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An analysis of teaching standards in all 50 states to better understand whether states incorporate culturally responsive teaching.

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Gloria Ladson-Billings - Critical Race Theory

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Getting Started With Trauma-Informed Practices

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1. Introduction

The Malaysian education philosophy aims to develop the potential of individuals in a holistic and integrated manner so as to produce individuals who are intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and physically well adjusted. Within this, policy also highlights that education contributes to developing pupils who are knowledgeable and competent, having high moral standards towards personal well-being, and who are responsible members of their family, society and the nation at large. Additionally, the Malaysian government has consistently initiated and moved to implement efforts to reflect growing global expectations of national educational systems (Ministry of Education, 2003) .

A major element of Malaysian Government policy have been statements to reform national education to broaden opportunity towards fostering national unity and to support economic growth. Poverty reductions among citizenry and expanding opportunities and choices for students are a key area of these policies. In general, education is accepted by Malaysians as offering opportunity for upward mobility and the chance for a better life for their children; government efforts towards this provision are supported at the family level by most parents.

Large capital investment in educational infrastructure, supported by substantial recurrent expenditure since the 1970's, illustrates the government's commitment to education as a prime contributor to national development. Various programs have been implemented to meet the challenges of educational equity, curricular relevance, and the promotion of pre-school education.

The government also recognizes the presence of three types of curriculum in school environments. Firstly, the written curriculum is the knowledge, skills, and values that form the core of content, outlining what is to be taught by teachers. Secondly, the taught curriculum defines what is taught in the classroom including acquired knowledge, skills developed, and values inculcated in students. Thirdly, the examined curriculum is the knowledge, skills, and values that are tested, either in summative or in national stage examinations―the UPSR, PMR, and SPM (MOE, 2012) . The written curriculum gives school management the flexibility to use local judgment and creativity to plan teaching; from this, ability grouping has emerged as a preferred organizational strategy.

Various programs were also implemented to meet challenges with respect to educational quality, curriculum relevance and the promotion of pre-school education. Under the school based management policy, more schools are given certain level of authority to plan and decide how the instructions from the ministry will be implemented. Streaming of students is one example that describes that scenario. Streaming in this study refers to ability grouping to place students in particular classes. This streaming is usually based on the students' yearly summative assessments. Thus, it has become common practice in many schools around the country to group students into classes based on their academic performance as a management strategy.

Streaming Practices

Streaming refers to the act of grouping students into classes based on their intellectual and/or academic endeavors in this study (Macqueen, 2008; Kumar, 2004) . In this study, streaming refers to permanent ability grouping for the whole year, based on the students' previous year end exam results. The students who are grouped such ways usually remain in the particular groups till the end of the primary school years, or they might change classes depending on their next year-end assessment. Macqueen, in her study describes the term "streaming" as the practice of allocating students to homogenous achievement classes based on some measure of each student's overall academic performance. She further added that such practices became a popular method of allocating students to classes in larger schools after the introduction of standardized testing in the 1920s. However she also stressed that the practice can be traced back to the 1800s.

Streaming has long been associated with disadvantaging students in lower ability groups since its inception following the 1931 Primary School Report (Ollerton, 2002) . Streaming is also associated with exclusive labelling in academic and social terms (Kulik, 1992) . Statistics consistently produce strong disparity in attainment scores between one "high ability" group and 'lower ability' groups where by lower ability groups usually score poorly in the Primary School Achievement Test (MOE, 2012) . Further, streaming has been found to produce different affect towards students' academic achievement and to a certain extent mentioned as being unjust (Kilgour, 2007; Liu, 2009; Marks, 2011; Page, 2001; Pare, 2004; Rudowicz, 2003; Smith, 2011; Md Nor et al., 1998; Dukmak, 2009; Adam Gamoran, 1995) . Based on our experiences, both as practitioners as well as researchers, we have personally encounter how streaming has actually produced annually one high ability group and about two to three lower ability groups in a particular school.

Most primary schools in Malaysia practice streaming beginning from the time students come into the school in their Year One, which is after a month or two in their Year 1, students are assessed and grouped into classes. This move is practiced by most schools as their strategy to create the best learning experience for the students according to their ability. Today, such streaming has become very popular and widely used although there are voice against the decision to do so. Debates on the benefits and disadvantages of streaming have never put to rest and the researchers have continued to study the practice because they believe it has great impact on the students' outcome.

In the Malaysian context, streaming students in their first year on exams conducted in the second month is an impossible challenge to students who have had no pre- schooling, and this does not reflect the National Philosophy democratically. However, the streaming philosophy cannot be dismissed considering the benefits of readiness for collaborative work, focused lesson planning per specific group learning, and associated learning motivation.

The purpose of this research into streaming (or "ability grouping") is to present identify benefits and disadvantages of streaming practices particularly in the Malaysian Primary school context. The aim is to look at teacher and student perspectives to assess and determine how streaming helps or hinders improvements in teaching and learning in experiential terms from the unique context of the Malaysian Primary setting.

2. Methodology

The research adopts a qualitative research approach to accommodate the researcher as the primary instrument for data collection and data analysis (Merriam, 2007) , being able to engage responsively in adaptive ways fitting the social and experiential nature of the research aims. Semi-structured interviews supported by questionnaire with interview formed the data gathering method. Validity and reliability checks involved member checks, peer review and documents from audit trails.

The findings of the study comprise the opinions of the participants from three Primary schools located in a suburban area chosen for accessibility to the sample population. From each school, respondents were selected by role to include one teacher of English, the "Head of Panel" for English (Subject head), one school senior assistant for Curriculum, and 10 students (five from each ability group). The 10 students from each school were selected from 2 different group―high ability and low ability. Overall, a total of 9 teachers' and 30 students were interviewed.

A set of semi-structured questionnaire were used to obtain information about the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, personality, and behavioral intentions of the research participants. Interviews were conducted to gain a review of the teacher's perception of his/her lesson in terms of strengths and weaknesses. All interviews were videotaped in order to assist the researcher in review and validity, to avoid misinterpretation. Their opinion on the subject has been grouped according to the research questions (themes) and presented as below:

1) Benefits of streaming

2) Disadvantages of streaming

Fictitious name are used to represent teachers, whilst students are labelled as Lily 1 to 30.

3. Findings

3.1. The Benefits of Streaming

Overall, streaming implementation in schools is seen beneficially, sourced from the various perspectives in this study. In general, the senior assistants view streaming as a school management strategy that supports a good quality education in line with the school objective. English panel heads and the teachers find it to be a systematic approach that enable them perform well as effective teachers.

All three interviewees were of the opinion that streaming had advantages in the teaching and learning process. A number of reasons were given including lesson preparation that focused group needs of streamed groups that have been streamed as opposed to unstreamed mixed ability groups. Responses given include the following:

....the first thing I always do when I am given a new class is try to understand the students in a few different aspects.... past result, ability to interact, vocabulary and any other information related to their ability... it will give rough idea on what would be best for them.... even the material I relate to them during lesson will be a mixed idea about what they know... usually students of a particular group have particular interest.... this will allow me plan lessons with elements that will interest the group...

Daffodil

...streaming is our way to group students according to their capability... we believe different capability would mean the students have different need... training them according to their strength and weakness will enable them to construct knowledge effectively...

Rose

The curriculum requires teachers to move towards student centered learning from the traditional teacher centered learning... However we still use both in our teaching... Actually the 4M students are exposed to student centered learning... whereas 4R students require more direct instructions... which is very much teacher centered learning... Streaming has made teachers more prepared to teach effectively... Teachers become more skillful in handling a particular group of students in the time allocated in the time table...

Sunflower

Although generally, there was a common opinion that moves towards streaming were good, Daffodil also raised concern show 4R students would learn at a slower phase. However, she added that streaming has helped her to be more prepared for the two classes as she planned lessons according to needs. Her response was as follows:

4M students have better command of English language compared to 4R... so 4M students perform better and usually have greater expectations... So I also give 4M students projects and homework that are more challenging that meet their need... task that trigger higher thinking order is given here... but when I teach 4R, I will have to give more instructions and more examples to them so that they are able to respond well to my teaching... a little time consuming at times... but as they catch up the time factor could be improved...

