Is testing good for education?

This post was first published on the Centre for Education Economics website. 

I blogged recently about a new RISE working paper by Annika Bergbauer, Eric Hanushek, and Ludger Woessmann, which finds that:

“standardized external comparisons, both school-based and student-based, is associated with improvements in student achievement.”

William Smith pointed me to his rebuttal blog written with Manos Antoninis, which argues that there are “multiple weaknesses in their analysis that undermine their conclusions”.

This blog is my attempt to make sense of the disagreement. The main issue appears to me to be a misunderstanding by Antoninis & Smith (“AS” from here on) of the mechanism proposed by Bergbauer, Hanushek, and Woessmann (BHW). AS presume that the main mechanism through which testing is hypothesised to improve outcomes is through school choice (allowing parents to shift their students to schools with better test scores) or through punitive government accountability for teachers and schools. But BHW make it clear that their main focus is on the principal-agent relationship between parents as the principal and both students and teachers as their agents. Parents can’t observe the effort made by students and teachers, but standardized testing can provide them with a proxy indicator for effort. This should induce greater effort from both students and teachers. This proposed mechanism has nothing to do with school choice or accountability from government.

First AS argue that

“Our review of the evidence found that evaluative policies promoting school choice exacerbated disparities by further advantaging more privileged children (pp. 49-52).”

This review of the evidence in pp 49-52 of the UNESCO Global Monitoring Report focuses on policies designed to promote school choice. But that is not at all the focus of the BHW analysis, which is on policies that allow for the comparison of schools and students with the purpose of incentivising greater effort. School choice doesn’t need to have anything to do with it. As BHW write:

“That is the focus of this paper: By creating outcome information, student assessments provide a mechanism for developing better incentives to elicit increased effort by teachers and students, thereby ultimately raising student achievement levels to better approximate the desires of the parents”

Second, AS argue that

“punitive systems had unclear achievement effects but troublesome negative consequences, including removing low-performing students from the testing pool and explicit cheating (pp. 52-56).”

As mentioned above, the proposed mechanism in BHW does not at all require a punitive system. BHW write

“accountability systems that use standardized tests to compare outcomes across schools and students produce greater student outcomes. These systems tend [my emphasis] to have consequential implications and produce higher student achievement than those that simply report the results of standardized tests.”

Having said that, there are some flaws in the literature review cited by AS. This section first cites studies on four individual countries (US, Brazil, Chile, South Korea), without noting that there are significantly positive results from two of them. One of the two papers they cite on Brazil (IDados 2017) concludes that there was “a large, continuous improvement in all those years in both absolute and relative terms when compared to other municipalities in the Northeastern region and in Brazil as a whole ” and “it is very likely that [the reform] is at least partially responsible for the changes.” On Chile, a paper not cited as it was published in 2017 just after the review was completed (Murnane et al) found that “On average, student test scores increased markedly and income-based gaps in those scores declined by one-third in the five years after the passage of [the reform]”.

Next the review cites two papers (Yi 2015; Gándara and Randall (2015) that present correlational analysis with no attempt to address any potential bias from omitted variables or reverse causality. The latter study is based on a small sub-sample of the fuller data used by BHW.

Next AS take issue with the way that BHW construct their 4 categories of test usage. For ease of reference I first reproduce below the 4 categories, along with the wording of the questions that go into constructing each category.

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1. Standardized External Comparison

• “In your school, are assessments of 15-year old students used to compare the school to district or national performance?” (PISA)

• existence of national/central examinations at the lower secondary level (OECD, EAG)

• National exams (primary) (Euryadice (EACEA))

• Central exit exams end secondary (Leschnig, Schwerdt, and Zigova (2017))

2. Standardized Monitoring

• “Generally, in your school, how often are 15- year-old students assessed using standardized tests?” (PISA)

• “During the last year, have [tests or assessments of student achievement] been used to monitor the practice of teachers at your school?” (PISA)

• “In your school, are achievement data … tracked over time by an administrative authority[?]”

3. Internal testing

• whether assessments are used “to inform parents about their child’s progress.”

• use of assessments “to monitor the school’s progress from year to year.”

• “achievement data are posted publicly (e.g. in the media).” (vaguely phrased and is likely to be understood by school principals to include such practices as posting the school mean of the grade point average of a graduating cohort, derived from teacher-defined grades rather than any standardized test, at the school’s blackboard.)

