Using Assessment to Drive the Reform of Schooling: Time to Stop Pursuing the Chimera?

ABSTRACT Internationally, over the last 20–30 years, changing the procedures and processes of assessment has come to be seen, by many educators as well as policy-makers, as a way to frame the curriculum and drive the reform of schooling. Such developments have often been manifested in large scale, high stakes testing programmes. At the same time educational arguments have been made about the need to provide students with good quality formative feedback, and informative reports about what they have achieved. The chimera of a perfectly integrated and functioning curriculum and assessment system has been pursued, but such ambition far outstretches systemic capacity; it is neither feasible nor desirable. The national testing and examination system in England is an exemplar case. As national results have improved, much evidence suggests that, if anything, actual standards of achievement are falling, and grade inflation is undermining public confidence in the whole system. The paper will review these issues and tensions, and argue that a different model for developing curriculum and assessment is urgently needed. Keywords: assessmentschool reformexamination resultsEngland Notes 1 Earlier versions of this article were presented as a keynote speech to the New Zealand Association for Research in Education (NZARE) annual conference, University of Auckland, December 2010; the British Educational Studies Association (BESA) annual conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, July 2011; and as a paper to the British Educational Research Association (BERA) annual conference, London Institute of Education, September 2011. 2 General Certificate of Education – Ordinary Level; GCE Advanced Level was and still is taken at around 18+ to qualify for entry to university. 3 Certificate of Secondary Education. 4 i.e. the equivalent of five GCSEs at grades A*–C: the top GCSE grades of A*–C are officially accepted as the equivalent of the old O-level passes; the percentage of students gaining at least five A*–Cs is the officially and commonly accepted measure of a good secondary education; the percentage of students gaining at least five A*–Gs (the full range of grades) is the officially and commonly accepted measure of a minimally satisfactory secondary education.