Daffodil

From a management point of view, Gladiolus pointed out that streaming had been a "holistic" approach for the school in improving educational standards and educating processes. According to her, since streaming began, management had been able to formulate correct ideas and approaches to improve educational standards by providing the necessary learning opportunities and experiences effective to the differently streamed groups. This practice, in her perspective, has become favorable to the school towards achieving the desired progress over a number of years. In terms of improving educational processes, Gladiolus claims that streaming students in different groups created equal opportunity for all classes of students to participate in class and co-curriculum activities.

We could actually target better results in the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and achieve with high accuracy by providing the assistance and training needed by streamed classes.., we monitor instructions and lessons conducted in these classes... with years of streaming students we believe our teachers have acquired the experience to teach ability classes... but if we didn't group them we can't even make inference to plan the best teaching... and in a mix group the challenges can continuously change...

Gladiolus

Coxcomb and Gladiolus had similar points of view in the way streaming helps school improve education standards. Further, Coxcomb also pointed out that streaming students helps the school plan remedial education, thus:

The school will be able to plan remedial classes for the weaker students and where the smarter students are concern... we will know how many will be able to achieve the school target... at the end of the day its results that is seen... Actually because of streaming the school will be more alert on what is happening academically... the group of classes are some way or other a fraction to tell us the rate of success and failure earlier... More like a forecast.

Coxcomb

Aster pointed out that streaming students has allowed the school to be able to manage its resources more effectively. According to Aster the school allocates special funds to buy specific reading materials and work books to equip students with the necessary, personalized support because the type and quantity of support materials are determined based on varying group needs. In this way, the material for the higher ability group usually differs from the lower ability group.

Planning is a very important due to the limited resources we have in government schools... it is best we stream students and understand their collective needs. Even the reading and workbooks we provide them is based on the group needs. Even teachers have different expertise and capabilities... Understanding of mother tongue will be helpful in teaching the weaker class... its productive for the management to achieve the desired result...

Aster

Almost all 4 M students come from well to do families, ...their parents always follow up with the children's progress and give the necessary support... including materials, tuitions... but the 4R students are not lucky in that sense. Whatever the school provides is what they get... we try our best to arrange whatever is within our reach and provide based on their need...

Gerbera

All the interviewees generally agreed that there are various advantages in streaming for teachers, students and the school. Their statements were contrasted and compared with student interviews. The higher ability students' statements seem to indicate that being in a streamed class is a positive and beneficial idea. Their responses are as follows:

We are proud to be in 4M... friends... parents always tell I must be in best class...

Lily 1

Teachers and friends will say I am smart. My parents happy... will buy gifts for me...

Lily 2

My class is the best class and only the good students study in this class.

Lily 3

Usually only students from our class score lots of As' in exams...

Lily 4

3.2. Disadvantages of Streaming

Segregating students and categorizing them based on academic performance had a number of common complaints voiced by the teachers. The most common reason given was that the better performing 4M class, had advantages over the weaker 4R class who always needed more time and help. In response to the question, "What were the disadvantages of practicing streaming in school?" teachers constantly voiced concerns on the issue of students' behavioral issues. Some of the responses are quoted below:

Our intension is clear... streaming is to teach students based on ability level and provide necessary support but there are always other challenges we have to face due to streaming. There is always complaints from parents that a double standard practice... teachers are accused of paying less attention to the lower ability groups...

Hibiscus

Parents, especially of the lower ability group are quite quick at attacking the school... a common accusation is school is concentrating on the higher ability groups only to achieve more number of straight As'... but this is very untrue... that is never our intention... sadly many parents of these children don't monitor their children's at home... but when results are out... they are quick to blame teachers and this grouping practices...

Rose

Complaints are always there from lower ability group parents... some would approach us to place their children in the higher ability group... we try to explain that streaming is done to help their children and not penalize them for achieving lesser in exams. Placing them in low ability group will allow them to get the extra help they need.

Sunflower

Challenges that schools face from certain parents because of implementing streaming is an ongoing issue, however, streaming is practiced by schools because they believe it is the best strategy to effect positive teaching practice. This said, all three interviewees agreed that streaming does create a poor impression for students in lower streamed groups. Following are some of the opinions given:

Many students in the low ability group exhibit low self-esteem and motivation. Some feel that only the smarter classes or higher ability group are capable in studies and don't make to improve in their studies... just because they are sitting in the lower ability classes...

Daffodil

Student will always compare each other. We try to motivate the lower ability group to do better by asking them to study hard and get promoted to higher ability classes, but some students in the lower ability look at this negatively... they think they belong to the lower ability group because they are there too long and never got a chance to enter a higher ability group...and lost self-confidence.

Coxcomb

Streaming is not a branding process... it is not to group the cream among the cream and dump the poorly performing students... but students in the lower ability group have the tendency to mix within their group and behave antisocial towards the higher ability group...

Gladiolus

Teachers' opinion seems to be supported by student statements. Lower ability group students' statement regarding perceptions of the 4M classes indicates low confidence and lack of motivation. Streaming has made many of the lower ability group feel inferior and damaged their confidence to excel academically. Following are some of the opinion of the lower ability class students:

My parents and teachers always ask me to study hard to get chance to study in 4 M... I can't... very difficult... 4 M students very clever...

Maple 1

I can't study like them... they go for tuition...

Maple 2

Teacher always choose 4M students because they are clever.

Maple 3

Our class students don't go to 4M class... the students there don't like to mix with us...

Maple 4

I tried to study... but not as good as them... 4M students always best...

Maple 5

These statements seem to suggest that lower ability students' fail to get peer support from higher ability students. If motivation and self-esteem has been damaged, opportunities for lower ability groups will continuously decrease. Streaming is also expressed as an antisocial tool that doesn't encourage students to mix, which does not reflect the expectations of real life situations that involve socialization that don't recognize ability. Following are some of the comments given by the teachers:

It is a sad scenario to see children study in the same school yet don't mix around freely... although it's not the school's intention to do so... but I have to see that it is like a side effect of streaming...

Aster

It is normal for students to have their own circle of friends... what more when they study and spend time together at least 6 hours a day... so when they are streamed according to a certain group, they don't really get a chance to mix around... smart one's with only the smart ones and weak ones with only the weak ones.

Calla

We are aware that students tend to keep within their class. Recess is the time they meet... as teachers, we do try to balance by creating opportunities for all the student to mix around without limiting themselves to only their classmates... like during co curriculum activities... but the time for this is limited...

Gerbera

During class observation, it is obvious the teacher's teaching is distracted due to attending discipline problems. This is a challenge the teacher had to face in the main in lower ability groups. It seemed like these challenges are related to streaming. Following are the teacher's statement regarding this:

It is challenging to get a hundred percent attention from the lower ability group. There are many reasons for this like students poor command of language, lack of motivation... I have to agree that placing all the lower ability students in one class is a challenge teachers have to face. These problems are minimal in the higher ability group...

Coxcomb

Discipline issues are common in schools and quite obvious in the lower ability group the moment we stream these students... this sort of problem is anticipated...

Gladiolus

The teacher's opinion was supported by the finding from the students. Following are the statements of the lower ability group students;

English difficult... class noisy... students like to fight... teacher punish. Difficult to get high marks.

Maple 7

Classmates always noisy when teacher not in class...when teacher teach... they like to talk...disturb other student... quiet if teacher scold.

Maple 5

Higher ability students are reported as better behaved. Teaching went on smoothly in this class. Following are some of the opinions of the higher ability class students:

Our class students are very discipline... we don't talk when teacher is teaching... Even when teacher is not in class we have things to do...

Lily 6

Many prefects and librarians in our class... we don't fight like the weaker classes.

Lily 10

Our class is nice to study... Teachers like to teach... we also love our teachers...

Lily 11

The 4M students usually keep forwarding questions till they understand... there is always high competition there... but the 4R students will usually depend on my instruction on what to do next...

Calla

4M students have better command of English language compared to 4R... so when I teach 4R I will have to give more instructions and more examples for them to be able to respond well to my teaching... a little time consuming of course... at times they will be left behind when it comes to completing lesson as planned...

Hibiscus

The students too voice disadvantages of streaming in terms of competition in the good class and discipline problems especially in the weak class. These are some of their opinion:

High competition... all the students are smart..Sometimes argue with my classmates.

Lily 4

It was noted that teachers, when teaching English in weaker classes will resort to using Bahasa Malaysia (BM) to ensure that weaker class students understand what is being taught. Teachers too have to deal with discipline issues which were higher in the weaker class.

