High Stakes Testing

I was prompted to do some research around what some call high stakes testing after a discussion at a leadership meeting recently where we discussed in my opinion the low value of testing unless the student got feedback on what to improve next and the teacher on the next learning challenge to present to students. It’s a challenge and feedback loop that research points to as the most effective way to improve student outcomes. Readers might remember my posts on the use of protocols to examine student work [which could but is not limited to test results] to gather data for the feedback – challenge loop

My research led me to the UK site that list the 500 most successful schools based on test results. The results don’t indicate starting levels of students just end results so its difficult to know whether students are in a challenge and feedback loop [read high instructional levels of teachers] or whether the initial academic entry of students was already high. Sure enough lots of schools on the list were select entry schools [read high academic entry levels].

I suppose what was even more galling was a report that state grammar school heads [public grammar schools were generally listed in the 500 successful schools] were now going to be given the responsibility to form a trust to improve the “failing secondary schools” in their area. The document to be entered to the UK Parliament is called The Extra Mile.

So it’s not enough to simply select the higher achieving students from the secondary schools to attend public grammar schools you then compare test scores of these same schools regardless of entry levels, call the secondary school the poorer performing schools based on the test scores and then send in the head of the grammar school school to fix the failing schools academic problem.  

Surely one must check that the grammar schools in question have the high levels of instructional capacity in its teachers to model more effective practise [read feedback and challenge loop] rather than just test scores.

Why have I gone on about the UK?  Well the new industrial agreement being proposedfor teachers and principals has executive principals [yet to be defined] being sent to under performing schools [yet to have criteria for under performing indentified – read test scores on state wide test] to fix the problem – sound a little familar?   

Perhaps this clip after all has something to say about tests.  

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