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Article Excerpt
One of the outcomes of regular education reform in Australia has been the development of a national testing program for school students. This article examines the degree to which students with a disability participate in this testing, and the extent to which the testing of students with a disability may help to achieve the National Goals of Schooling in this country. Several international comparisons with the Australian situation are made. A number of recommendations are made to facilitate the participation of students with a disability in national testing as a means of achieving the goal of educational equity for these students.
Educational reform and educational accountability
The past thirty years have seen the level of educational accountability increase significantly (Elliot, Hyeonsook, Thurlow, & Ysseldyke, 1995; Jones, 1999; Labon, 1999; National Centre for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2000; Quenemoen, Lehr, Thurlow, & Massanari, 2001). An outcome of this change has been the development of national and international standards for the education of all students, incorporating the measurement of educational outcomes. The philosophy underpinning the development of such standards is that all students from all backgrounds should have the same opportunities to learn and to achieve (Labon, 1999;Thomas & Bainbridge, 2001).
Measurement of educational outcomes is considered important on several levels. At the international level, it permits the comparison of educational outcomes across countries (Jones, 1999). Curriculum and teaching strategies may similarly be compared, leading to information about common issues and standards in education. This, it is argued, plays a part in ensuring the economic competitiveness of countries in a globalised marketplace by informing national and international policy makers about the knowledge and skills of their human resource base (NCES, 2000). The measurement of educational outcomes at the national level forms an essential part of accountability systems (Quenemoen et al., 2001; Sirotnik & Kimball, 1999). These systems may drive education reform by informing policy makers about the effectiveness of current practices in education, including teaching strategies, resource management and curriculum development (Falk, 2002; Roach, Salisbury, & McGregor, 2002).
National education reform in Australia has been influenced by both the Hobart and the Adelaide Declarations (Department of Education, Science and Training [DEST], 2002a; Forlin & Forlin, 1998; Pascoe, 2001). The Hobart Declaration was the outcome of the Education Ministers' meeting in Hobart in 1987 and laid the foundation for the recognition of a common set of outcomes for learning. These became recognised as Key Learning Areas and laid the foundation for assessment and curriculum development across the states (see Department of Education, Training and Employment, South Australia [DETE SA], 2002; Forlin & Forlin, 1998). In 1999, the Education Ministers met again, and endorsed a set of nationally agreed, common goals for schooling to 'establish a foundation for action among State and Territory governments' (DEST, 2002b, p. 1). The purposes for establishing such goals were to improve educational partnerships, increase the quality of teaching and the curriculum, and 'increase public confidence in school education through explicit and defensible standards that guide improvement in students' levels of educational achievement' (DEST, 2002b, p. 2). These were endorsed as the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for schooling in the twenty-first century and were framed in inclusive language.
An early practical implementation of these goals was the establishment of the National Literacy and Numeracy Plan (DEST, 2002c). This plan was built on the relevant National Goals and consisted, firstly, of national numeracy and literacy benchmarks, or 'minimum acceptable standards for literacy and numeracy at a particular year level' (DEST, 2002d, p. 1). These benchmarks were considered relevant to all students 'while recognising that a very small percentage of students suffer from severe disabilities and so may be unable to achieve the minimum standards' (DEST, 2002d, p. 2). The second aspect of the Plan was the development of a program of assessment and reporting against those benchmarks to ensure accountability in the achievement of the national goals (DEST, 2002c). Finally, a professional development plan for educators was established to support them in the implementation of this plan (DEST, 2002c).
Despite good intentions, the movement for increased educational accountability has been accompanied by a number of unintended consequences (Albrecht & Joles, 2003; Quenemoen et al., 2001). These have been well documented in the US, where the focus of educational reform has moved towards a business-influenced accountability system (Boscardin, 1997; McNeil, 2000; Skrtic, 1995). A number of critics have suggested that standards-based reform and other accountability systems may threaten quality and equality in education through:
* encouraging teachers to teach to a test, abandoning more authentic and creative curriculum content and presentation (Dorn, 1998; McNeil, 2000);
* de-skilling teachers as the training requirements for teaching become closely allied to the accountability systems (Falk, 2002); and,
* contradicting the philosophy of equal opportunity. That is, those students who do not learn the same way as most other students, or do not have the same literacy skills or cultural knowledge as the tests require, may be distinctly disadvantaged (Albrecht & Joles, 2003; Popham, 1999). The groups most disadvantaged are children from minority cultures, children of low socio-economic status and children with disabilities.
International comparisons of national educational outcomes reporting
International comparative studies of educational outcomes were introduced in the early 1960s by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (lEA). In an attempt to monitor and compare the efficacy of national education systems, a number of international comparative studies were introduced (Jones, 1999), and have covered areas such as mathematics, science, reading and civics. One of the most comprehensive of these studies was developed by the IEA, in the early 1980s (Elliot et al., 1995; Jones, 1999; NCES, 2000).
Currently there are three major international comparative studies of the educational outcomes of school students being conducted on a cyclical basis. These are the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). PISA assesses reading, mathematical and scientific literacy. TIMSS and PIRLS are conducted by the IEA, and PISA is conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
There is very little information about students with disabilities and their participation in, or exclusion from, these international studies (Elliot et al., 1995). The sampling manual for the TIMSS and the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP) included general guidelines for the participation of students with disabilities. The guidelines for both these studies state that all children should be given the opportunity to participate where possible. However, students identified in these guidelines as educable mentally retarded, functionally disabled or non-native language speakers (Elliot et al., 1995), may be exempted from participating at the discretion of the participating school's executive staff.
The OECD's Technical Report for PISA 2000 provides for the exclusion of students on the basis that they are educable mentally retarded, functionally disabled or non-native speakers. While the Technical Report notes that PISA is designed to be as inclusive as possible, the extent to which students with a disability complete the PISA is unclear (OECD, 2002). Indeed, the general participation rate of the most recently reported PISA varies widely across countries (OECD, 2002). Participation ranges from 100 per cent in North Korea, to 82...
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