4. Internal teaching monitoring

• whether assessments are used “to make judgements about teachers’ effectiveness.”

• practice of teachers is monitored through “principal or senior staff observations of lessons.”

• “observation of classes by inspectors or other persons external to the school” are used to monitor the practice of teachers.

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First, AS argue that question 3c should really fall under category 1. The effect of this question on outcomes is primarily statistically insignificant, though for Maths and Science the direction of the coefficients in the interacted model are the same as the other variables in category 1 (positive in the base model, with a negative coefficient on the interaction with initial score). Would adding this one variable to the 4 variables already in the category make the results statistically insignificant overall? I think probably not, but can’t say for sure without looking at the raw data.

Second, AS claim that question 4a should really fall under category 1 or 2. This claim seems debateable. The theoretical mechanism that BHW put forward is that providing credible information to parents induces greater effort from teachers. This use of testing is clearly internal to the school, and could clearly mean internal school assessments rather than necessarily standardized assessments that allow for external comparison with teachers at other schools.

Third, AS criticise the inclusion of high stakes student assessments as indicators, as by placing the stakes on students and not schools they do not relate to accountability from government. But this is not what BHW claimed was driving the effect.

Fourth, AS suggest the use standardized testing in grade 15 may be effectively “teaching to the test”. This seems odd to me - they clearly aren’t literally teaching to the test because it is a different test. BHW are looking at the effect of introducing high-stakes national standardized testing on student results in a totally separate, low-stakes sample-based test (PISA). AS then don’t really address the argument that “teaching to the test” can also be a positive thing if the test is well-designed and includes a good sample of the things that students are expected to have learnt.

Finally, AS focus only on those results that are statistically significant in the baseline model (estimating the average effect across all countries). However they miss a really important conclusion from the paper which is about heterogeneity. The effects of testing are largest for the weakest performing systems. This is clear in Figure 3.

Looking at the interacted model (Table A5), both of the other 2 questions in category 2 (2b and 2c) are statistically significant.

To sum up, there are weaknesses in the interpretation by AS of BHW which undermine their criticism. BHW focus on the role that testing can play in increasing the effort of students and teachers, with or without government accountability systems. In addition, the review of government accountability systems presented in the UNESCO Global Monitoring Report also has weaknesses, and presents an unduly negative picture. My prior remains that standardized testing plays a positive role, particularly in weak systems.

Thanks to Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, William Smith, and Manos Antoninis for comments on a draft of this post. This acknowledgement clearly does not imply that Smith and Antoninis agree with this post - they don’t!

The key to better education systems is accountability. So how on earth do we do that?

And what do we even actually mean when we talk about accountability?

Perhaps the key theme emerging from research on reforming education systems is accountability. But accountability means different things to different people. To start with, many think first of bottom-up (‘citizen’ or ‘social’) accountability. But increasingly in development economics, enthusiasm is waning for bottom-up social accountability as studies show limited impacts on outcomes. The implicit conclusion then is to revisit top-down (state) accountability. As Rachel Glennerster (Executive Director of J-PAL) wrote recently: 

"For years the Bank and other international agencies have sought to give the poor a voice in health, education, and infrastructure decisions through channels unrelated to politics. They have set up school committees, clinic committees, water and sanitation committees on which sit members of the local community. These members are then asked to “oversee” the work of teachers, health workers, and others. But a body of research suggests that this approach has produced disappointing results."

One striking example of this kind of research is Ben Olken’s work on infrastructure in Indonesia, which directly compared the effect of a top-down audit (which was effective) with bottom-up community monitoring (ineffective).

So what do we mean by top-down accountability for schools?

Within top-down accountability there are a range of methods by which schools and teachers could be held accountable for their performance. Three broad types stand out:

• Student test scores (whether simple averages or more sophisticated value-added models)
• Professional judgement (e.g. based on lesson observations)
• Student feedback

The Gates Foundation published a major report in 2013 on how to “Measure Effective Teaching”, concluding that each of these three types of measurement has strengths and weaknesses, and that the best teacher evaluation system should therefore combine all three: test scores, lesson observations, and student feedback.

