RE: Testing and the Aim of Education

["Ivan Webb" <Ivan.Webb@bigpond.com>]

The Aim of Testing (in education) is to discover what to do next. Most large
sale testing is not well designed nor well managed to achieve this aim.

For example, it is usually based on the (unconscious) assumption that
education and schooling can be treated as if they are the same thing. This
is a very brave generalisation indeed especially when it includes believing
that

assessing specific performance
	= assessing (school) learning
	= assessing (school) teaching
	= assessing education.

This leads to hopes and beliefs that testing will reveal the "good guys and
bad guys" in terms of schools and teachers. Perhaps this is where we might
discover "what to do next" (rewards and punishments, aka accountability ??).

The current arrangements for most testing in education are usually based on
the opposite of what Dr Deming advocated, viz, they violate virtually all
his 14 points, etc.  In fact the longevity of most practices in testing in
education is a kind of perpetual hope for "instant pudding".

And then there is the fact that most 'system' initiatives based on testing
are really tampering, eg, mandating specific hours per week for literacy and
numeracy for all students because some students are not doing so well. This
ignores the fact that in any system cause and effect can be remote from each
other in time and place. [Note: if this latter proposition is true in a
mechanical production systems how much more might it apply to something as
complex as education. Just consider how difficult it is to draw a meaningful
boundary around education in order to define inputs, outputs....]

The present testing arrangements are so often costly and largely
unproductive for all concerned (students, teachers, school systems,
communities,...)

As Myron Tribus often says... there is a simple answer to every question and
it is usually wrong. More testing is often seen as a simple solution to what
is actually a very complex problem.

Ivan Webb