The instrumentation of test-based accountability in the autonomous dutch system

ABSTRACT

Test-based accountability or ‘TBA,’ as a core element of the pervasive Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), has become a central characteristic of education systems around the world. TBA often comes in conjunction with greater school autonomy, enabling governments to assess ‘school quality’ (i.e. test results) from a distance. Often, quality improvement is further encouraged through the publication of these results. Research has investigated this phenomenon and its effects, much of it focusing on Anglo-Saxon cases. This paper, drawing on expert interviews and key policy documents, couples a policy borrowing with a policy instruments approach to critically examine how and why TBA has developed in the highly autonomous Dutch system. It finds that TBA evolved incrementally, advancing towards higher stakes for schools and boards. Further, it argues that school autonomy has been central to the development of TBA in two ways. Firstly, following a period of decentralisation that increased school(board) autonomy, the Dutch government saw a need to strengthen accountability to ensure education quality. This was influenced by international discourse and accelerated by a (politically exploited) national ‘quality crisis’ in education. Secondly, the traditionally autonomous Dutch system, shaped by ‘Freedom of Education’, has at times conflicted with TBA, and has played a significant role in (re)shaping global policy and in mitigating the GERM.

KEYWORDS:

• Test-based accountability
• school autonomy
• education policy
• policy borrowing
• policy instruments
• The Netherlands

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank those experts involved in the research who kindly gave their time to be interviewed. They would also like to thank members of the ReformEd team for their valuable comments and advice. Finally, they would like to acknowledge the funding delivered by the ERC under the H2020 scheme, without which, this research would not have been possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Students deemed to have certain social disadvantages or learning difficulties would receive extra funding.

2. Since 2004, the functions of the CITO organisation have been divided between its public and private branches. The primary end-test is government-commissioned and its development thus falls under the public branch. The private branch of the organisation develops and sells testing products and services for education and business customers over the world. This includes the LVS tests in the Netherlands.

3. Cards outlining the inspector’s main findings.

4. This excluded immigrant students in the country for less than four years, and students expected to go on to (advanced) special education (Ehren and Swanborn 2012).

5. In particular, this alludes to a government reform known as the ‘Studiehuis’ which restructured student learning at the upper secondary level.

6. Recent parliamentary debates have resulted in changes to the Inspectorate’s role in issuing quality labels. Schools can request a ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ label, but cannot be automatically awarded one, as this controversially places the Inspectorate as the adjudicator of quality education.

7. Students and teachers no longer applying themselves for the remaining school year following the test.

8. Given that this advice is often based on LVS-test results from the previous years, the reduced importance of one test has led to the increased importance of others.

9. This dropped to five this year due to insufficient order numbers for one provider.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the H2020 European Research Council [StG-2015-680172].

Notes on contributors

Natalie Browes

Natalie Browes is a PhD researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is currently conducting research as part of the international ‘ReformEd’ project, where her work examines the adoption, development and enactment of school accountability policies in the Autonomous Dutch system.  In particular, she focuses on the impact of test-based accountability policies on primary school teachers’ beliefs and practices in different school settings.

Hülya K Altinyelken

Hülya K Altinyelken is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Child Development and Education Department of the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests cover a wide range of issues, including global education policies, curriculum change, child-centred pedagogy, reform implementation and teachers. She is currently involved in two research projects on Muslim youth in the Netherlands, looking at the pedagogy of mosque education as well as its influence on identity development and social integration.