Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

Educational Assessment and Accountability: a critique of current policy

In this latest Impact pamphlet Andrew Davis develops further some of his earlier work on assessment. He argues that current assessment policy remains deeply flawed: it fails to provide any coherent data on pupil learning and school effectiveness and may well result in a distorted conception of learning for pupils. He identifies very serious problems in the notion of the transfer of learning, competences and skills which make any attempt on the part of government and others to relate improving test performance to 'raising standards’ in general unjustifiable. He examines the threat posed to the school curriculum and pupils' learning from 'teaching to the test' and points out the weaknesses in the much favoured 'value added' approach. He claims that the government's attempts to hold teachers to account through pupil assessment are incompatible with its requirement that particular teaching approaches should be used, especially with regard to literacy and numeracy at primary level, and argues that Ofsted is not in a position to tell whether schools cause pupils to learn or not. In the final section of the pamphlet Andrew Davis proposes ways in which the notion of trust could be restored to school accountability through genuine self-evaluation on the part of teachers, schools and other educational institutions in conjunction with external auditors who properly understand the professional challenges, complexities and values concerned.

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