Learning, League Tables and National Assessment: opportunity lost or hope deferred?

ABSTRACT

In 1988, the UK government accepted most of a set of radical proposals which their Task Group on Assessment and Testing had set out as the basis for a new scheme of national assessment. This paper outlines the formulation, the reception and the eventual abandonment of the scheme, illustrating how this outcome emerged from the interplay of political groups who approached the problems with fundamentally different beliefs about assessment and learning. It then reviews some of the basic problems involved, calling in particular on evidence produced over the last ten years about the importance and effectiveness of formative assessment in classrooms. It is argued that such assessment requires, and could justify, a new and substantial investment in development and training. It is further argued that current national testing in England and Wales falls far short of acceptable requirements of reliability and validity, and that the place of teachers’ assessments in such testing has to be enhanced to meet the shortcomings. Overall, however, many public prejudices and misunderstandings about testing will have to be overcome if such programmes are to command support.