By JOHN RICHARD SCHROCK
I am receiving many complaints from veteran secondary teachers, including my former student teachers and other colleagues. They are being ordered to use a grading scale that greatly inflates grades. Some schools are ending recognition of high academic performance by eliminating valedictorians. And a growing number of universities are discarding the use of the ACT or SAT in admission decisions.
The “equal-interval” and related grading scales allow a student who knows nothing and guesses on a multiple choice test to get a “C” grade or better. This Ed School invention forced by administrators on teachers fulfills their goal of hiding the learning loss during the pandemic. But it is a violation of teachers’ professional decision-making. It will rapidly result in the loss of more of our best teachers and the production of Lake Wobegone students “where everyone is above average.”
But the average American students have already dropped to the bottom of developed nations in international test comparisons. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that evaluates educational systems based on 15-year-old student performance in mathematics, science, and reading tested every three years. In the 2011 math tests, the top scores went to Shanghai, China (75.2) followed by Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Finland, Taiwan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Japan and Canada (49.5). The U.S. score was 32.2.
Much of the motivation for many students comes from wanting to score high on their national high-school leaving exam (or college entrance exam). This is a driving force worldwide. But in the U.S., we have begun a major withdrawal from this motivator.
The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) certifies academic achievement in particular subjects in England and many Commonwealth countries. Other countries exams include: South Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), Taiwan’s General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT) or Joint College Entrance Examination (JCEE), Japan’s National Center Test for University Admissions, and India’s many regional tests including the Joint Entrance Examination (engineering) and Common Law Admission Test (CLAT), etc. China’s National College Entrance Examination or gaokao is the most massive, and graduating seniors are often instructed to stop classwork and focus on memorizing all of their recent years of notes.
In the United States, with the 2001 establishment of No Child Left Behind regulations, each state was required to establish state assessments which are achievement tests. They are heavily based on memorization. Teachers consult prior year test questions and then teach-to-the-tests. The result was that state assessment scores generally went up.
Aptitude testing focuses on the ability to solve new problems. This does not exclude knowledge already learned or memorized, but requires the ability to apply a general concept to a new situation. In the U.S. the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is a congressionally-mandated set of assessments in various subjects administered at grades 4, 8 and 12 by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It contains questions requiring original problem-solving. So does the ACT assessment that measures secondary students' general educational development in four areas: English, mathematics, reading, and science. Because U.S. teachers were under pressure to show increases in state assessment scores on achievement tests by teaching-to-the-test, their achievement test scores went up but their NAEP and ACT scores went down.
The SAT was originally named the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test and now simply the SAT, having moved over time from an aptitude test to an achievement test where teachers can teach-to-the-test. This 20-year re-focus on measured uniform outcomes in the U.S. has resulted in a major shift from teaching involving practicing students in questioning and problem solving to teach-to-the-test memorization, a significant factor in the U.S. decline in PISA scores.
If a student is no longer recognized for his/her study ethic, and students can get a “C” for knowing nothing, then why study? Other countries are keeping their gateway tests, and their best will enter higher education. The U.S. is ignoring grading based on merit and is heading for third world status.
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John Richard Schrock has trained biology teachers for more than 30 years in Kansas. He also has lectured at 27 universities during 20 trips to China. He holds the distinction of “Faculty Emeritus” at Emporia State University.