Is progressive education the cause of declining education standards?

The latest PISA data, published on 5th December 2023, shows that Scottish education standards have dropped between 2018 to 2022. The downward trend in the standards of Scottish education, as measured by the PISA tests, mirrors trends in Scandinavian countries, France and Quebec. 

What all of these countries have in common is the introduction of progressive education models. 

In progressive education less emphasis is given to learning core skills in maths, science and reading, less focus on fact-based learning. More emphasis is placed on teaching transferable and work-based skills. 

This has been a fashionable idea in education for many decades. The theory being that focussing on learning knowledge isn’t the best way to equip today’s students for future jobs. They can, after all, find information at the click of a button (they can just ‘google it’. So it makes more sense to develop skills that may be of actual use later on in life. 

The problem with progressive education theory is that it isn’t based on any evidence. And in fact the statistics suggest that moving away from traditional, knowledge based learning harms children’s education. 

In contrast, those countries which have shown the highest levels of improvement between 2018 to 2022, as measured by PISA, have focused on more traditional, knowledge based curriculums.  

Comparing England to Scotland is informative here. While Scottish schools have become more progressive, English schools have stayed more focused on teaching core knowledge in maths, science and English. English schools have improved, Scottish schools have regressed. 

Norway and Sweden are dropping down the PISA tables!

So is progressive education to blame for declining standards in education?

The data certainly suggests there is a link, but we should always keep in mind that other variables may be the cause. However with Scotland, this doesn’t seem to be the case. Spending per pupil hasn’t decreased and the pupil teacher ratio is better than in England. 

What we should be critical of is the validity of the PISA tests. These test a relatively narrow range of skills: precisely the fact based knowledge which is favoured by traditional education. 

What might be going on is those children who have had a more progressive education are less well trained at answering narrow PISA based tests. It might even be the case that they are less likely to see the point of them than children who get a more traditional education. 

So this drop in the PISA table positions may just mean Scottish children and getting an equal but DIFFERENT type of education to, for example, children in English schools.

It may be that when it comes to employability and the ability to cope with real world, real life situations Scottish and Scandinavian children are better prepared. 

The point of a progressive education isn’t to train people to pass knowledge based test, after all. So maybe we shouldn’t be judging the success of education systems on rankings in PISA league tables! 

Relevance to A-level sociology 

This material is mainly relevant to the sociology of education module.  

Sources 

Sonia Sodha, The Observer, December 2023: Scottish Schools Have Toppled from the Top of the Class. This is What Went Wrong.

The PISA Global Education Tests – Arguments for and Against

The PISA international assessments are part of the globalisation of education. The OECD (which runs the tests) claims there are benefits to having a global system of assessment because we can learn what the best educational practices are and apply them globally. However, critics argue that these tests could be doing more harm than good, by focusing on a narrow range of educational outcomes, which reflect the biases of Western educationalists.

The PISA international assessments are part of the globalisation of education. The OECD (which runs the tests) claims there are benefits to having a global system of assessment because we can learn what the best educational practices are and apply them globally. However, critics argue that these tests could be doing more harm than good, by focusing on a narrow range of educational outcomes, which reflect the biases of Western educationalists.

What are the PISA tests?

The PISA Tests are sat by a random sample of 15 year old students every three years, and measure their ability in reading, mathematics and science. More than 3 million students in over 90 countries have participated in the PISA tests since they started in the year 2000, with the latest round being in 2018, the next will be in 2021.

The PISA Tests aim to assess whether what students have learned in school can be applied to real life situations, focusing on their ability to reason and communicate rather than factual recall.

PISA stands for the ‘Programme of International Student Assessment and is run by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. An overview of the PISA programme and summary of the 2018 results can be found on the PISA website here.

Countries volunteer to take part in the PISA tests and if a country isn’t equipped to conduct the test country-wide, then regions of that country can participate instead.

If a country volunteers to participate, then individual schools are selected to represent all 15 year olds, and the individual students who are to sit the tests are then randomly selected from within those schools.

Students take the test in their native language, and the tests involve interpreting texts, solving problems and using their reasoning skills.

According to the video below, the primary aim of PISA isn’t to rank countries next to each other, although this is what tends to catch the headlines, rather it is about assessing how successfully students are being equipped for further study and work , and about collecting data to put together a picture of what the most effective education systems look like.

PISA’s positive spin on ‘PISA’.

Examples of PISA test questions

You can find some examples of the PISA test questions on the PISA web site here.

These questions really are worth having a look. The ‘reading’ questions really do challenge students to read thoroughly and think about their answers, and the maths questions all seem to be applied to real-world circumstances.

An overview of the 2018 PISA Results

Top ranked countries

Selected regions in China (not all regions do the tests!) came out on top, with a mean score in all tests of 555, closely followed by 3 other wealthy Asian city-states, then Estonia, Canada and Finland. Overall, there’s not too much of a mix at the top end – it’s either Asian city or Euro-American-Australian!

Bottom ranked countries

Much more of a mix down at the bottom: The Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Argentina stand out for me, either due to large population size or to just surprise due to their having quite a high level of development!

Problems with the PISA tests

This excellent (and short) 2019 article in The Conversation outlines seven problems with PISA tests, among which it mentions that economic and cultural factors in some countries can explain a of the difference in test results – poverty may account for up to 50% of the difference, for example,

It also mentions that the sampling of schools may bias the results – ‘indiginous’ schools which have higher SEN rates are not included in Canada’s sample, for example, which could boost it up to near the top.

