A 17-person committee of the National
Academy of Sciences has recently concluded that the United States’
high-stakes test-based accountability systems have had little-to-no
positive impact on the actual learning gains of students.
The study looks at over 10 years’
worth of data from national programs created under No Child Left
Behind and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, teacher-based
and student-based monetary incentive programs, high school exit exams
in about half of the 50 states and teacher incentive programs in
three countries.
One of the key findings of the
study, which will come as no surprise to any teacher, is that when
students are given assessments that are not attached to sanctions or
rewards for their teachers or schools, they perform at lower levels
than on high-stakes tests that assess the same material. In other
words students are being prepared to perform on a specific exam but
are not making actual learning gains that translate beyond the test.
The panel found that in many of the
programs, there were not enough safeguards in place to ensure that
school districts were not “gaming the system” by teaching
directly to the test or reporting numbers in creative ways. For
example, until recently schools could report students who transferred
into programs that do not award high school diplomas as “transfers”
rather than “drop outs” to boost their graduation numbers. Now a
federal requirement forces schools to include these students in their
“drop-out” statistics, since by transferring, they are
essentially foregoing a high school diploma.
Overall, the study shows that, like
many other education reform initiatives that came with corporate
backing but little research-based evidence to support them,
high-stakes testing is not the answer to low achievement in U.S.
schools. Politicians and corporate reformers continue to ignore
poverty, racism and unequal funding as the root causes of
under-achievement, because addressing these issues reaches beyond
reform to fundamental change of the system, itself.
This study is further proof that
superficial reforms will have little impact until we have actually
addressed these root causes. Rather than supporting top-down
corporate reform initiatives, the U.S. government should be shifting
massive investments away from war and bank bailouts and putting them
into the children and families who depend on the public education
system for their futures.
