Behind in assessment and losing the shame game

We should stop the shame and blame game punctuated by test score comparisons and listen to what Americans truly want from their public schools. After all, they are public.

Whenever a new round of education test scores are released, media, policy makers, and pundits rush to analyze and talk about what the results really mean. Interested parties look to these tests to see if progress is being made and to affirm or castigate the strategies that educators are using to improve educational outcomes for all students. Some fear conspiracy in any effort to measure and compare the progress of students, and so they question the validity and purpose of the results. Since many of these tests now come with consequences, the results have become even more interesting to the people who watch and judge the progress of education reforms.

Yet something about this ritual has churned my gut since early 2013 when Kentucky and New York released the first test scores to reflect Common Core implementation. A collection of NAEP data and a heavy dose of PISA scores at the end of the year made the churning even worse. Although I’m a former journalist who strongly believes in transparency, accountability, and public disclosure of information about taxpayer-funded systems, the hyperbolic discourse on student test scores really started to bug me.

Like many troubled souls before me, I sought wisdom from those wiser than me. I read articles, conducted my own research, and provoked conversations on the matter. While no sudden and glorious breakthrough of understanding came to me, it did become crystal clear that this issue (which for the sake of this article I will call “how to understand and interpret the real meaning and value of student test scores”) is one upon which very few people agree. This may seem like a fairly obvious point, but what makes it interesting — and what I think was gnawing at me — is that considering how much discussion, disagreement, and passion accompany the test score reports, they have come to play a dominant role in policy and in determining whether an education system or an individual educator is considered successful.

Case in point: When the most recent PISA scores were released last fall, there was a flurry of headlines about America’s “stagnant” public schools. American students were characterized as being asleep at the wheel and in need of a major wake-up call. There were a few weak attempts to put the PISA scores in context and temper the ire that was being directed at public schools. But, for most observers, the upshot was that U.S. students and schools are increasingly lame, while a short list of other nations seem to have all the pieces in place to produce generations of smart, social, and well-adjusted citizens.

Policy makers sometimes scratch their heads in wonder when the public reacts so negatively to the comparisons of U.S. students to others in “high-performing” countries, but is it really that hard to understand? If all politics are local, then education in this country is about as local as it gets. Our public education system is decentralized; school governance is mostly a state and local affair. And so most Americans feel that their public schools are just that: theirs. Their schools are unique and special and therefore different from other public schools around the country. Year after year, the PDK/Gallup poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools supports this notion. The poll reveals that most Americans are generally satisfied with their local schools and dismally uncertain about all the others.

Knowing this about our fellow citizens, it seems to me if we really wanted the public to look closer and try to understand why PISA, NAEP, and other kinds of assessments are important, we would need to do more than just shame public schools. We’d need to have a thoughtful and nuanced conversation about why some education systems have been able to improve student performance and others haven’t. We’d have to look at culture, resources, leadership, teacher training, and national sentiment. We’d have to analyze gaps of all kinds, not just achievement. And we’d have to use the information to help teachers and education leaders understand why others are making progress without humiliating them in the comparison.

Andy Hargreaves, an education researcher and scholar, captures this sentiment very well in his essay in Leading Educational Change, (Teachers College Press, 2013), part of a compilation of essays about the effect of global issues on education reform. “Benchmarking is not about copying other systems or competing with them for the sake of it. It is about learning and inquiring into the deep principles of excellence and equity that underpin many specific systems and that can be applied with flexibility and responsiveness to one’s own.”

Hargreaves gets it just right when he reminds us that comparing tests scores among students and nations offers little value if shame is the only thing that comes of it. If we don’t extract some information about how to improve our own unique education system and acknowledge that real and significant differences exist among all systems, then why make the comparisons in the first place?

W. Edwards Deming famously said, “In God we trust, all others bring data,” but he also said, “The most important things can’t be measured.” Maybe that contradiction can help explain why most people want evidence that their schools are doing well, but don’t agree that comparing test scores is the best way to determine whether a school system is successful. We know higher standards and better assessments are essential to improving schools, but we also know the important role personal relationships, equitable resources and social supports play in improving student outcomes.

In recent years, education policy has shifted toward high-stakes accountability based almost entirely on test scores. Yet the path toward a larger, more strategic investment in education that includes strategies and incentives to promote the social and emotional success of students is virtually untrodden. A number of foundations have supported efforts to develop what many refer to as “21st-century skills” or “deeper learning competencies” in students. These efforts have raised awareness about the value of other competencies and skills beyond student performance as determined by test scores that are important for students to master before they go on to higher education or workforce training. These additional dimensions, such as creativity, communications, and collaboration, are to a great many people, including business leaders, crucially important indicators of success. Perhaps the ritualistic shaming that follows the release of test scores these days is the public reacting to the fact that most education policies use academic rigor and test scores as the only indicators of students success. The academic performance of students and the social and emotional well-being of students should not be forced into some kind of mutually exclusive relationship — they should go hand in hand.

It seems to me there needs to be a much less antagonistic conversation in this country about what an excellent public school system should look like. Good, bad, or otherwise, the U.S. system of education has some very real barriers to the kinds of reform we have seen in other nations, but that does not mean all is lost. Policy makers and education leaders can dismiss the public concerns about international comparisons and test-shaming as fearful, self-serving, and delusional (as did U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan late last year with the now infamous “white soccer moms” comment) but, by doing so, those of us who play a role in policy making ignore the most important aspect of what we do. After all, they call it public policy for a reason.

CITATION: Ferguson, M. (2014). WASHINGTON VIEW: Behind in assessment and losing the shame game. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (6), 66-67.