards and the whole distorting shebang.
The list of critics who have submitted evidence to the Education Select Committee is an extremely worrying indictment of the state of education today. The cpntributions span the range of stakeholders in education: the Institute of Educational Assessors and Cambridge Assessment; the General Teaching Council; the exam board OCR; a local authority; the five teaching unions and a range of mathematical and scientific organisations, such as the Wellcome Trust, the Campaign for Science and Engineering and the Association of Science Education.
As the TES argues, the most disquieting of these voices of concerns comes from the scientific and mathematic bodies. Their fears about the harm being done through testing centre on the main casualty: learning. The Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education is quoted as arguing that: ‘…continual testing and practising for tests has resulted in a narrow and impoverished curriculum and poor quality teaching of that curriculum’.
Right from the start of primary school through to A-level, as we at Civitas explored over the summer, testing has become not just removed from learning but actually detrimental to it. That this government’s record results do not convey genuine learning levels is the least of our worries. It’s the fact that testing currently not only masks but contributes to poor basic reading, writing and maths skills and fails to prepare pupils for their futures, which is so devastating.
In an editorial in the paper, the TES queries the government’s failure to react to criticism on their testing practices: ‘The Government has been repeatedly asked to investigate these issues [the perversities in current testing arrangements]. It has never done so. Given the volume and seriousness of the complaints, one has to ask: why not?’
The answer is straightforward, we’re back to where we began: when education policies are not producing the goods, other methods such as teaching to the test are relied on. Investigating the growing mass of complaints would ultimately mean admitting both that results were being produced artificially at the expense of learning, and that the government’s policies for schools have not been any good. So that’s why not.
By Anastasia de Waal