By contrast, when it comes to holding head teachers accountable for school performance, the focus in both US policy reform and research is almost entirely on test scores. There are good reasons for this - education in the US has developed as a fundamentally local activity built on bottom up accountability, often with small and relatively autonomous school districts, with little tradition of supervision by higher levels of government. Nevertheless, as Helen Ladd, a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at Duke University and an expert in school accountability, wrote on the Brookings blog last year:

"The current test based approach to accountability is far too narrow … has led to many unintended and negative consequences. It has narrowed the curriculum, induced schools and teachers to focus on what is being tested, led to teaching to the test, induced schools to manipulate the testing pool, and in some well-publicized cases induced some school teachers and administrators to cheat. 

Now is the time to experiment with inspections for school accountability … 

Such systems have been used extensively in other countries … provide useful information to schools … disseminate information on best practices … draw attention to school activities that have the potential to generate a broader range of educational outcomes than just performance on test scores … [and] treats schools fairly by holding them accountable only for the practices under their control … 

The few studies that have focused on the single narrow measure of student test scores have found small positive effects."

A report by the US think tank “Education Sector” also highlights the value of feedback provided through inspection systems to schools.

"Like many of its American counterparts, Peterhouse Primary School in Norfolk County, England, received some bad news early in 2010. Peterhouse had failed to pass muster under its government’s school accountability scheme, and it would need to take special measures to improve. But that is where the similarity ended. As Peterhouse’s leaders worked to develop an action plan for improving, they benefited from a resource few, if any, American schools enjoy. Bundled right along with the school’s accountability rating came a 14-page narrative report on the school’s specific strengths and weaknesses in key areas, such as leadership and classroom teaching, along with a list of top-priority recommendations for tackling problems. With the report in hand, Peterhouse improved rapidly, taking only 14 months to boost its rating substantially."

In the UK, ‘Ofsted’ reports are based on a composite of several different dimensions, including test scores, but also as importantly, independent assessments of school leadership, teaching practices and support for vulnerable students.

There is a huge lack of evidence on school accountability

This blind spot on school inspections isn’t just a problem for education in the US, though. The US is also home to most of the leading researchers on education in developing countries, and that research agenda is skewed by the US policy and research context. The leading education economists don’t study inspections because there aren’t any in the places they live.

The best literature reviews in economics can often be found in the “Handbook of Economics” series and the Journal of Economic Perspectives (JEP). The Handbook article on "School Accountability" from 2011 exclusively discusses the kind of test-based accountability that is common in the US, with no mention of the kind of inspections common in Europe and other countries at all. A recent JEP symposium on Schools and Accountability includes a great article by Isaac Mbiti, a Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE) researcher, on ’The Need for Accountability in Education in Developing Countries” which includes; however, only one paragraph on school inspections. Another great resource on this topic is the 2011 World Bank book, "Making Schools Work: New Evidence on Accountability Reforms”. This 'must-read' 250-page book has only two paragraphs on school inspections.

This is in part a disciplinary point - it is mostly a blind-spot of economists. School inspections have been studied in more detail by education researchers. But economists have genuinely raised the bar in terms of using rigorous quantitative methods to study education. In total, I count 7 causal studies of the effects of inspections on learning outcomes - 3 by economists and 4 by education researchers.

Putting aside learning outcomes for a moment, one study from leading RISE researchers, Karthik Muralidharan and Jishnu Das (with Alaka Holla and Aakash Mohpal), in rural India finds that “increases in the frequency of inspections are strongly correlated with lower teacher absence”, which could be expected to lead to more learning as a result. However, no such correlation was found for other countries in a companion study (Bangladesh, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru, and Uganda).

There is also fascinating qualitative work by fellow RISE researcher, Yamini Aiyar (Director of the ‘Accountability Initiative’ and collaborator of RISE researchers Rukmini Banerji, Karthik Muralidharan, and Lant Pritchett) and co-authors, that looks into how local level education administrators view their role in the Indian state of Bihar. The most frequently used term by local officials to describe their role was a “Post Officer” - someone who simply passes messages up and down the bureaucratic chain - “a powerless cog in a large machine with little authority to take decisions." A survey of their time use found that on average a school visit lasts around one hour, with 15 minutes of that time spent in a classroom, with the rest spent “checking attendance registers, examining the mid-day meal scheme and engaging in casual conversations with headmasters and teacher colleagues … the process of school visits was reduced to a mechanical exercise of ticking boxes and collecting relevant data. Academic 'mentoring' of teachers was not part of the agenda.”

