Standardised testing in American schools: lessons from Matthew Arnold's Britain

Contemporary Review, Oct, 2004 by Brendan Rapple

IN the US most states and school districts mandate testing programmes in order to assess pupils' academic attainment at both the primary and secondary levels. Since the signing into law by President Bush in 2002 of the No Child Left Behind Act, testing of pupils will dramatically increase. One of the most important principles of the Act, that of accountability for results, involves the creation of standards in each state for what a child should know and learn in reading and math in grades three through eight. With those standards in place, student progress and achievement will be measured according to state tests designed to match those state standards and given to every child, every year.

Some of America's educational testing programmes are labelled high stakes testing if performance in them results in momentous consequences for the pupils. For example, in order to earn a high school diploma, pupils in Georgia are required to pass the Georgia High School Graduation Tests (GHSGT). In Massachusetts a prerequisite for high school graduation is passing the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). Nevada and Alabama students must pass, respectively, the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam (HSPE) and the Alabama High School Graduation Exam (AHSGE) in order to graduate. Numerous other examples might be adduced as about half of America's fifty states presently require, or have set dates to do so in the near future, that students pass an exit exam before being allowed to graduate. Of course, many might wonder why there exist so many resolute opponents of such testing. Surely, they might argue, it is reasonable to expect that pupils and teachers are accountable in some way for their performance. However, it is the method most frequently used in testing programmes that tends to be criticised rather than the principle of assessment itself. For states invariably employ standardised testing techniques to carry out the assessment, such testing more often than not employing a multiple-choice format in which pupils choose the correct answer from a number of possible options. Moreover, there is copious evidence going back decades that much standardised testing is extremely limited in what it actually assesses and that multitudes of pupils are often inadequately assessed even in that narrow sphere.

While it is unlikely that many contemporary commentators would advocate the implementation of any system of gauging the outcome of educational practices which was in any respect closely modelled on a nineteenth century Victorian system, it may be argued that a perusal of a very important precedent of educational accountability still has distinct relevance today, and, at the least, provides a different and valuable perspective on this urgent debate. 'Payment by Results', a pervasive method of accountability in English and Welsh elementary education during the second half of the nineteenth century, was a system whereby a school's governmental grant largely depended on how well pupils answered in an annual examination conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectors. The emphasis on the financial aspect of education and the necessity of accountability was in keeping with the period's pervasive Utilitarian philosophy. Certainly the Liberal MP Robert Lowe, Vice-President of the Education Department, was stereotypical of this ethos in neatly applying his political philosophy to the educational sphere: 'Hitherto we have been living under a system of bounties and protection; now we propose to have a little free trade'. It was the duty of the Government, he believed, to bestow the grant if the school were good and deny it if it were bad. On 9 May, 1862, the Revised Code, with Payment by Results its most prominent feature, was introduced, Articles 44 and 45 stipulating the amounts forfeited for failing to pass the Inspector's test:

44. Every scholar attending more than 200 times in the morning or afternoon, for whom 8s. is claimed, forfeits 2s. 8d. for failure to satisfy the inspector in reading, 2s. 8d. in writing, and 2s. 8d. in arithmetic.

45. Every scholar attending more than 24 times in the evening for whom 5s. is claimed forfeits 1s. 8d. for failure to satisfy the inspector in reading, 1s. 8d. in writing, and 1s. 8d. in arithmetic.

(s. is the abbreviation for shillings and d. is the abbreviation for pence--2s 8d equal about 13 new pence in the modern British currency; at the time 2s 8d was about one third of a week's wage for the average agricultural labourer.)

There were six standards in which pupils could be examined, an important proviso being that a child, whether passing or failing the first time, could not be examined again in the same or a lower standard. Though changes were frequently made in details of the annual Codes over the thirty-five year history of Payment by Results, the underlying principle of the system persevered, with governmental grants continuing to be viewed essentially as a reward for results attained.

The new system of Payment by Results instituted what was in effect merit pay for teachers. As the school managers often gave the teacher a small set salary and also paid him a fixed percentage of the grant gained, it was understandable that the teacher strove to secure as many passes as possible. Consequently, all too often the educational well-being of pupils became secondary to the teachers' own livelihoods. Matthew Arnold, perhaps the most famous of Her Majesty's Inspectors, observed: 'No doubt it is a good thing for the scholar to be examined.... But the question is--Is it a good thing to make the scholar's success in his examination the sole measure of the payment of those who educate him?' Many teachers emphasised pedagogy which would result in the greatest number of passes and concentrated on those pupils who had most likelihood of gaining the full grant. Not surprisingly many stuffed their charges' minds with such facts likely to be sought by the Inspectors, the best method being by unthinking repetition. Arnold in his 1869 Inspectoral Report aptly stated that 'admitting the stimulus of the test examination to be salutary, we may therefore yet say that when it is over-employed it has two faults: it tends to make the instruction mechanical, and to set a bar to duly extending it'. Though the promulgators of Payment by Results insisted that they had merely established an essential minimum to be attained by children with no intention to limit the subjects taught, in practice the basic subjects prescribed for the grant were regarded as the maximum to be aimed at. As Thomas Huxley observed in his Science and Education in 1893: 'the Revised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to leave off teaching anything; but, by the very simple process of refusing to pay for many kinds of teaching, it has practically put an end to them'.