Juridification of examination systems: extending state level authority over teacher assessments through regrading of national tests

Abstract

Since 2009, the Swedish Government uses an ‘audit’ agency – the Swedish Schools Inspectorate – to monitor and assess the accuracy with which teachers grade student responses on national tests. This study explores the introduction and subsequent establishment of the Inspectorate’s regrading programme as an example of political management of the tensions between competition and equity inherent in neoliberal regulatory regimes. The programme is considered a case for examining contemporary policies and discourses on fairness and government actions undertaken to resolve issues of unfair assessment and safeguard students’ rights. Work of Carol Bacchi forms part of the theoretical background for the investigation of problem representations around and within the programme. The article demonstrates how discursive practices in the fields of government, audit and media have worked to frame teachers’ assessments as incorrect, unfair and as jeopardizing the credibility of the grading system, thus justifying increased central control and authority over teacher assessments. As such, the regrading programme contributed to increased mistrust in teacher professionalism. A legal discourse is identified, and we argue the examination system is being juridified where the abundance of control over knowledge risks turning into a deficit of that same knowledge.

Keywords:

• Juridification
• national tests
• policy
• problem representations
• school inspection

Acknowledgements

We are thankful to Professor Jennifer C. Greene for her constructive comments that assisted us in revising earlier drafts of this manuscript. Also special thanks to Professor Robert E. Stake for his time discussing many of the issues addressed here. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Sverre Tveit for his helpful suggestions in structuring this manuscript, and Professor Sharon Rider whose critique and valuable suggestions have contributed to the final version.

Notes

1. ‘Free-schools’ are similar to academy schools in the United Kingdom and charter schools in the United States. These schools are free of charge to students and allow the owners of the schools to make a profit from public funds. Currently, approximately 15% of the students in primary and lower secondary education, and 25% of the students in upper secondary education, attend free-schools in Sweden (National Agency for Education 2016).

2. Previous forms of standardised tests were utilised in core subjects between 1940 and 1994.

3. ‘Joy grade’ refers to a grade that a teacher gives in order to please a student (and his or her parents). It can be referred to as a grade that results from a charitable or lenient assessment of a student’s achievement.

4. See Gustafsson and Erickson (2013) for an extensive discussion on the SSI’s methods and its results of the first and second rounds of regradings.

5. An ‘injunction’ specifies what the school has to rectify along with the related requirements that the SSI sets for the responsible education provider (i.e. the actor running the school). An injunction can form the basis of other coercive measures, such as a penalty, a temporary operating ban, or, in case of a free school – revocation of operating license.