This 2019 Washington Post article makes several main criticisms of the PISA tests, all based on a lot of research by serious academics. The gist of these criticisms are that the tests are very narrow – focusing on English, maths and science, and this narrow agenda reflects the biases of the rich people who have mainly been involved with designing them.

Despite their claims that the tests are universally applicable, they are not: the real world challenges faced by students in poorer countries probably aren’t being assessed by these maths/ english and science tests, they are probably more appropriate to students in wealthier countries.

Why do pupils in some countries get better PISA test scores than others?

Do European countries do well simply because the tests have been designed for them? And do the students in countries such as Saudi Arabia do worse because the tests aren’t culturally relevant (too narrow)?

Or is there at least some validity to these tests and then real underlying factors which might explain differences in student peformance?

Do those countries/ regions at the top end of the scale have features in common? Do their students perform well because of cultural factors such as parents valuing education, or economic factors because of the degree of equality, lack of poverty? Or is it because of the quality of education systems and amount of resources or way the schools are organised?

This is definitely something worth exploring, and it’s something I’d recommend all students think about doing.

You can do so by using either the individual snapshots of countries from PISA, or simply by doing your own independent research on the education systems of those countries at the top end of the league tables.

Are the PISA tests damaging education?

This letter, written in 2014 by education academics and published in The Guardian outlines several concerns about the negative consequences of the PISA testing regime. Some of these concerns include:

  • It has increased the pressure on national governments to rise up the rankings, which can increase the amount of testing (rather than education).
  • It encourages countries to focus on a narrow range of quantitative measures in mathematics, science and English rather than a broader range of qualitative educational goals.
  • It encourages a focus on a three-year improvement cycle, rather than longer term development.
  • ‘Work readiness’ is not the main aim of education in some countries, yet this is what the PISA tests are designed to assess.
  • PISA has no mandate in countries, it has just ‘imposed itself on them’.
  • It opens the doors to private companies to sell ‘education improvement’ products based on PISA findings.

Sources

Education in America

Key statistics on education in America, and the key features of the American education system including primary, secondary and tertiary education, the national curriculum and the examinations system.

This is part of a new set of posts designed to help students assess how developed countries are in terms of some of the key indicators of development such as economics, inequality, education, health, gender equality, peacefulness and so on…

America is an interesting case study because it is the wealthiest nation on earth in terms of total GDP, and very wealthy in terms of GNI per capita, but these high levels of wealth and income do not translate into social development for all.

This is a summary post at first, to be expanded on later…

America: Key Education Statistics

Core education statistics taken from World Bank data 

  • Pre-primary net enrollment rate – 63.8%
  • Primary enrollment rate – 93.1%
  • Secondary enrollment rate -90.5%
  • Tertiary enrollment rate – 86.7%
  • Out of school children – 1.5 million !
  • Government expenditure on education as percentage of GDP – 5.2%.

Education stats taken from other sources

Pisa Rankings (2015)

  • Science – 24th
  • Maths – 25th
  • Reading – 39th

Key Features of the American Education System 

Kindergarten, Primary, and Secondary Education in America

Schooling is compulsory for all children in the United States, with every child being entitled to a minimum of 12 years publicly funded education. Some states add on an additional year of pre-primary ‘Kindergarten) education, and the school leaving age also varies from state to state: some states allow students to leave school between 14–17 with parental permission, other states require students to stay in school until age 18.

American education

Children attend primary school from the ages of 6-11 where they are taught basic subjects, typically in a diverse, mixed ability class, with one teacher.

Children attend secondary school from the ages of 12-17, which is subdivided into junior high-school and senior high school. Here students are typically taught in different classes for different subjects and are allowed some degree of freedom to choose ‘elective subjects’.

While there is no overarching national curriculum, education in secondary school generally consists of 2–4 years of each of science, Mathematics, English, Social sciences, Physical education; some years of a foreign language and some form of art education, as well as the usual PSHE.

Many high schools provide ‘Honors classes’ for the more academically able during the 11th or 12th grade of high school and/ or offer the International Baccalaureate (IB).

The National (And Hidden) Curriculum

While there isn’t a national curriculum in America, there are some very detailed national common core standards in subject areas such as English and Maths – so why schools aren’t told what books they should actually get students to read, or how to teach maths, the standards dictate that they must spend a certain amount of time teaching these and other subjects…. When I say detailed, they really are – the standards on English stretch to over 60 pages.

In terms of the Hidden Curriculum – 50% of schools require their students to pledge allegiance as part of their daily routine, which I guess is an attempt to enforce a sense of national identity.

If you’re American I imagine this gives you a warm glowing feeling, if you’re not you’re probably fluctuating between an uncomfortable feeling of nausea and wondering WTF this has got to do with ‘liberty’. NB note the doting parents looking on, and that YouTube is full of this sort of thing.  

 

Differential Educational Achievement in America

The education system clearly doesn’t work for everyone equally – around 3 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 drop out of high school each year, a rate of 6.6 percent as of 2012.

Unsurprisingly, there are considerable ethnic differences in educational achievement in America, as this data from 2009 suggests:

ethnicity education America

 

Sources (those not included in links above!)

Wikipedia entry – Education in the United States

An overview of American education