Teachers, Teaching, the PISA and the CITO

It’s been a while since my past post mainly because I’ve been on the move across a few cities. I’ve attended the Fulbright Conference in Berlin- travelled back to Amsterdam, and then flew to Stockholm a few days ago. So it’s been busy—but have gotten some good opportunities to meet and talk with some very knowledgeable people on a variety of topics in education.At the close of my last post, I ended with a question about the role of the teachers union in the Netherlands. So, here, in brief, is something of an answer. I was able to visit something called a ’Teacher Cooperative’ headquartered in Utrecht (a truly beautiful city) in the Netherlands, and found out some very interesting things this support organization does to enhance teacher practice. Their structure seems to parallel that of a Teacher Center where they work with a cadre of teachers who train other teachers at various levels of experience for more effective classroom instruction. I met the head of the organization who was passionate about the kind of work the organization does and how much of the professional experiences generated are tied to reform models. This Teacher Cooperative works across the Netherlands and sees its role as a prime mover in teacher education. They are careful about the trainers they select and ensure they are knowledgeable about the content areas they address. He told me that while his organization is not connected with the Teachers Union in the Netherlands which, it seems, is the country’s basic collective bargaining unit, they do work with unions in designing professional development.

I also had the opportunity to talk with a several professors at The University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam about topics in teacher education. I discovered some things that parallel US teacher education and some that don’t. For example, anyone interested in becoming a teacher in the Netherlands has to decide this fairly early because, for want of a better word, they are ‘tracked’ in an undergraduate preparation program depending on the level of school they wish to teach. If they, for example, want to work teaching a content area of an academic high school they must spend most of their time in an undergraduate academic track, followed by some education preparation training in graduate school. This is not the case if someone wishes to teach in the primary grades or in a vocational setting. However, it seemed that this differentiated training model was not status driven. The vocational track seemed to be as valued as the academic track and, given the realities of the labor market here in the EU, it seemed important to encourage this type of training for students interested and talented in this area.

Now, let’s move the discussion from teacher education to testing. The Netherlands, it seems, is also experiencing the same type of NTA (National Testing Anxiety) the US (and many other countries around the globe) seems to be, but, perhaps, in a different sense. One of the first questions that most of the schools, educators, and professors in the Netherlands would ask me is why I selected the country as my primary research destination. I told them primarily two reasons: first, the high level of English proficiency (I needed to be practical about my research and its operationalization); and, second, PISA scores. For those of you who may not know about the PISA, this is the triennial assessment that the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation) puts out that is the closest to a global achievement test we have. (Note: I will be visiting the OECD in Paris in a few weeks as well). In effect, the OECD ranks countries on the performance of their 15 years olds on the PISA in literacy, math and science.

You may be familiar with recent headlines lamenting the low performance on the PISA of US students (except for those in Massachusetts). I've talked about the PISA in previous posts. Well, the Netherlands has consistently ranked in the top ten in PISA scoring—although they fell a bit this year. And, I would tell my Dutch colleagues, that it is my belief that this kind of consistent global performance must (in theory, at least) be tied to teacher behaviors. Surprisingly, some would agree, and some would not. The Dutch educators worry about their PISA scores to the same extent that educators (especially those working in Ministries) do in other countries. Mostly, they worry about how politicians and bureaucrats will spin these scores so as to illustrate the dire nature of their respective education system and the ideas proposed by politicians to reform and save these institutions. It appears that, like the US, the Netherlands isn’t really that different when it comes to individuals coopting education to serve short term personal goals.But there is another high stakes test in the Netherlands with even more importance than the PISA called the CITO (or Eindtoets Basisonderwijs-End of Primary School test).

This test is administered at the close of a student’s enrollment in primary schools, around ages 12-13. It’s usually administered over a three day period in February and consists of about 200 questions covering content in math and language, something called environmental studies which includes questions on geography, history, biology and physics, and a section on study skills. The score on this test is highly responsible (some would say a bit too responsible) for the track that students then embark on—some go to more academically-oriented schools, others to more vocationally-oriented schools (although some school people I met didn’t call it tracking). Again, there is no differing status conferred on any decision made by a parent or student. The Dutch believe that students should be trained in those areas in which they demonstrate the most proficiency, and this proficiency is demonstrated by a CITO score. There appeared to be an opportunity to change the track students qualified for with school and teacher input, but that seemed to be rare—much to the dismay of some parents, as some professors told me. However, most people felt the system is so deep-rooted in Dutch culture that it would be quite difficult to change it. While this type of decision-making process appeared to parallel the US practice of tracking, the Dutch did not seem to perceive it this way. In their eyes, it was just a way to ensure the child receives the most appropriate, customized education. No qualms here about the power of one standardized test to change a life.

Needless to say, I have mixed feelings about the CITO process. The test, which assesses student proficiency in multiple content areas, seemed somewhat equivalent (at least in spirit) to our SAT in its high stakes connotation (as well as its potential for things like the rise of CITO coaching as a cottage industry). However, the fact that it was administered at an earlier developmental stage than we give the SAT does bring up some issues that make it a bit more problematic. One thing about the Netherlands that is laudatory is their commitment to the principle of freedom of choice. Parents are free to have their child attend any school they wish, roughly paralleling, in principle at least, the American principle of school choice. However, when it comes to secondary schools attended after the CITO, these schools are free to accept or not accept any child who applies for admission. Of course, those schools higher on the desirability scale have more leeway (power?) in accepting students they decide are appropriate for them and, of course, competition for these schools is high with parents doing anything they can to ensure their children’s entry into the school (perhaps something like the frenzy Manhattan parents feel about getting their child into the right kindergarten).

The CITO, like all standardized tests, does make it easier for schools to recommend what type of school a child continues his/her education. Test scores are reported in a kind of bandwidth form with students qualifying for specific secondary school programs based on their cumulative score. And here’s where things seemed to become a little complicated. Like all tests which result in a comprehensive (number” (e.g. 800 for the SAT). the potential for the use-- and misuse-- of this number is high. When it came to the CITO, while things like teacher and school assessment seemed important, it might be difficult for some schools to stray far from the “number” they’re used to seeing in their incoming students. This stratification of students based on their cumulative score remains, I am coming to believe, a global phenomenon and might be harder to change than many of us think.