4. Discussions

The main finding of the study seem to evidence effects of streaming practices in the current schools' set up, a limitation is that this is restricted to English teaching, which excludes differing subject teaching approaches and syllabi.

The study suggests that streaming can be beneficial in conditions where students exhibit differing abilities in the command of language, particularly in vocabulary, sentence building, tense usage and etc. When students are placed in mixed groups, entry level ability testing is a huge challenge, even prior to the challenges of individuated lesson planning. In situations where students are placed in mixed ability groups, teachers' obligations to successfully differentiate may affect the level of engagement and motivation of both higher and lower ability students.

Streaming students into groups also seems beneficial in planning terms with respect to teacher time management. In consideration of the limited time that a teacher may have, approximately 40 minutes for each lesson, appropriate instructions according specific groups could avoid lengthy explanations that could reflect badly in the learning process.

Interestingly, in the research contexts, streaming has allowed the school to provide more personalized support to lower ability groups. The school has smaller groups of lower ability students in each class compared to larger number of students in higher ability classes. This move seems to allow teachers to give better attention and support to lower ability groups as the number of students here are comparatively low. Moreover, higher ability groups may exhibit higher independence and thus require less individuated support. Allocating more classes of lower ability groups compared to higher ability groups in this context has become a factor that contributes to making a streaming approach more efficient.

Overall students' opinions regarding the effect of streaming seem to come with mixed feeling. Higher ability students exhibit high level of self-esteem and confidence compared to the opposite in lower ability groups, both groups relate this perception to membership of the stream they belong to. Streaming has therefore contributed to inter-group comparison that works in favour of the higher ability group.

Additionally, streaming has limited the amount of peer support that lower ability students can receive if placed in a mixed-ability groups. In mixed-ability groups more able students can play a "More Knowledgeable Other" role, providing peer support for other students. In streamed classes, this peer support is not possible. From student commentary, streaming has also facilitated social mobility comparisons. Higher ability students use upward comparison to motivate themselves to improve, especially when their performance trends negatively; contrastingly, upward comparison among lower- against higher-ability groups results in many lower ability students to experience inferiority.

Social comparisons also built division among the high- and low-ability groups, illustrated most strongly in socialization preference. Lower ability groups don't feel welcome in the higher ability group classes and this felt superiority of higher ability group students is defended by them.

Another expressed disadvantage of streaming is the claim that teachers prepare easier tasks for lower ability groups. According to the teachers interviewed, less challenging tasks are prepared for lower ability groups to match their perceived needs. However, less challenging tasks can be interpreted as giving lower attention to realistic learning needs, especially in the context of year-end examinations, explaining poor performance in these examinations which implicates permanent membership to the lower ability group.

5. Conclusion

As to conclude, most of the response and finding seem to suggest that streaming is more beneficial. Although there are a few disadvantages, the respondents are quite positive that it could be overcome. Using proper strategies by understanding and manipulating the relevant factors, they believe streaming could be fine-tuned to achieve the desired outcome. However, more investigations should be carried out to analyze whether this streaming practice we have in many schools in our country is best made compulsory in all schools with the necessary improvement or taken away. Investigation should also be carried out to find out whether teachers are equipped with the skills or trained to cater for the streamed classes they are designated. At the end of the day, the education system is made to educate the people in the most educated way as to ensure that education is productive in producing the citizens with great potential and integrity, so its best standardized and clear instruction on the issue is introduced in our country.

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Benefits and Disadvantages of Streaming Practices to Accommodate Students by Ability

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Discover the benefits and drawbacks of streaming practices in Malaysian schools. This study reveals how streaming can enhance lesson planning and motivation while hindering socialization and self-esteem. Find strategies to overcome these challenges.

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Earlier this week a teacher wrote to me asking what the research says about the impact of streaming in schools. We have briefly touched on this issue in our resources on high expectation teaching, however, have never tackled it head on. Given the prevalence of some form of attainment grouping in New Zealand schools (this article touches on a number of different attainment[1] grouping practices- streaming, setting, banding and within-class grouping), exploring the research in this area seems a worthwhile undertaking[2]. For anyone concerned about educational inequality, what I uncovered in the research makes for some pretty grim reading.

Arguments for utilising some form of attainment grouping suggest that separating students into 'ability' or attainment groups enables teachers to stretch the most 'able' students and to support those who are 'struggling'. While the rationale is understandable, the evidence suggests that grouping by attainment typically exacerbates inequalities in education rather than reducing them.

Overall, the evidence demonstrates that streaming or setting has little if any overall benefit in terms of student academic outcomes. Digging a bit deeper, the research suggests that while there may be small achievement gains for higher attaining students, the impact on students in lower attaining groups is negative. The evidence on within-class attainment grouping (a practice used most frequently in primary schools) similarly suggests that there is less benefit for lower attaining students, and that within-class attainment grouping is most successful if groups regularly change, students can move between groups, and that all students have opportunities to receive high quality instruction and to engage in rigorous tasks. Recent research found that in classes that utilise some form of attainment grouping, 'low attaining learners fall behind by one or two months a year, on average, when compared with the progress of similar students in classes with mixed ability groups', and that this effect is particularly strong in mathematics where setting is most common.[3]

Streaming and setting also have been found to have a negative impact on the social and emotional outcomes of many students. Research suggests that streaming can exacerbate the effect of socio-economic background on educational achievement, thereby reinforcing already existing social disadvantage experienced by certain groups of students. Furthermore, streaming often increases racial segregation within schools and there is evidence to suggest that streaming decreases students' acceptance of racial difference and general positive interaction between racial groups. Streaming also has been shown to have a negative impact on the self-concept, confidence and motivation of students in lower streams, which in turn negatively impacts on their academic achievement and progress.

Streaming further disadvantages students from low-income families because the criteria and processes used to allocate students to different groups or streams are often problematic. In many instances, the allocation of students is not based solely on past academic achievement but also teachers' perceptions of student behaviour and previous achievement. This finding is supported by recent New Zealand research, which showed that teacher judgments about student achievement in reading and writing were systematically lower for marginalised students after controlling for standardised achievement differences.[4]

The inequality of outcomes resulting from streaming or attainment grouping in part stems from the different ways that teachers work with higher and lower streams or groups. Teachers have been found to prefer teaching and to be more motivated when teaching higher attainment groups. Furthermore, teachers' expectations of students in different groups differ significantly, which influences both the curriculum students in different groups access and the pedagogical practices teachers use. Students in lower ability groups typically receive a slower pace of instruction and less challenging work, which serves to enhance educational inequalities.

The prevalence of some form of streaming or attainment grouping in New Zealand schools can make it difficult for schools to think about whether and how to make a change. However, given the link between attainment grouping and increased educational inequalities, it is imperative that schools question their existing practices. The questions below may help to start the conversation in schools about the practice and impact of attainment grouping.

1. Why do you use attainment groups? Do student outcomes (broadly conceptualised) suggest that your reasons for attainment grouping are justified?

2. What does student achievement data show about the progress and attainment of students in different groups?

3. Have you collected student voice to understand how grouping practices impact on the social and emotional learning and attitudes to learning of all students?

4. How do teacher perceptions and expectations, pedagogical practices, and rigour of the curriculum differ when teaching different groups of students? How do you know this?

5. How do you currently allocate students to groups? Have you assessed whether your grouping criteria could disadvantage certain students?

6. How flexible are you in your grouping arrangements?

[1] Attainment is used rather than ability due to the literature suggesting that schools often confuse current (or recent) educational attainment with a notion of innate potential academic 'ability'.

[2] This article has drawn on a range of research studies to inform the arguments made. See in particular: Higgins, S. et al. (2015). The Sutton Trust - Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit. London: Education Endowment Foundation; Johnston, O., & Wildy, H. (2016). The effects of streaming in the secondary school on learning outcomes for Australian students - A review of the international literature. Australian Journal of Education, 60 (1), 42-59. Taylor, B. et al. (2017). Factors deterring schools from mixed attainment teaching practice. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 25 (3), 327-345; Taylor, B. et al. (2019). Why is it difficult for schools to establish equitable practices in allocating students to attainment 'sets'? British Journal of Educational Studies, 67 (1), 5-24.

[3] Higgins, S. et al. (2015). The Sutton Trust - Education Endowment Foundation Teaching and Learning Toolkit. London: Education Endowment Foundation.

