Transcript Testing and Accountability:

China and U.S. Perspectives
Bobbie Plough Superintendent
Eric Banatao Assistant Principal
Natomas Unified School
District K-12
EastLake High School
[email protected]
[email protected]
 Daniel Goleman (1995). Emotional Intelligence: Why It
Can Matter More Than IQ
“One of psychology’s open secrets is the relative inability
of grades, IQ, or SAT scores, despite their popular
mystique, to predict unerringly who will succeed in life”
(p.34).
 Albert Einstein: “Not everything that can be counted
counts, and not everything that counts can be
counted.”
 Yong Zhao (2009). Catching Up or Leading the Way:
American Education in the Age of Globalization
“Ideally, the two measures of education quality should be
consistent. That is, the quality of education should
consistently predict the performance of school
graduates in society.”
“What schools value and measure may not be what is
important in real life. Worse yet, what is valued in
schools may hurt what is valuable in real life” (p.73).
 Two functions: to select and to educate
 A nation’s education system, on behalf of society,
decides what talents, knowledge, and skills are useful
and what kinds are not.
 Cultivation of valuable traits and suppression of less
desirable ones
 “High stakes” testing conveys what a society values
 Tests pressure parents, teachers, and students to focus
efforts on what is tested
 Traditionally, American education is a “states’ right”
 1957: Sputnik . . . the Russians are coming!
 1964: Civil Rights Act & “War on Poverty”
 1965: Authorization of the U.S. Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
U.S. History/Background, cont.
 1983: National Commission on Excellence in Education
published “A Nation at Risk”
Outcome-based education
Standards-based education
 2001: ESEA Reauthorization: No Child Left Behind
(NCLB)
High-Stakes Testing
Accountability
Student, School, District, State Data
“Everyone --- from mayors, to business leaders, to governors, to former
and current Presidents of the United States --- now has an opinion
about how to improve public education . . . ” (U.S. Secretary of
Education Richard Riley, 2001).
NCLB = Accountability
 Required states to develop tests linked to academic standards
 Test data used to indicate if schools, and districts meet “AYP”
 In 2009, meeting AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) = 46% of students
proficient in English and 47.5% proficient in mathematics (2014 must =
100%)
 Students classified as:
Advanced
Proficient
Basic
Below Basic
Far Below Basic
More Federal Accountability
 Title III Limited English Proficient LEP Grant
 Schools and Districts must meet 3 AMAOs (Annual
Measurable Achievement Objectives):
1. Specified % of English Learners making annual
progress in learning English
2. Specified % of English Learners attaining proficiency
on the CELDT (California English Language
Development Test)
3. Meeting AYP requirements for English Learner
subgroup in the school or district
State Accountability
 API (Academic Performance Indicator) calculated on
growth: how many students a school or district moves
toward proficiency
(Moving students from far below basic and below basic
counts more toward improving your API)
 Statewide and “similar schools” rank
 20??: Reauthorization of ESEA: “A Blueprint for
Reform”
 Accountability – may be less punitive
 High-Stakes Testing
 Student, School, District, State Data
 2006 - Premier Wen Jiabao meets with high-level
government officials in charge of education.
 Chinese president and Communist Party leader Hu
Jintao : “Presently our nation’s overall science and
technology development remains significantly behind
advanced nations in the world and cannot support our
nation’s social and economical development” (Zhao, p.
68).
 2,000 Chinese companies owned patents to the
products they produced; that number represents less
than 0.003 percent of all Chinese companies that year
(2005).
 Products worth billions of dollars made in China, they
are not made by China. For example, only the four
wheels and one battery on the Hyundai automobile
produced at the Hyundai plant in Beijing are made by
China (Zhao, 2009).
 Lu Yongxiang, president of China’s Academy of
Sciences and vice chairman of the Standing
Committee of the National People’s Congress, reports
99 percent of Chinese companies did not apply for a
single patent between 1998 and 2003.
 21,519 patents originating from China granted (2005) 134,000 patents originating from US granted.
 World’s largest formal education system – reform
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developments since 1950.
In 2003 – China graduates three times as many
engineers with bachelor’s degree than US.
In 2007, student population was 300 million, an
increase of 100 million since 1985.
Illiteracy almost eliminated among 1.3 billion citizens.
79.2% high school gross enrollment rate , includes
vocational high schools (MoE, 2010).
In China and the U.S.:
 Does there seem to be urgency/priority towards
educational system improvements?
Among educators?
Among parents?
Among the public?
 Core subjects: English, Mathematics, Science, Social
Science
 Great variance in provision and delivery of other “non-
core” subjects: music, art, physical education/health,
foreign language
 Narrowing of curriculum; emphasis on high-stakes
test subjects: English & Math
 Urgency to “win-at-all-costs” attitude not only
narrowed curriculum but led to “beating the system”
. . . and even cheating
 Imperial Exam or Civil Exam, keju, with 1,300 year
history dating back to Sui dynasty (AD 581-618) to
select government officials.
 Keju - high-stakes test determined education in
China for centuries.
 Confucian classics were the core content of the keju mostly tested rote memorization or interpretations of
the classics.
 Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
and the State Council (1999). Decision to Further
Educational Systemic Reform and Promote QualityOriented Education
 Encourage secondary and elementary schools to
implement their own graduation examinations
 Local governments not allowed to impose admission
rates on schools, or use admission rate as a measure of
school success. Public, parents, and students
encouraged to contribute to evaluation of schools.
 Reform school curriculum and diversify textbooks
 Ministry of Education policy (2001) focused on
curriculum reform
 New curriculum standards to replace national syllabus
 Flexibility at the school level and more choices for
students
 Publishers may publish textbooks aligned to curriculum
standards, ending 50-year monopoly of People’s
Education Press (formerly branch of ministry)
 Grant local government freedom to choose textbooks
 Ministry of Education (2010) – Medium and long-term
National Educational Reform and Development Plan
 Education is the national priority of country’s
developmental programs.
 In 2008, 3.48% of gross domestic product (GDP) spent
on education compared to world average level of 4.5%.
Plan to steadily increase of GDP spending to 4.0% by
2012.
 Ministry of Education (2010) – Medium and long-term
National Educational Reform and Development Plan
 Enhance the quality of nine-year free, compulsory
education
 Promote equity and fairness: urban v. rural, border
areas, ethnic minority areas, poverty-stricken areas,
vocational studies, promotion of higher education
 Improve quality of teachers
 Strengthen management, evaluation, and assessment of
teachers
In China and the U.S.:
1. How do test scores get reported? How do schools use
data to improve?
2. How is progress communicated to citizens? Do they
care? Are they aware?
3. What is public reaction to world rank? School ranks
within regions? What data are used to determine
school rank in regions?
 Made U.S. education more accountable for ALL
students
 Has increased exclusionary practices:
1. Assumed all students must meet the same standards
(i.e. special education)
2. Fails to recognize individual differences, talents,
and achievements (i.e. good test-taker vs. great artist)
3. Promotes a culture that blames, stigmatizes, and
excludes students and teachers
4. Establishes mechanisms that all but guarantee
segregation, retention, and dropping out of school
 The keju effect on scientific and technological
innovation after the 15th century
 1905 – emperor issues order to stop all forms of the
keju exams
 National College Entrance Exam (gaokao) as powerful
as keju. College degree for social and geographic
mobility.
 “One exam determines your whole life.”
 First college entrance exam after Cultural Revolution
(1977-1978) – 400,000 out of 11 million admitted to
college (29:1 admission ratio).
 In 2007, 9.5 million took college entry exam; about 6
million admitted (1.9:1 or nearly 60% of test-takers
admitted to higher education).
 Chinese Ministry of Education (1997) - then the
Chinese National Education Commission – issues
policy against a test-oriented education.
 Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
and the State Council (1999). Decision to Further
Educational Systemic Reform and Promote QualityOriented Education.
 Abolish entrance exam for middle school
 New approaches for evaluating and assessing schools,
teachers, and students consistent with quality education
 Reform college entrance exam and admissions –
assessing overall abilities and qualities
 Allow local governments’ experiments with college
admissions and exam systems. Colleges with autonomy
in admission decisions.
 Allowed 68 out of 2,000 universities (2008) – to admit
5% of the freshman class using criteria other than, or
in addition to, the college entrance exam on an
experimental basis.
 Three core subjects: Chinese language and literature,
English, and mathematics (plus subjects decided by
the provinces).
 Ministry of Education (2010) – Medium and Long-Term
National Educational Reform and Development Plan
 Change old teaching philosophy, reform teaching
materials and methodologies
 Reform National College Entrance Exam – relieve heavy
burden on students
 Reduce homework burdens
 Abandon idea of one nation-one syllabus
In China and the U.S.:
What is the role of testing?
 Is there a high stakes exam?
 Is testing used to sort citizens?
 Does test contribute to social mobility?
 Is test connected to a centralized curriculum?
Can U.S. promote talent and creativity while improving
student achievement?
What the Blueprint for Reform (Reauthorization of
ESEA) proposes:
 Improving teacher and principal effectiveness
 Providing information to families to help them
evaluate and improve their children’s schools
 Implementing college- and career-ready standards
 Improving student learning and achievement in
America’s lowest-performing schools by providing
intensive support and effective interventions
The lowest-performing schools will:
1.
Replace the principal and re-hire no more than
50% of staff (Turnaround Model)
2. Convert/close a school and re-open under a
charter school operator or education
management organization
(Restart Model)
3. Close a school and enroll those students in a
higher achieving school in the district (School
Closure Model)
4. Replace the principal, institute instructional
reform, increase learning time and create
community-oriented schools, provide operational
flexibility and sustained support (Transformation
Model)
 Closing the creativity gap
 Closing the achievement gap
 Teacher professional development
 Intense pressures on children: unhealthy competition,
physical/mental health
 Measuring ability and success
 How are the public, parent, and student involved
in assessing/evaluating schools?
 What are the measures of success? What are the
measures of a quality education? Are there other
measures that should be considered?
 To what extent is there a relationship, or a belief,
that a high or low test score will determine one’s
place in life?