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Using a South African district of education as a case study, the purpose of this paper is to explore how high-stake assessments informed by marketisation and managerialism have been embedded in the South African education system.

This papers draws on data that were collected through a mixed method approach in the secondary schools of the uMgungundlovu District, which is in Kwazulu-Natal province (KZN) in the eastern part of South Africa. This paper emerged from multiple sources of data, that is, from documents, interviews, questionnaires, and observation as well as secondary sources.

The paper demonstrates how the pincer movement of markets and managerialism have used high-stake testing as a mechanism of performativity. It illustrates how test scores are published in newspapers to provide consumers with information that is needed for full participation in the marketised education system.

The insights from this paper have profound implications for school managers and policy makers. While high-stake tests are logically consistent and theoretically defensible, overdependence on them portends the replacement of traditional values of schools by the market value of the education.

The study contributes profound insights into how the high-stake testing serves the purpose of social control and subjugation mechanisms for students, schools, and teachers by the state and the invisible arm of the markets. The problem with the use of high-stakes testing as performativity mechanisms is not just that they hinders learning and teaching, but it changes the work of schools and teachers who are at the chalkface of education system.

This qualitative case study explores how one secondary world history teacher, teaching in a high-stakes testing context in a district pushing teachers to utilize differentiated instruction, makes sense of this pedagogical approach. We examine teacher sense-making within a conceptual framework of policy realization and ambitious teaching and learning. The teacher made no claims to being an expert on differentiation; yet, the findings indicated that she did possess an understanding of differentiation congruent with the literature and, whether she recognized it or not, used many strategies suggested by Tomlinson and other experts on differentiation. Her thinking about differentiation also appeared to be shaped by relational and contextual issues. Stated differently, the Virginia Standards of Learning exams and the pressure from administration for high pass rates appeared to shape how the teacher thought about her students, her content, her instruction and, ultimately, her approach to differentiation.

This study examined and traced the relationship between, and the influence of, the official standards documents of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the related day-to-day lesson planning and implementation of a pair of co-teachers. Using a case study methodology alongside a conventional content analysis we traced the processes of how these policy texts (the Standards of Learning [SOLs] for World History) were connected to and activated within the daily routines of these teachers who taught struggling students in a high-stakes testing context. The findings illustrated how the policy texts and discursive practices emerging from the State’s SOLs constituted a level of pedagogical governance that saw these teachers organize instruction clearly designed to support student recall on the end of year multiple choice test. Our work recognized the power of policy texts as they interact with teachers. The significance of unpacking policy documents in order to examine issues of power, symmetry and potential areas of negotiation in the planning and implementation of instruction for teacher educators is discussed.

This chapter addresses the accountability standards expressed in the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and the legislative history of this federal statute on education. The author states that the Act recognized that many students are “left behind” and some “way behind” and analyses how this Act will reduce the academic deficit for those students left behind? This review makes it clear that the fiscal equity movement never got off the ground or close to becoming a major part to the legislation. Legal challenges to NCLB is extensively reviewed which raises the question as the amount of support for this legislation. The chapter closes with the note that NCLB is an under-funded mandate placing the fiscal responsibility on the budget-strapped states.

This paper examines how a beginning teacher in Virginia and a beginning teacher in Florida make sense of the high-stakes tests in their state. By examining beginning teachers in two states where the tests are so very different, we gain important insight into whether there are similarities and differences across states and how the nature of the test affects the teaching and learning of history. We first offer insight into the context of accountability in Virginia and Florida and then discuss what ambitious teaching and learning look like in these states as informed by the literature. Then, we turn to our research methods, findings, and implications for the field of social studies.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interface between high-stakes testing, disciplinary knowledge and teachers’ pedagogy in English. The most prevalent standardized assessment form in the current Australian context is the National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) undertaken each year by students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in all Australian States and Territories. Understood in the context of the Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM) (Sahlberg, 2011, pp. 100-101) – the NAPLAN tests serve as a bi-partisan governmental response to a perceived need to improve the quality of teachers and schools in Australia.

