Educational Testing Abroad and Lessons for the United States

Nature

In this essay I will be examining the origins of high stakes testing in the United States, its widespread use in the educational system, the rise of test driven “reforms” and the damage brought on by test overuse. Test-scores have not only become the central focus of economic and educational reforms, high stakes test scores are also being using as performance metrics requiring virtually all students and teachers to proficient levels, determining whether the schools are making “adequate yearly progress” and using these scores to impose severe sanctions on those who fail to meet the required standards. I will also be examining the impact of standardized high stakes testing on the education system and the resulting negative effects arising from its misuse: impeding student learning, demoralizing teachers, undermining schools and exacerbating racial and ethnic inequalities and social stratification. In order to gain an international perspective on the significance of standardized testing as a measure of students’ progress and development, I shall be comparing the testing cultures around the globe. Finally, I will propose a set of alternative methods of assessment and explain how they can be applied in place of standardized tests as a more effective and accurate assessment of student performance.

Palgrave Macmillan , 2016

Karl Marx suggested that people “make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please …, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.”1 With this in mind, history is not merely impacted by a perpetual push and pull but rather it is forged by it; through struggle, through controversy, and through dispute (over ideas, over survival, over competitive advantage, etc). To understand our own time, the early twenty-first century, is to recognize that we are simultaneously producers of history on the one hand, and that we are produced by history on the other. Among the most important communal human systems is government, which, for a variety of reasons, often tends to reflect the values of only a small minority. In the United States and Canada, governments at various levels are responsible for systems thar organize much of our social and cultural existence: these range from schools, to transportation, to international and military relations (determining which wars and humanitarian efforts we do or do not engage in), to our access to health care. In addition to systems that are actually run by the state, governments regulate access to food, beverages, and drugs; commercial transactions; travel; and in most places, our sexual behavior.

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology, 2023

The current study briefly reviews the influence of test-based accountability in the United Status of America and its effect on global movements of education.

This essay offers a historical analysis of the structural and cultural aspects of American education that help explain the durability of standardized testing in the face of more than a century of persistent criticism. Background/Context: For more than a century standardized achievement tests have been a feature of American education. Throughout that time critics of standardized tests have argued that their use has detrimental effects on students, schools, and curriculum. Despite these critiques, the number and uses of standardized tests has increased steadily. Though a great deal of research has focused on the technical design of tests, the history of individual tests, and general critiques of testing, there is little research that helps explain the continued use of standardized tests in American education despite near constant criticism.

The Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) is expanding internationally and reaching countries that seemed to be immune to this education reform approach until quite recently. Accordingly, more and more educational systems in the world are articulated around three main policy principles: accountability, standards and decentralisation. National large-scale assessments (NLSAs) are a core component of the GERM; these assessments are increasingly used for accountability purposes as well as to ensure that schools achieve and promote centrally defined and evaluable learning standards. In this paper, we explore these trends on the basis of a new and original database on NLSAs, as well as on data coming from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) questionnaires. In the paper we also discuss how different theories on policy dissemination/globalisation explain the international spread of NLSAs and test-based accountability worldwide, and reflect on the potential of a political sociology approach to analyse this globalising phenomenon.

Nordic studies in education, 2020

Contemporary education is characterised by a global testing culture, reflecting the fact that students' learning outcomes and standards are the focus of policymakers worldwide. It therefore plays a significant role in educational policies in different national contexts. We offer a brief outline of the precursors and preconditions that have facilitated the rise of today's global testing culture. The article notes two chronological stages: the first encompasses a confluence of comparative education, the rise of applied psychology, and the formation of transnational organisational structures prior to World War II. The second stage features the emergence of international organisations immediately after World War II. We argue that these developments subsequently conflated into a trajectory fostered by Cold War policies and became dominant from the 1990s onwards.

https://www.ijrrjournal.com/IJRR_Vol.7_Issue.4_April2020/Abstract_IJRR0021.html, 2020

Equivalent achievement test standards for students gaining entry into cross-national institutions of learning are a challenge that hinders the international mobility of potential students outside of their home countries. This reviewed article examines the achievement test as a measure for the equalization of cross-national learning standards. The article reviewed studies that investigated the comparisons of achievement standards to arrive at pertinent issues of interest. The article concludes that there are wide variations in education systems, education objectives, schools organization, curriculum content, school characteristics and socioeconomic characteristic inter alia. This calls for review in education policies of countries' from entry levels equalizations standards of test results in creating dual or trio entry levels for potential students. The study suggests that host institutions of learning design multiple programs for beginning level learners to cater for observed cross-national gaps in achievement to facilitate the international mobility of students worldwide.

Independence, 2018

is finalizing her dissertation on issues of evidence-based policy making, specifically focusing on US accountability school reforms and their counterparts in Europe. Her work is in Foundations of Education, and hence her interest lies in understanding the different ways in which the world-and specifically matters related to education-can be viewed. Aiming to uncover the implicit philosophies that guide arguments, her research is comparative and historical, utilizing various sources and forms of data. Her causes include equity and agency, in education and other societal manifestations. Stefan Becks has been collaborating in an extensive empirical, longitudinal research project on the standardized school exit exam in Austria. His dissertation is focused on students' experience of instruction prior to their final exams. His work approaches education reforms and policy-making critically, informed by education theory as well as an empirical approach. His further research interests follow a wide scope, reaching from the implications of transhumanism on education to the (re)creation of educational and societal inequity.

Assessment Cultures: Historical Perspectives