[4] Meissel, K. et al. (2016). Subjectivity of teacher judgments: Exploring student characteristics that influence teacher judgments of student ability. Teaching and Teacher Education, 65, 48-60.

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What does the research say about the impact of streaming, setting and attainment grouping on students?

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Earlier this week a teacher wrote to me asking what the research says about the impact of streaming in schools. We have briefly touched on this issue in our resources on high expectation teaching, however, have never tackled it head on.

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Part of a Series

In this article

Fourth grade students work on their math at an elementary school in Waukegan, Illinois, January 2016. (Getty/Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service)

This series is about the future of testing in America's schools.

Introduction and summary

Assessments are a way for stakeholders in education to understand what students know and can do. They can take many forms, including but not limited to paper and pencil or computer-adaptive formats. However, assessments do not have to be tests in the traditional sense at all; rather, they can be carried out through teacher observations of students or portfolios of students' work. Regardless of form, when assessments are well designed and a component of a system of teaching and learning that includes high-quality instruction and materials, they are part of the solution and not a source of the problem. Thus, debates on whether or not to assess students fail to create a worthwhile discussion about testing in schools and how to make assessments better.

When they are well built, standardized and nonstandardized assessments play a useful role in providing educational equity-that is, helping all students achieve at high levels. Accordingly, this report offers an alternative to the argument that all assessments are harmful: an idea for what role all assessments should play in education and the federal and state policy structure needed to make this a reality.

Assessments-in particular, one annual standardized assessment of all public school students in reading and math-became the law of the land starting in 2001 with the renewal and renaming of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 as the No Child Left Behind Act. The rationale for this policy is to promote equity in educational opportunity by measuring how well the public education system teaches students to master a state's academic standards in these subjects.

Despite this laudable goal, federally required assessments are at times criticized because America's students have made little progress since 2001 and their results correlate with race and socioeconomic status. However, the reality remains that one assessment alone is insufficient to solve the problem of inequity in education. That is because state standardized assessments look back at the end of the year and evaluate whether students learned the state's academic standards in reading and math. They are not designed to provide information to guide teachers' daily interactions with students. This type of high-quality information, as well as professional development in how to use student data effectively, is needed to drive learning forward. Thus, the state assessment must be part of a broader system of assessments that produce data that can evaluate, inform, and predict learning to help achieve educational equity.

The Center for American Progress found that while some of the criticisms of assessments-the annual state standardized assessment in particular-are valid and must be addressed, not all of them have merit. Too often, the criticisms tend to suggest that all standardized testing is harmful or not useful.

Still, improvement at the national scale is needed. The level of research and innovation required to make assessments effective can only be achieved through federal investment and programs. For example, federal policies should invest more in assessment development, through the pilot authorized in the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and through existing assessment funding programs in that law. The federal government can play an important role in researching assessment design and understanding where and how it has a disparate impact on students. Finally, the federal government should use its resources to help ensure that teachers and school leaders become masters of local assessment development and use so that they have the data they need-when they need it-to guide student learning. And for their part, state policies should develop well-thought-out systems of assessments that are based on the state's learning standards and curriculum.

What are standardized assessments and what purpose do they serve?

Large-scale standardized assessments are just one type of assessment used in schools, with two main purposes: The first is used to predict student performance against a set of benchmarks, while the second is used to understand how many of the test's benchmarks students reached at the end of the year. That is, standardized assessments can be designed to be predictive or evaluative.

A standardized assessment presents test-takers with the same questions or the same types of questions and is administered and scored in the same way. Designed to provide consistent results, standardized tests allow for comparisons between students in a single year and over time.

Standardized assessments play a prominent role in education in the United States; all public school students must take assessments in reading and math each year in grades three through eight as well as once in high school. These tests measure what students know and can do against common state-developed, grade-level standards.

What is an academic standard?

An academic standard is what a student should know and be able to do in a particular subject. For example, a second grade student in math should know the ones and tens places in double-digit numbers.

Teachers are required to teach these standards and can use a wide variety of instructional materials and approaches to guide their students' learning. Thus, while federal law requires states to have the same academic standards for all students within the state, given the different levels of quality of instructional materials and practices, not all students have the same opportunity to learn and master those standards.

The other types of assessments in education, which are used to predict student performance and inform instruction, are used more frequently during the school year and help to guide teachers, administrators, and even parents in providing students with the right supports at the right time. Importantly, not all assessments produce a numbered score. Some, for example, can take the form of teacher observations of student work and produce a descriptive assessment.

3 technical qualities of assessments required by federal law

This text box provides definitions of validity, reliability, and comparability in assessments and why they matter:

Validity refers to how accurately and fully a test measures the skills it intends to measure.For example, if an algebra test includes some geometry questions, that test is not a valid measure of algebra.

Reliability refers to the consistency of the test scores across different testing sessions, different editions of the test, and when different people score the exam. Reliability indicates how consistently the test measures the knowledge and skills it should as well ensures that it is not measuring error.

Comparability allows for the comparison of test scores even if students took the test at different times, in different places, and under different conditions.For example, test developers will design a test that may be administered via computer or via paper and pencil to account for these differences so results can be compared.

These requirements help ensure apples-to-apples comparisons between the results of the test given on different days and under different conditions.

A state assessment's technical qualities are one tool to prioritize equity because they help ensure test results can answer the question, "How well are all students meeting a state's college- and career-ready standards in reading and math and growing in their knowledge?" Here, "college- and career-ready" means that when students meet or exceed the academic standards in reading and math, they qualify to enroll in credit-bearing courses in college. They do not need to take remedial classes to make up for unfinished learning needed for credit-bearing courses.

History of standardized assessments in the United States

Schools and standardized testing began in the first 100 years of the United States' founding, and it did so against a backdrop of systemic racism and white supremacy. Prior to the 1860s and emancipation, enslaved people and nonwhite people were barred from accessing education and were often punished if it was discovered they were learning to read and write. Education during this time period was reserved for the white elite.

It was within this context that the first uses of standardized tests in American education began.

College admissions, general intelligence, and K-12 achievement tests

Like in education in America, there is a deep history of racism within standardized assessments. The earliest use of assessments in America were oral qualifying exams for college admissions prior to 1840.

That year marked the first uses of standardized tests in public schools. In 1845, educator Horace Mann developed common exams for school students in Boston Public Schools in an attempt to understand the quality of teaching and learning.

Mann's test sparked psychologist Edward L. Thorndike's quest for other measures of intelligence, believing that society would benefit from systematic sorting and segregation of students by academic ability. Seven states-California, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania-used these exams from 1900 to 1910.

In 1905, commissioned by the French government, psychologist Alfred Binet developed an intelligence test to identify learning deficiencies, describing "slow children who would not profit significantly from schooling." And in 1916, Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman took Binet's original tеѕt and created the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales to sort students by ability into college or vocational pathways. This exam is still used today.

The U.S. Army used a multiple-choice test to measure soldiers' mental abilities for the purpose of sorting, assigning, and discharging them during World War I. This test would become the model for future standardized assessments. In 1919, Terman transformed the Army Alpha test into the National Intelligence Tests for school students, selling more than 400,000 copies in 11 months.

Testing to uphold white supremacy

Literacy tests were used to disenfranchise Black men after ratification of the 15th Amendment in 1870, until enforcement of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed literacy tests and other methods of keeping Black people from exercising their right to vote.

Throughout the beginning of the 20th century, intelligence tests were used to determine which immigrants were "undesireable" and should not be permitted entry into the country. Federal law in 1915 required anyone who failed the test to be turned away.

Testing for public school evaluation and accountability

The use of standardized testing in schools spread nationwide after Iowa developed tests for its high school students. In 1935, the first Iowa Test of Basic Skills was administered to students in grades six through eight. Other states began using the Iowa assessment, which remained the most-used achievement test in the nation for 50 years.

But the role of testing in schools shifted in the 1970s after the then-U.S. commissioner of education created the first National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in 1969. It sought to provide a snapshot of the progress of education in America, using the latest testing technology to produce sound and reliable results by assessing a representative sample of the nation's students.

The NAEP marks the modern era of standardized assessments in schools to evaluate learning and a shift away from measuring intelligence toward measuring academic standards.

