Drawing on international test data, a new book suggests that the key to improving a country’s … [+]
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A new book draws on international test data to suggest that a content-rich curriculum, national tests, and explicit instruction are the keys to boosting student achievement and increasing educational equity.
Every few years, scores from international tests are released, and countries rejoice or bemoan their ranking—or, as in the United States these days, heave a collective shrug. On the tests called the PISA—given to over 700,000 15-year-olds in 79 countries and economies—American students’ performance has remained mediocre and static. They’ve moved up a bit in the rankings only because some other countries have declined.
After the first administration of the PISA in 2000, Finland’s top ranking turned it into a beacon of hope for other countries, including the U.S. So-called “edutourists” flocked to the country in hopes of discovering its secret education sauce. American educators, steeped in “progressive” pedagogical theory, admired what they saw: a decentralized system with little testing, teacher autonomy, and “student-centered” learning—an approach emphasizing student inquiry or discovery over explicit teaching. Finland seemed to offer proof that the policies progressive educators had long been advocating were the ones that worked.
But in 2006, Finland’s PISA scores began a steady and significant decline. And some have pointed out that there’s a time lag between the adoption of education policy and the performance of 15-year-olds on tests. The true cause of Finland’s stellar performance in 2000, they say, was the approach that had been in effect until the mid-1990s: a highly centralized system with a lot of explicit instruction by teachers. Perhaps the country’s newer, more progressive approach was a factor in its recent decline rather than its previous success.
This possibility—along with others that challenge educational orthodoxy—is reinforced in a new, freely downloadable book that is the brainchild of Nuno Crato, a Portuguese statistics professor and former education minister. He solicited chapters from education experts in ten countries, asking them to analyze their own countries’ results on the most recent PISA administration in 2018 and connect them to changes in education policy. The result, Improving a Country’s Education, goes far beyond superficial “edutourism” and offers some real insights. (I will be moderating a free webinar on Thursday, December 3 at 11:00 EST with Crato and seven of the book’s contributing authors.)
One little-noticed result of the 2018 PISA, at least in the U.S., was the emergence of Estonia as the new Finland. The country came out at or near the top on all three subjects—math, reading, and science—and has done relatively well in narrowing the test-score gaps between socioeconomic groups. Not only that, it spends about 30% less on education than other countries. So: what’s the secret?
In her chapter, Estonian education expert Gunda Tire explains that the country has a demanding curriculum specifying what students should know and be able to do, combined with autonomy at the individual school level and a culture that encourages self-criticism and continuous improvement. But in addition, as Crato notes in his introduction to the book, Estonian teachers have been more likely to engage in explicit instruction than those in other countries. Crato also brings in data from a PISA survey in 2015 showing that teacher-led instruction was correlated with higher science scores, while student-centered approaches—for example, allowing students to design their own experiments—were correlated with lower ones.
As Crato notes, it’s not that teacher-directed instruction is always best. But there’s quite a bit of evidence that it’s far more efficient when students have little preexisting knowledge about a topic. And it seems to work better for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, which could help explain Estonia’s success in enabling students with those backgrounds to do relatively well on the PISA.
And yet, in 2014 Estonia adopted new education policies that included a shift to “student-centered learning,” among other things. It’s not clear why the country would change an approach that seems to be working. But the shift could lead to Estonia becoming the new Finland in another sense: its performance—and impressive record on equity—may decline as a result.
Of course, there’s no single factor that can be responsible for something as complex as success in educating students from diverse backgrounds. One instance of that is the national standardized testing, which is generally seen as a major impetus to achievement. In her chapter, Spanish education expert Montse Gomendio argues that the lack of national tests in that country has led to serious inequity: struggling students can’t be identified and given remediation, and the result is a huge number of students who are forced to repeat a grade because they can’t keep up with the work.
And yet, state-mandated tests in the United States have not increased equity, as American education expert Eric Hanushek points out in his chapter. American students who are struggling may be identified by the tests, but most don’t get effective remediation—and many are promoted despite their inability to do grade-level work. The result are classrooms full of students performing at wildly different levels—or, in some cases, at a uniform low level—and high school graduates who lack the knowledge and skills that will enable them to thrive.
Perhaps the lesson of the American experience is that—as Crato says in his introduction—“everything starts with curriculum.” Tests won’t accomplish much without a content-rich, rigorous curriculum in place—and pedagogical approaches that are tailored to the knowledge and skills of students. In his chapter, Hanushek catalogues the major education policy changes that the United States has undertaken in the last few decades—spending far more money, expanding school choice, instituting test-based accountability—and concludes none have made a difference.
Maybe, guided by an informed perspective on data from the PISA and other international tests, it’s time to start looking at two areas that education reformers have avoided: what is being taught in American classrooms, and how it’s being delivered.