At the Education Partnerships Group (EPG) and RISE we’re hoping to help fill this policy and research gap, through nascent school evaluation reforms supported by EPG in Madhya Pradesh, India, that will be studied by the RISE India research team, and an ongoing reform project working with the government of the Western Cape in South Africa. Everything we know about education systems in developing countries suggests that they are in crisis, and that a key part of the solution is around accountability. Yet we know little about how school inspections - the main component of school accountability in most developed countries - might be more effective in poor countries. It’s time we changed that.

This post appeared first on the RISE website. 

The reductive seduction of OPP (Other people’s problems)

Courtney Martin has an interesting post at the Development Set about the “reductive seduction” of other people’s problems. Problems we know something about (gun control in America as her example for the Americans) seem complex, political, and intractable, whereas problems we know less about (rural hunger or girl’s secondary education or homophobia in Uganda) seem more straightforward.

Which reminds me a little of the difference between statements from leaders on education in their own country and in other people’s countries.

Here’s Julia Gillard on education in Australia:

"We need a commitment to transparency and accountability. It's my strong view that lack of transparency both hides failure and helps us ignore it. It feeds a culture where all the adults involved – the teachers, the principals, the community leaders and the members of parliament – avoid accountability. And lack of transparency prevents us from identifying where greater effort and investment are needed. Importantly, transparency and accountability are overwhelmingly supported by parents."

And Julia Gillard on education in developing countries:

"More money.

Constantly improving ways of working.

An even greater embrace of the power of partnership."

Gordon Brown on education in the UK

"we will focus on classroom standards, ensure that we monitor exam standards rigorously, reform the qualifications system … World class education, we know, achieves high standards for 100% of the children when there are systems of accountability, funding and pupil tracking that leave no child behind and personalised learning is tailored to the unique potential of every child with one-to-one tutoring and support. That world class education depends on a systematic intolerance of failure and a preparedness of public authorities to intervene and to innovate to eradicate failure"

And Gordon Brown on education in developing countries

"The biggest obstacle to what would be a spectacular achievement – as is so often the case – is a shortage of money."

Do Books “Work”?

It might seem obvious to some of you reading this that it might be possible to learn something from a book. But as a recent review for RISE by Paul Glewwe and Karthik Muralidharan found, researchers have actually so far failed to show rigorously that there is any improvement in test scores in developing countries after handing out textbooks to schools. There have now been four different Randomized Controlled Trials showing no improvement (and for four different reasons).

So when might books “work”? A new paper from the World Bank proclaims to answer just this question: “When Do In-service Teacher Training and Books Improve Student Achievement? Experimental Evidence from Mongolia.”

Their answer, somewhat disappointingly, seems to be “when it happens in Mongolia”. More constructively, though books alone seem to work, they work better when combined with teacher training, reinforcing Glewwe and Muralidharan’s conclusion about the importance of complementarities.

But that “there are complementarities” isn’t a very satisfying conclusion by itself. The more comprehensive hypothesis being developed for RISE by Lant Pritchett is: “when there is an accountability framework which is coherent for learning” – that is, when all of the relevant actors are held accountable for common goals through clear delegation of those goals, and have the resources to accomplish them. We’re hoping that this accountability coherency system diagnostic can be a useful tool for thinking through systematically what it is about specific contexts that mean that interventions work in some places and not others. What is it about Mongolia which means that providing books alone can be enough, in contrast to those other studies in Kenya and Sierra Leone? It just might be a coherent accountability system.

This post was first published on the RISE blog

Innovative education financing modalities from 1862

Apparently payment by results isn’t quite so new.

"The reference here is to England’s Payment by Results school reform of 1862. According to the Revised code of the Department of Education in Britain in 1862, capitation grants to schools were reduced and payments were made to school on the basis of students passing on-site examinations given by inspectors in reading, writing and arithmetic. There has been much debate among historians about what the payment for results reform really accomplished. Mitch (2010) looks at educational performance across British counties over the 30 years of the policy and shows that during this time, inequalities across counties declined. But in the absence of data on trends prior to the reform, it is hard to establish whether this was a consequence of the reforms. In contrast, the quote here paraphrases Matthew Arnold, a poet and school inspector who returns from a trip to France and notes: “I find in English schools…..a deadness, a slackness and a discouragement….This change is certainly to be attributed to the `Payment by Results’ school legislation of 1862.”(Great Britain Privy Council 1868, Page 290)."

From a new paper by Andrabi, Das, & Khwaja