In the 1990s, a handful of states developed statewide testing systems that used sampling methods much like the NAEP to take a representative snapshot of how well students perform on academic tests in various subjects.

Federal K-12 education laws and testing

Simply put, today's federal K-12 education laws ask states, in exchange for federal funding, to ensure that students are meeting grade-level benchmarks in reading and math. These benchmarks are set by experts in math and reading as well as in psychometrics, or the measurement of learning. The benchmarks increase in complexity grade by grade, so when students complete their education in 12th grade, they are ready for the academic demands of college-whatever form that might take-or their chosen career path. This report and the law refer to standards like these as high or rigorous standards. Federal law also asks states to evaluate schools based on these results and report these results publicly.

Federal policy did not start out this way; it has evolved since the 1990s, when states began adopting academic standards. The federal Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 asked states to apply the same standards in reading and math to all students and to assess their progress in learning the standards for the first time.

In 2001, Congress updated the Improving America's Schools Act, renaming it as the No Child Left Behind Act. The updated law required states to use those test results to evaluate schools and identify which ones needed improvement. States published those results publicly every year and gave them to parents. A 2011 federal initiative under the Obama administration, called ESEA Flexibility, allowed states to use additional criteria to evaluate schools, but most states' criteria primarily consisted of standardized test scores.

The follow-up to the No Child Left Behind Act, now called the Every Student Succeeds Act, maintains much of the policy from ESEA Flexibility. For example, ESSA asks states to use both test scores and other criteria to evaluate all public schools. It also requires states to identify a subset of its lowest-performing schools for which to provide additional support to help them improve.

The debate about standardized testing in schools often tends to miss that the assessment requirements in federal law serve a purpose: They are one way the law helps to ensure all students receive a high-quality education through the public education system. At its heart, ESSA is a civil rights law, providing additional resources to low-income students. It also protects the quality of education by asking states to ensure that all children learn the knowledge and skills that will help them in college and their careers. Measuring student progress toward a state's learning standards through an annual assessment is one way to know whether all students are on track or not, using a common measuring stick.

The civil rights goals of federal K-12 education laws

The first version of ESSA, then called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), was built on the heels of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which both aimed to tackle segregation and discrimination. ESEA intended to give students from families with low resources a chance at equal education. Likewise, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975 (IDEA) ensured that all students with disabilities received this same opportunity. Prior to the passage of IDEA, many students with disabilities were excluded from traditional classrooms.

The first version of ESSA centered on the role that money plays in education. It gave additional funding to schools in under-resourced communities whose local property tax bases did not provide the same amount of resources as schools in wealthy neighborhoods.

ESSA's role more recently evolved to address not just education funding but also its quality. After years of flatlining, and even declining, results in educational outcomes, documented by the U.S. Department of Education report "A Nation at Risk," the law began to play a role in the effort to improve the quality of public school education. At the heart of this law-and what it requires-is an effort to include all students in public education and to hold them to the same high expectations. It does so by asking states to use their annual assessments as one measure of educational progress.

The goals of inclusion, high standards, and educational progress are the right goals. And the law has been effective in getting states to raise their standards and to include in states' accountability mechanisms for schools all students' progress on those standards. For example, states must certify that students who meet the standards when they graduate high school can enroll in college without needing remedial coursework to catch up on missed learning. And every year, states must calculate how many students met grade-level benchmarks against the goal of 95 percent of students, or the actual number of students who took the state assessment if it is lower than 95 percent.

But incremental and disproportionate progress on test scores between student groups suggests the law has been less effective in ensuring educational progress. This is in part because education is a complex process where students learn information, gain experience, and make sense of it all in a way that is useful to forging one's path in life. The complexity of learning at any age cannot and should not primarily be measured by a single test.

Furthermore, research documents that students' basic needs must be met for them to be ready to learn. This is especially true for the young mind in childhood, during which it develops more than at any other time in life.

However, as the adage goes, you cannot manage what you cannot measure-meaning that while state assessments are not the silver bullet to improving the education system, they are a critical part of that process. The role that state standardized assessments should play in education is to improve the teaching and learning system. State test results at the school district level, for example, should inform what resources and supports teachers need to improve their instruction. At the state level, results can inform state efforts to provide more resources to districts needing additional supports.

Is the issue with the test, or how the test is administered and used?

The opposition to using standardized testing in schools, in part due to the history of racism in the tests, is understandably not just a historical phenomenon; vestiges of this past remain in today's tests. Racism in testing is something that needs to be unpacked and addressed fully.

That said, some critics of standardized testing in schools miss that there are distinct issues to be acknowledged and then addressed-issues that reside with the test itself, how the test is given, and how the test results are used. These issues are too frequently treated as if they are one, so critics' response is often to throw out the annual state test entirely. But to address these issues, and to make future assessments of student learning better, policymakers must understand these issues distinctly, as each will require different policy remedies and technical fixes.

Criticisms of annual state standardized tests include: The tests are biased; they take too long to complete; students experience stereotype threat, which is an unconscious response to a negative stereotype about a certain group by a member of that group, when taking tests; the results are not useful for teachers; the use of these tests narrowed the curriculum used in schools; they resulted in teaching to the test; and the results are used to take money away from schools.

The authors organize these criticisms as outlined in Table 1.
Table 1
Not all criticisms of the state assessment have merit, nor do their real or perceived impacts affect students, teachers, and schools in the same way. To illustrate this, Table 1 presents these criticisms according to their real or perceived impact as well as by whether the impact is based on the assessment itself, how the assessment is administered, or how the assessment results are used. Understanding the effects and their source will help policymakers, administrators, and educators identify appropriate solutions for the root cause.

This section dissects these criticisms using a fact-based review to examine the purported impacts and deem whether they have merit and to what degree. The analysis cites claims where necessary.

Common criticism: The state standardized test is biased

Is this claim true or false? It is true, but there are multiple issues to understand.

When it comes to assessments, the term "bias" has a specific meaning. Bias happens when student inputs (their answers) are misinterpreted, misevaluated, and then scored differently.

There are three areas of the test where bias might occur: what it is trying to measure (the construct), how it is trying to measure (the method), or the test question itself (the item):

Construct bias is an error in the measurement of the skill; for example, an item is looking to measure verbal skills but instead measures listening skills.

Method bias is an error in the sample of students, the test form itself (in which the form is confusing), or the administration (how the test forms are given to students and collected is confusing).

Item bias is where the test question itself is ambiguous or can result in a low or high familiarity among certain test-takers due to cultural influence.

Since standardized testing began, there have always been racial patterns in the results, suggesting bias. While this bias was initially by design, as outlined in the history of racism and assessments section of this report, modern assessment development techniques seek to eliminate bias. However, a 2010 study of the SAT confirmed a particular type of bias within its assessments: item bias.

Bias in the news

A study of the SAT published in 2010 found that harder test items favored Black test-takers and easier questions favored white. That is, Black students taking the test more often answered the harder questions correctly at a higher rate than white students, who more often answered the easier questions correctly.

Why would this situation be the case?

Researchers theorize that the easier questions use more casual, everyday language that is part of white dominant culture. The study also suggests that the way the SAT is scored holds Black student scores down because the easier questions receive more points.

Therefore, if the harder questions received more points, this bias could be addressed when the test is scored. This example shows that even if there is bias in any aspect of the test, that bias can be balanced out in the scoring process. However, this method is not a complete answer to rooting out bias or its impact in assessments.

When there are consistently racial patterns in the results, bias is present somewhere in the test, whether in the construct, method, or item, or some combination of these.

Bias in state standardized tests for school accountability

Regarding state standardized tests used for federal accountability, states undergo rigorous analysis to detect and remove all types of bias and must submit this evidence to the U.S. Department of Education for their assessment systems to be approved.

The department runs a peer review process of each state's assessment system, with experts in test development and curriculum as well as teachers and local assessment administrators. The data are in the form of analysis of test-taker results; it is not possible to analyze a test before it is given to test-takers because experts must see evidence of how the students interacted with the test.

There is no question that bias exists in standardized testing, and there is no question that standardized testing is one tool to understand how students are doing against common, challenging standards of learning. Therefore, future versions of tests should pilot new test items on a broader range of students from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to minimize-or better yet eliminate-bias. And where bias occurs in test construct, how the skills and knowledge are being assessed must be better understood and addressed.

However, while eliminating bias is a necessary step, it is not sufficient on its own if educators are to take an anti-racist approach to teaching and learning.

