Good Education In An Age Of Measurement

The widespread use of the measurement of educational outcomes in order to compare the performance of education within and across countries seems to express a real concern for the quality of education. This book argues that the focus on the measurement of educational outcomes has actually displaced questions about educational purpose. Biesta explores why the question as to what constitutes good education has become so much more difficult to ask and shows why this has been detrimental for the quality of education and for the level of democratic control over education. He provides concrete suggestions for engaging with the question of purpose in education in a new, more precise and more encompassing way, with explicit attention to the ethical, political and democratic dimensions of education.

Cultures of measurement are often considered to dominate educational practices, to the degree that, as Biesta (2010) has identified in Good Education in an Age of Measurement we no longer measure what we value, but rather we have become conditioned to value what is measured. A clear example of this occurs when institutions and staff "teach to the test" by emphasising narrow conceptions of learning and of knowledge, simply because the consequences of high-stakes assessments have important implications regarding funding, resources, and even tenure. This collection explores, via various philosophical means, how valuable educational practices can occur within and beyond cultures of measurement. What seems to be required is for practitioners in education to regain their relationship to the overall purposes of education, such as the furthering of justice and democracy for both individual students and societies as a whole. Such a reconnection has the potential to re-humanise curricular experiences for students, which may have become dehumanised through particular cultures of measurement. It is argued that certain legitimate measures can advance justice and democracy, and so careful attention must be assigned to their validity and value. This book was originally published as a special issue of Educational Philosophy and Theory.

The Measuring Early Learning Quality and Outcomes (MELQO) initiative began in 2014 as part of the global emphasis on early childhood development (ECD). Led by UNESCO, the World Bank, the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and UNICEF, the initiative aims to promote feasible, accurate and useful measurement of childrenâs development and learning at the start of primary school, and of the quality of their pre-primary learning environments. Items are designed for children between the ages of 4 and 6 years. Following the premise that many existing tools include similar items, the leading organizationsâ core team worked with a consortium of experts, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and multilaterals to build upon current measurement tools to create a common set of items organized into modules for measuring: 1) early childhood development and learning, and 2) the quality of pre-primary learning environments. The MELQO core team and experts also collaborated to outline a process for context-specific adaptation of the measurement modules resulting from lessons learned from field-testing in several countries in 2015 and 2016. The modules are designed to be implemented at scale, with an emphasis on feasibility for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). A key question addressed by MELQO was the balance between a global tool suitable for use everywhere, and local priorities and goals for childrenâs development. [Introduction, ed]

The definitive refutation to the argument of The Bell Curve. When published in 1981, The Mismeasure of Man was immediately hailed as a masterwork, the ringing answer to those who would classify people, rank them according to their supposed genetic gifts and limits. And yet the idea of innate limits—of biology as destiny—dies hard, as witness the attention devoted to The Bell Curve, whose arguments are here so effectively anticipated and thoroughly undermined by Stephen Jay Gould. In this edition Dr. Gould has written a substantial new introduction telling how and why he wrote the book and tracing the subsequent history of the controversy on innateness right through The Bell Curve. Further, he has added five essays on questions of The Bell Curve in particular and on race, racism, and biological determinism in general. These additions strengthen the book's claim to be, as Leo J. Kamin of Princeton University has said, "a major contribution toward deflating pseudo-biological 'explanations' of our present social woes."

Measurement and Statistics for Teachers deftly combines descriptive statistics and measurement in the classroom into a student-friendly, practical volume. Based on a course taught by the author for the past 25 years, this book offers to undergraduate education students a clear account of the basic issues in measurement and details best practices for administering performance assessments, interpreting test scores, and evaluating student writing. This second edition includes updated pedagogical features, timely discussions of student assessment, state standards (including NCLB), and an expanded focus that incorporates the needs of Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary teachers.

Under pressure and support from the federal government, states have increasingly turned to indicators based on student test scores to evaluate teachers and schools, as well as students themselves. The focus thus far has been on test scores in those subject areas where there is a sequence of consecutive tests, such as in mathematics or English/language arts with a focus on grades 4-8. Teachers in these subject areas, however, constitute less than thirty percent of the teacher workforce in a district. Comparatively little has been written about the measurement of achievement in the other grades and subjects. This volume seeks to remedy this imbalance by focusing on the assessment of student achievement in a broad range of grade levels and subject areas, with particular attention to their use in the evaluation of teachers and schools in all. It addresses traditional end-of-course tests, as well as alternative measures such as portfolios, exhibitions, and student learning objectives. In each case, issues related to design and development, psychometric considerations, and validity challenges are covered from both a generic and a content-specific perspective. The NCME Applications of Educational Measurement and Assessment series includes edited volumes designed to inform research-based applications of educational measurement and assessment. Edited by leading experts, these books are comprehensive and practical resources on the latest developments in the field. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

This book contains a selection of articles on measuring the quality of education from the perspective of the importance of theories on education, changing effects of education, curriculum dependent or curriculum independent measurement, product and process evaluation, and global curricula.