Policies toward quality education and student learning: constructing a critical perspective

Abstract

This paper argues that, in today's highly interconnected world, education models, practices, evidence and policies are quickly flowing across borders. Comparative information and science-derived knowledge about foreign education systems are being disseminated and “borrowed” to an unprecedented degree. The “demands” of a competitive world economy and calls for accountability and evidence-based policy have contributed to expanding networks of specialists, who create, interpret and disseminate educational research and policy recommendations. A results-oriented discourse currently prevails. It has shifted the debate about “quality” education from an examination of inputs and processes to one fixated on learning outcomes. Expanding large-scale learning assessments, despite many flaws and limitations, are provoking unwarranted calls for educational reform. A critical perspective toward assessments and their current uses is needed.

Notes

1. The term “national assessment” does not include school-leaving or matriculation examinations (see Benavot and Tanner 2007). Most national assessments are described as “low-stakes” examinations since they are not directly linked with incentives for participants (students or schools) to perform well, or with sanctions for those performing badly. By contrast, in “high stakes” assessments, measured outcomes have direct consequences, typically for the pupil (i.e. progression and certification). High-stakes assessments can also serve as accountability measures for schools and teachers, and the results used as the basis for allocating rewards and sanctions.

2. See, for example, Barrett et al. (2007); Boissiere (2004); Fuller and Clarke (1994); Glewwe and Kremer (2006); Keeves (1995); Lockheed and Verspoor (1991); Ma (2008); Michaelowa (2004); Mullis et al. (2000, 2007); Postlethwaite (2004); Riddell (2008); Scheerens (2004); UNESCO (2004, 2007); Vegas and Petrow (2007); Wößmann (2003); and Yu (2007).

3. Other research design flaws in assessment research were more prevalent in the past than today. For example, the lack of multi-level models to capture the nested nature of school processes, and the lack of randomized evaluation studies to study the cause and effects of educational interventions.