Assessments and cultural competence

Solely addressing bias in assessments is an incomplete response; assessments are one part of a larger system of teaching and learning, which also includes standards, instructional materials, and instructional practice. These elements must be evaluated for bias and addressed as an entire system.

The question of synchronizing these parts of the teaching and learning experience extends beyond the academic content, to the interactions between teachers and students, the climate of the school, and the larger sociocultural context. This entire process is known as cultural synchronization, and the practice of applying it to teaching is called culturally responsive pedagogy.

Culturally responsive pedagogy is an attempt to create continuity between what students experience at home and what they experience at schools. Students see people who share their race and ethnicity included in the topics they study, for example. When students have access to culturally responsive pedagogy, they experience academic success and develop cultural competence and the ability to question the current social order, thereby allowing students to gain a sense of empowerment from their history and culture.

Common criticism: It is hard for teachers to prepare students without knowing the test material

Is this claim true or false? It is neither.

Federal law places a premium on test security. Test results are used to evaluate school performance and must be a fair and accurate representation of student participation in the test. Therefore, only test developers know the exact test items.

This does not mean that teachers do not know what kinds of test items will be included, however. Two groups-the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)-developed an annual statewide assessment that more than 40 states first used in 2014. Each group releases test items used on previous tests, which reflect the kinds of items included in future tests. Additionally, both consortia analyze student responses as a resource for teachers.

Common criticism: The tests take too long, lessening time for instruction

Is this claim true or false? It is neither, because the answer depends on what consumers of the test results value knowing about student performance.

The SBAC and PARCC assessments take about eight to nine hours total to complete for reading and math. This lengthy assessment is due to the law requiring that the test measures the full range and depth of the state's grade-level standards through formats that are not just multiple choice but also constructed response, or written answers. These types of test questions take more time to complete than filling in an answer bubble.

If policymakers, educators, and parents value knowing how well students have learned the full set of standards for their grade level-and not just responses to "yes" or "no" multiple-choice answers-then an eight- or nine-hour test will provide that information.

However, if policymakers, educators, and parents prefer having a high-level overview of whether students have learned at grade level, then a shorter exam will suffice.

Common criticism: Students experience stereotype threat when taking the test

Is this claim true or false? It is to be determined.

Stereotype threat occurs when a member of a certain social group is at risk of experiencing an unconscious response to a negative stereotype about that person's own group.

More than 300 studies show the impacts of stereotype threat, which include limiting one's aspirations in a field of study or career. Most of the studies are on college students and other adults, and none are specific to the state test. The studies include how participants performed on tasks as well as on tests.

Like bias, this is a phenomenon that probably exists among public school students and is an area that needs to be studied further to know how it might be affecting student performance and how it can be mitigated.

Common criticism: Results are not useful for teachers to employ in their practice

Is this claim true or false? It is false.

Annual state assessments results are used to evaluate, at year's end, whether students met the state's academic standards for their grade. As a result, they are not designed for teachers to use in their daily practice to customize instruction for students.

However, annual state assessments will show patterns for entire classrooms of students, and teachers can use this information to know generally what students did and did not learn and adjust their approach accordingly for the next school year's students.

Common criticism: State standardized tests narrowed the curriculum

Is this claim true or false? It is true, and it happened because of how the tests were used to evaluate schools.

In the period from 1987 to 2003, the amount of time devoted to different subjects held steady in public elementary schools: two hours to English, one hour to math, and a half-hour each to social studies and science.

However, since the No Child Left Behind Act passed in 2001 and required reading and math tests to be included in school accountability results, 62 percent of a nationally representative sample of schools and 75 percent of schools identified as in need of improvement increased their time given to math and English by about half and decreased the time given to other subjects.

Common criticism: The tests result in teaching to the test

Is this claim true or false? It is true.

A 2007 review of 49 studies found that 80 percent of the studies saw a change in curriculum and increased focus on teacher-led instruction.

Generally, "teaching to the test" means "teaching in a manner that is not considered optimal for learning standard content or skills, but is believed to improve test performance."

Is teaching to the test always bad? Not necessarily. An assessment only covers a subset of the range of standards. If a teacher solely focuses on that subset, then students are missing out on other important content and skill development. But if tests are aligned with the depth and breadth of the standards, then teaching to the test some of the time can be advantageous.

Common criticism: Test results are used to take money from low-income schools

Is this claim true or false? It is false, although there are nuances to understand.

The No Child Left Behind Act measured school performance through a construct called adequate yearly progress (AYP). AYP referred to the total number of students who achieved a score of proficient or above on the state test. Students' scores of proficient or above were supposed to signify that they had achieved or exceeded the grade-level standards. For comparison, a grade of a C usually means proficient on an A-F grading scale.

When schools missed AYP targets, districts set aside 20 percent of their Title I funding-which provides additional education programs in schools in low-income communities-to pay for supplemental education services. These services include tutoring as well as transportation for students to attend higher-performing schools that also received Title I money.

As a result, districts did not exactly lose Title I money; however, they had to use it for a specific purpose when they did not meet AYP targets. Because there was less money to spend on services and resources for individual schools, the claim that test results lead to less money for schools does have some merit, but it is not the entire picture.

The current version of the law, ESSA, takes a different approach to deploying resources to schools that need them. It eliminates AYP and instead requires states to provide additional money to some schools that are classified as low-performing, many of which have been poorly funded for decades, to help them improve.

Common criticism: Test results are used to close schools serving Black and Latinx students

Is this claim true or false? It is true, but only for a subset of schools that were closed.

Between 2003 and 2013, approximately 2 percent of all U.S. public schools closed. Many of these were due to declining populations. Some of them, however, were due to poor student outcomes, as indicated in part by state assessment results.

A 2017 study of closures found that 1,522 schools closed between 2006-07 and 2012-13 because their state assessment scores were in the bottom 20 percent of the 26 states included in the study. In the study, schools with higher rates of Black and Hispanic students were more likely to close than similarly performing schools with smaller shares of students who are racial and ethnic minorities.

Recommendations: The role that assessments should play in education

Assessments should drive excellent teaching and ensure that all students learn at high levels. To do so, education policy and practice must encompass a broader range of assessments so that schools have complete and effective assessment systems. This system would include predictive, informative, and evaluative assessments based on the state's standards and curriculum. Such a system would be based on three principles:

1. Assessments should be used only for their three intended purposes: 1) to predict student performance, 2) to inform instruction, or 3) to evaluate learning. A complete system would include assessments that serve one of these purposes, and there should not be too many assessments that serve the same purpose.

2. All assessments should align with the state's academic standards and with high-quality instructional materials. This alignment allows for a tighter integration between what students learn in class and the items that will be included on the assessment. Additionally, assessment results will send consistent signals about how well students are learning the standards and what they must continue to learn to master the full range by year's end.

3. Effective assessment systems use the data appropriately and for the right audiences. For example, teachers should use predictive assessment results to inform what standards students must still learn to be able to grasp the content of the first lesson in a unit of instruction. Predictive assessments can also shed light on whether students are on track to meet benchmarks on end-of-year or other evaluative assessments. On the other hand, district administrators and policymakers can use evaluative assessment results to inform what types of additional supports students may need to achieve the standards. Because of the different tools policymakers, administrators, and educators must deploy in the education system, all of these stakeholders must be informed on how to appropriately interpret assessment results.

Assessment audits can be an effective tool to guide states' and districts' understanding of what assessments they currently use and what purpose they serve, ensuring that students are not overassessed for evaluation purposes but also to give information that predicts their learning and informs instruction. Conducting such an audit can be a useful first step in building an effective and balanced assessment system.

A case study for local assessments: Finland

For years, Finland enjoyed top rankings on the Program for International Student Assessment, an international test of 15-year-olds in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries. Though Finland consistently outranks most other countries, its scores have declined-a puzzling development for researchers.

Despite the decline, Finland credits its educational success to its heavy investment in teacher training as well as its model for using independent and group projects as ways to engage students in their learning.

Notably, Finland takes a very different approach to assessments than the United States. The country eliminated its national evaluative assessment and instead allows teachers to design their own assessments that are based on the national curriculum. The same training equips teachers to design school-based projects for students. The country only uses predictive standardized assessments for students to take at the end of their education. Those results are used for consideration for college admissions, not for evaluating education programs, students, or teachers.