The authors draw on the key sociological constructs of Pierre Bourdieu (1995) to analyze the ways in which the writing component of the suite of NAPLAN tests serves to legitimize and idealize particular kinds of writing, writers and teachers of writing.

The authors suggest that in the absence of current literacy policy and curriculum instability, this national test shapes the literacy field, influencing the direction of writing practices and pedagogy, and, therefore, subject English itself, in Australian classrooms.

This assessment intervention is considered in the context of the history of writing, and addresses accordingly fundamental questions concerning the changing nature of the writing/writerly field, the impact of assessment on teachers’ conceptions of disciplinarity and pedagogical content knowledge and students’ experiences of writing and thinking in subject English.

Understanding what children know about history or social studies has proven illusive. In this think piece, I explore two dilemmas—the representation dilemma and the testing dilemma—that surround the question, “How do we know what children know?” I conclude that teachers, researchers, and policymakers must engage in conversations that put students’ representations of their historical knowledge and understanding at the forefront.

Against a backdrop of high-stakes assessment policies in the USA, this paper explores the challenges, promises and the “state of the art” with regard to designing standardized achievement tests and educational assessment systems that are instructionally useful. Authors deliberate on the consequences of using inappropriately designed tests, and in particular tests that are insensitive to instruction, for teacher and/or school evaluation purposes.

The method used is a “moderated policy discussion”. The six invited commentaries represent voices of leading education scholars and measurement experts, juxtaposed against views of a prominent leader and nationally recognized teacher from two American education systems. The discussion is moderated with introductory and concluding remarks from the guest editor, and is excerpted from a recent blog published by Education Week. References and author biographies are presented at the end of the article.

In the education assessment profession, there is a promising movement toward more research and development on standardized assessment systems that are instructionally sensitive and useful for classroom teaching. However, the distinctions among different types of tests vis-à-vis their purposes are often unclear to policymakers, educators and other test users, leading to test misuses. The authors underscore issues related to validity, ethics and consequences when inappropriately designed tests are used in high-stakes policy contexts, offering recommendations for the design of instructionally sensitive tests and more comprehensive assessment systems that can serve a broader set of educational evaluation needs. As instructionally informative tests are developed and formalized, their psychometric quality and utility in school and teacher evaluation models must also be evaluated.

Featuring perspectives of scholars, measurement experts and educators “on the ground”, this article presents an open and balanced exchange of technical, applied and policy issues surrounding “instructionally sensitive” test design and use, along with other types of assessments needed to create comprehensive educational evaluation systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how test‐based accountability has influenced school and district practices and explore how states and districts might consider creating expanded systems of measures to address the shortcomings of traditional accountability. It provides research‐based guidance for entities that are developing or adopting new measures of school performance.

The study relies on literature review, consultation with expert advisers, review of state and district documentation, and semi‐structured interviews with staff at state and local education agencies and research institutions.

The research shows mixed effects of test‐based accountability on student achievement and demonstrates that teachers and administrators change their practices in ways that respond to the incentives provided by the system. The review of state and district measurement systems shows widespread use of additional measures of constructs, such as school climate and college readiness.

There is a clear need for additional research on the short‐ and long‐term effects of expanded systems of measures. In particular, currently little is known about how the inclusion of input and process measures influences educators’ practices or student outcomes.

The research suggests several practical steps that can be taken to promote effective systems of measurement, including providing supports for high‐quality teaching to accompany new measures, offering flexibility to respond to local needs, and conducting validity studies that address the various purposes of the measures.

The paper provides new information about how states and districts are expanding their systems of measures for various purposes, and informs accountability policy by highlighting the benefits and limitations of current outcomes‐based approaches to accountability and by clarifying the trade‐offs and decisions that should be considered.