Standards in education: reforms, stagnation and the need to rethink

ABSTRACT

Countries around the world are striving to improve their educational systems with a view to improving their economy and society. In this global competition, national and international test results are of considerable interest. In this paper, we show that national testing in England and the USA have shown little or no improvement over the years. This finding is not isolated; it appears to be a global phenomenon. Data from large-scale international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS are remarkably stable over time. This paper reviews the trends from country-specific and international data and explores some of the reasons which have been offered for such stability. We argue that these explanations are insufficient and ways forward are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Standards
• reform
• assessment
• TIMSS
• PISA
• PIRLS

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We only show data up to and including 2015 for mathematics because a new curriculum was introduced in 2014 and testing arrangements changed from 2016. Data for English is only shown up to and including 2011 as new tests of English began to change from 2012 onwards and therefore data from that time are not directly comparable to previous years (e.g. new grammar, punctuation and spelling tests were also introduced in 2013).

2. The term ‘educational systems’ is used to denote the fact that some are countries whilst some are subnational entities, e.g. provinces of Canada, etc.

3. Some changes to testing procedures occurred in 2004 in both the reading and mathematics to accommodate students with disabilities and EAL.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Bolden

Dr David Bolden (EdD) is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Durham University. He teaches mathematics on a range of postgraduate and undergraduate modules. His research interests include assessment, creativity in mathematics, the use of representations in developing confidence and understanding in mathematics and teacher epistemologies.

Peter Tymms

Professor Peter Tymms (PhD) is Director of iPIPS at Durham University and was Head of Department in the School of Education at Durham University until 2013; before that he was Director of the Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) which runs projects monitoring millions of pupils across the UK and beyond each year. He set up the PIPS (Performance Indicators in Primary Schools) Project which has assessed more than 5 million children worldwide. He has published more than 100 scientific papers and generated millions of pounds worth of research grants.