As a comparison in the United States, the quality of teacher development and training varies widely and does not uniformly reflect the quality of the opportunities available in Finland or other high-achieving countries.

While Finland's example showcases the power of assessments to inform instruction, that is only one aspect of a complete and effective assessment system.

How federal policies can support the effective use of assessment in teaching and learning

Effective and complete assessment systems contribute to student learning. Currently, however, states are not required to have such systems in place-only an annual evaluative assessment, which is a practice that began with the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act. As a result, the focus on one test and its use to evaluate schools created bad incentives, as discussed earlier in this report. However, that does not mean that evaluative tests should not play a role in education; to the contrary, high-quality assessments aligned to a state's standards are a critical tool in the teaching and learning process. Federal policy should thus push states and districts to establish and maintain effective and balanced assessment systems.

Accordingly, any future updates to ESSA should ask states to design a vision for how assessments are part of the teaching and learning process and then describe which assessments predict student performance, inform teaching and learning, and evaluate student learning.

At same time, more large-scale research and development is needed in the practice and use of assessments. This is a great role for the federal government to play. The federal government should:

Fund the assessment pilot in ESSA and loosen some of its restrictions to support states in trying more innovative designs, even if those designs do not pan out. The assessment pilot gives states five years to try new assessment designs to replace the state's annual evaluative assessment.

Fund the development of new ways to assess students across a broad range of skills and not just through tests, but through other demonstrations of student learning as well. This can be done outside of the assessment pilot through the Competitive Grants for State Assessments program.

Fund the development of predictive, informative, and evaluative assessments.

Fund the creation of new and better ways to report assessment results, not just to parents, but to teachers and policymakers as well.

Study bias in testing, including in testing construct, methods, and items.

Reshape the teacher-focused Title II of ESSA and the Higher Education Act of 1965 so that they promote the development of better teacher training and support when it comes to assessment use.

Partner with institutes of higher education to identify ways that the training of future psychometricians-scientists who develop assessments-should change to ensure that tomorrow's tests do not replicate the bias and other drawbacks seen in current versions.

Encourage states to create science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) pathways that expose students to future careers as psychometric measurement experts to create a more diverse pool of psychometricians.

Conclusion

Today's conversation around assessments is dysfunctional and a zero-sum game. Assessments are neither useless nor are they the silver bullet to improving education. Instead, they are a vital tool to drive excellent teaching and learning. For equitable and effective testing to be fully realized, policymakers must invest in understanding the limits of today's assessments and build on those lessons. Innovation and research should support the development of assessment systems that drive teaching and learning forward as well as evaluate student learning.

The society and workforce of tomorrow will require students not only to master academic skills but also possess a broad range of crosscutting knowledge and abilities. America's current assessment system does a poor job of measuring how well students are prepared for that future and of guiding educators and parents to support students in their development. That is what policymakers and educators must address as they consider the future of assessments.

To that end, future research by the Center for American Progress will highlight ways in which technology advances may support the measurement of a broader range of student knowledge and skills.

About the authors

Laura Jimenez is the director of standards and accountability on the K-12 Education team at the Center for American Progress.

Jamil Modaffari is a research assistant for K-12 Education at the Center.

Acknowledgments

Alina von Davier, Duolingo

Ashley Eden, New Meridian

Bethany Little, EducationCounsel

Krasimir Staykov, Student Voice

Kristopher John, New Meridian

Mark Jutabha, WestEd

Michael Watson, New Classrooms

Mohan Sivaloganathan, Our Turn

Osonde Osoba, RAND Corp.

Roxanne Garcia, UnidosUS

Sandi Jacobs, EducationCounsel

Sean Worley, EducationCounsel

Scott Palmer, EducationCounsel

Terra Wallin, The Education Trust

Tim Langan, National Parents Union

The authors would like to thank the following people for their advice in writing this report:

Abby Javurek, Northwest Evaluation Association

Alina von Davier, Duolingo

Ashley Eden, New Meridian

Bethany Little, EducationCounsel

Edward Metz, Institute of Education Sciences

Elda Garcia, National Association of Testing Professionals

Jack Buckley, Robox; American Institutes for Research

James Pellegrino, University of Illinois at Chicago

John Whitmer, Institute of Education Sciences

Krasimir Staykov, Student Voice

Kristopher John, New Meridian

Laura Slover, CenterPoint Education Solutions

Margaret Hor, CenterPoint Education Solutions

Mark DeLoura, Games and Learning Inc.

Mark Jutabha, WestEd

Michael Rothman, independent consultant; formerly of Eskolta School Research and Design

Michael Watson, New Classrooms

Mohan Sivaloganathan, Our Turn

Neil Heffernan, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Osonde Osoba, RAND Corp.

Roxanne Garcia, UnidosUS

Sandi Jacobs, EducationCounsel

Sean Worley, EducationCounsel

Scott Palmer, EducationCounsel

Terra Wallin, The Education Trust

Tim Langan, National Parents Union

Vivett Dukes, National Parents Union

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Future of Testing in Education: Effective and Equitable Assessment Systems

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This analysis of testing in schools shows what the current debate gets wrong, and how educators and policymakers can create a future where assessments are a more effective part of the teaching and learning system.

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If you didn't answer "all of the above," then: A. You haven't been paying attention, or B. You work for a testing software company.

develop a thorough analysis in an essay; conduct a laboratory investigation; curate a portfolio of student work; or complete an original research paper.

PBA allows students to demonstrate knowledge and skill through critical-thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and the application of knowledge to real-world situations. In other words, it helps students prepare for college, career, and life.

And when they share with the class, that helps reinforces everyone's learning, she explains. None of this is possible in an individual test.

PBA also removes bias and creates more equity. For example, Holland recalls a state standardized test question about decomposition for eighth-grade science: "The question asked about grass clippings after mowing the lawn, and students got hung up on 'grass clippings,'" she says. "Some had no idea what they were because they either lived in apartments and had no lawns, or they had lawns but didn't mow them because they had landscapers."

Stronger Relationships with Students

"Students always say that working together was the best part," he says. That's the best part for the teachers, too, because it helps them build stronger relationships with students.

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Standardized Testing is Still Failing Students | NEA

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Educators have long known that standardized tests are an inaccurate and unfair measure of student progress. There's a better way to assess students.

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The use of standardized tests as a measure of student success and progress in school goes back decades, with federal policies and programs that mandated yearly assessments as part of state accountability systems significantly accelerating this trend in the past 20 years. But the tide has turned sharply in recent years.

Parents, advocates, and researchers have increasingly raised concerns about the role of testing in education. The shift in people's attitudes about the use of tests and about the consequences of relying (or possibly over-relying) on test scores for the purposes of both school and teacher accountability raises the question: What can tests tell us about the contributions of schools and teachers to student success in the future?

We think it is important to ask this foundational question: How much do we know about whether there is a causal link between higher test scores and success later in life? After all, that is the purpose of education-preparing students to be successful in the future. We explored this question and the role of tests in a recently published article in Educational Researcher. We conclude that any debate about the use of test scores in educational accountability should: (1) consider the significant evidence connecting test scores to later life outcomes; (2) take into account the difficulty of establishing causality between test achievement and later life outcomes; and (3) consider what alternative measures of success are out there and how reliable they are.

It is certainly reasonable to argue that we should hold schools and teachers accountable for the test performance of their students, but we likely care a whole lot more about tests if they reflect increased learning in school that translates into future success.

There is a vast research literature linking test scores and later life outcomes, such as educational attainment, health, and earnings. These observed correlations, however, do not necessarily reflect causal effects of schools or teachers on later life outcomes. Maybe students who do well on tests are the same students who wake up early in the morning, go to work on time, and work hard, and that's the reason for their success, not necessarily what they learned in school. Also, differences in test scores could reflect differences in learning opportunities outside of school, including the supportiveness of families or the communities in which students live.

What we do know more definitively about the causality of this relationship comes from a limited number of studies that examine the effects of different educational inputs (for example, schools, teachers, classroom peers, special programs) on both student test scores and later life outcomes. For instance, if a study finds test-score impacts and adult-outcome impacts that are in the same direction, this could be regarded as evidence that test scores (and the learning they represent) have an impact on later life outcomes.

Our view is that studies that might be considered causal do tend to find alignment between effects on test scores and later life outcomes. Perhaps the most influential studies in this strand were published in 2014 by Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Jonah Rockoff, who found that students who were assigned to teachers deemed highly effective learned more as measured by tests and also were more likely to have better adult outcomes, such as attending college and earning higher salaries.

Another study by Chetty and co-authors examines the long-term effects of peer quality in kindergarten (once again, as indicated by test scores) using the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment. The 2011 study finds that students who are assigned to classrooms with higher achieving peers have higher college attendance rates and adult earnings. Similarly, using that same Tennessee STAR experiment, a study by Susan Dynarski and colleagues that same year looks at the effects of smaller classes in primary school and finds that the test-score effects at the time of the experiment are an excellent predictor of long-term improvements in postsecondary outcomes.

It is also important to recognize that we might not always expect test-score effects of educational interventions to align with adult outcomes. It is easy to make the case that interventions can improve later life outcomes without affecting the cognitive skills of children. Choice schools may, for instance, have stronger pipelines into college, leading to better college-going results while not affecting learning and test results, but we don't know this conclusively.

Irrespective of one's views on the degree to which tests predict later life outcomes, we need to think carefully about what abandoning the use of test scores altogether might mean for education policy and practice. From a practical perspective, we can't wait many years to get long-term measures of what schools are contributing to students. This does not mean that test scores ought to be the exclusive or even primary short-term measures, but if one believes in some form of educational accountability, it is important to consider what alternative measures of success are out there and how reliable they are.

Lessening the weight of tests in accountability calculations is consistent with ESSA, but there are concerns about how "gameable" many of the alternative measures might be. And there is no doubt that we know less empirically about the causal connections between many of these alternative measures and long-term student prospects.

For example, are students assigned to teachers who get good classroom observation ratings likely to have better future prospects? Perhaps, but there is less evidence about this type of measure than there is about test-based measures. And if we do not use test scores in teacher evaluations at all, are we going back to the era of teacher accountability when 99 percent of all teachers across the country were rated satisfactory or better?

People clearly have strong feelings about the worth of-and the harm done by-testing. But whatever our personal feelings, we need to evaluate the power of test scores to predict the outcomes we want for our students and consider what the alternatives might be.

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Can Standardized Tests Predict Adult Success? What the Research Says (Opinion)

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The use of standardized tests as a measure of student success and progress in school goes back decades, with federal policies and programs that mandated yearly assessments as part of state accountability systems significantly accelerating this trend in the past 20 years. But the tide has turned sharply in recent years.

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-First understand what trauma is. There are three types of trauma acute (single event), chronic (repeated and prolonged) and complex (varied and multiple events usually an interpersonal nature).

-Trauma affects the brain. It affects the prefrontal cortex (rational thinking), hippocampus (memory, shrinks when exposed to trauma), and amygdala (fight or flight, trauma makes that part of the brain always be "on").

-Understand ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). Can impact both brain development and physical health.

-Use Trauma Informed Practices

Support students in all aspects, not just the classroom

Be aware of triggers

Talk with students about how they deal with stress and anger

Show compassion, not judgement

Give students a safe space to share and express their feelings

Help students develop a "growth" mindset

Use restorative practices that minimize punitive discipline outcomes.

Build relationships

Meet students where they are

Don't ignore possible "red flags"

Offer trainings to teachers on trauma informed responses

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Should gifted students be in separate classrooms? School wide enrichment approaches are discussed in this article. How does separating gifted and talented from other learners affect student achievement?

The practice of segregating or separating gifted and talented students is not just or research based. It leads to segregation by race, class, abilities and language.

Research shows separating isn't necessary

or helpful in supporting high achieving students. Detracking showed positive results, and did not impact students in a negative way. However, it does harms students placed in lower level classes. Pull out and self-contained classrooms did not boost academic achievement for lower performing kids.

One such approach is the schoolwide enrichment model (SEM), which was developed at the University of Connecticut.

SEM is an approach to teaching and learning that draws from the pedagogy of gifted education to enhance opportunities for all students in a given school. Schools using this model typically identify “gifted behaviors,” including above-average academic abilities, creativity, and task commitment, rather than attaching a binary (“gifted”/“not gifted”) label to each student. SEM advises schools to use flexible student groupings that change throughout the course of a year and bring together students with different achievement and interest levels.

The article that districts should create schoolwide enrichment programs, and shift services for gifted-identified children toward a model that favors push-in services in inclusive settings, just as the best practices for special education services encourage.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)

Preventing early trauma to improve adult health

At least 5 of the top 10 leading causes of death are associated with ACEs.

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. ACEs can include violence, abuse, and growing up in a family with mental health or substance use problems. Toxic stress from ACEs can change brain development and affect how the body responds to stress. ACEs are linked to chronic health problems, mental illness, and substance misuse in adulthood. However, ACEs can be prevented.
Preventing ACEs can help children and adults thrive and potentially:

Lower risk for conditions like depression, asthma, cancer, and diabetes in adulthood.

Reduce risky behaviors like smoking and heavy drinking.

Improve education and employment potential.

Stop ACEs from being passed from one generation to the next.

Preventing ACEs could reduce a large number of health conditions.

Potential reduction of negative outcomes in adulthood

Adverse Childhood Experiences impact lifelong health and opportunities.

ACEs are common and the effects can add up over time.

61% of adults had at least one ACE and 16% had 4 or more types of ACEs.

Females and several racial/ethnic minority groups were at greater risk for experiencing 4 or more ACEs.

Many people do not realize that exposure to ACEs is associated with increased risk for health problems across the lifespan.

Healthcare Providers Can:

Anticipate and recognize current risk for ACEs in children and history of ACEs in adults. Refer patients to effective services and support.

Link adults to family-centered treatment approaches that include substance abuse treatment and parenting interventions.

Employers Can:

Adopt and support family-friendly policies, such as paid family leave and flexible work schedules.

States and Communities Can:

Improve access to high-quality childcare by expanding eligibility, activities offered, and family involvement.

Use effective social and economic supports that address financial hardship and other conditions that put families at risk for ACEs.

Enhance connections to caring adults and increase parents' and youth skills to manage emotions and conflicts using approaches in schools and other settings.

Everyone Can:

Change how people think about the causes of ACEs and who could help prevent them.

Shift the focus from individual responsibility to community solutions.

Reduce stigma around seeking help with parenting challenges or for substance misuse, depression, or suicidal thoughts.

Promote safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments where children live, learn, and play.

Related Pages and Resources
Resources:

For More Information
1-800-CDC-INFO (232-4636)
TTY: 1-888-232-6348
Web: www.cdc.gov

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road NE
Atlanta, GA 30333
Publication date: November 5, 2019

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Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood.

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Trauma-Informed Practices (TIP) have been a topic of interest and need for the past several years. Researchers have defined TIP as a set of practices that address the impact of trauma by creating a safe and caring environment. Trauma-informed practices focus on creating a safe school culture, building relationships, and supporting students' self-efficacy. Despite the plethora of research on trauma-informed practices, sometimes research-based practices are disconnected from the daily needs of educators in the field.

Below is a list of common Trauma-Informed practices that educators can implement across all educational settings. This list has been reviewed by a group of educators representing education support professionals, teachers, and specialized instructional support personnel.

Support students from the bus stop to the classroom (and beyond!)
Using trauma-informed practices across all educational spaces can help educators collaborate to support student mental and physical health.Supporting students across settings helps to foster a positive school climate where students feel safe and confident. Be intentional in supporting families and community members in understanding and using trauma-informed practices for long-term student success.

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No matter where you work in our school communities, you can use these practices to create safe and supportive learning environments for all students.

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Quality of teacher collaboration is measured as teacher perception of the extent and helpfulness of collaboration

Instruction-focused and assessment-focused collaboration were perceived as more helpful and extensive

Higher-quality collaboration is more common among female teachers than male teachers, particularly about instructional strategies, curriculum, and assessment.

Black, Hispanic, and white teachers, respectively, report decreasing collaboration quality.

Teachers with 15 years of experience or more were less likely to collaborate with other teachers.

Collaboration has lead to more student success, especially in math.

No community can be united by shared values and be infinitely inclusive. Either non-sharers will be excluded from membership altogether, or they will in some way be second-class members.

Other Sources:

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=407cf5d605f0376b70c2b24e7708cf856bd04437

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ965627.pdf

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23479299