Promises, Promises

Reflections on the relationships between international test scores and

economic development .

This presentation makes 3 claims:

A. The international testing agencies send a misleading message to governments in the developed world concerning the affect of improvement in tests scores (PISA and TIMSS) on economic growth.

B. This message filters through the curricula of different education systems and affects the internal balance between what is and what isn’t “in the test.”

C. Accepting the assumption that by improving test scores we make a significant contribution to economic growth we neglect exploring alternative strategies while placing enormous , unjustified, pressure on the education system to confirm with the testing regime.

A Global Promise!• States must improve

their education in general and test scores in particular in order to be able to compete globally.

• "one standard deviation difference on test performance is related to 1% difference in annual growth rates of GDP per capita."

 

 

1989

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2014

2019

2024

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2034

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2049

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Improvement in GDP as a Consequence of an improvement in Education

Note:*K-12 education expenditures are assumed to be constant at the level attained in 2005. These data show that economic benefits from a 1989 reform that raised the U.S. to the highest levels of test performance would cover the cost of K-12 education by 2015

Source:Eric Hanushek

Percent addition to GDP

10-year reform20-year reform30-year reform

Total U.S. K-12 spending

In presentations made by Dr Andres Schleicher the curve is repeated with the same prediction: "every gain of 25 points in the PISSA test contributes 1% to the growth of GDP per capita."

• This graph is taken from a presentation given by Dr Andres Schleicher, at the Taube Center in Israel, 2011.

How strong is the correlation

between educational

achievements and economic ?

performance

Before looking at the data

A. the pace of growth is only one economic indicator that says relatively little about the overall state of the economy or the quality of life in any particular country.

B. It’s easier, for developing economies to grow faster. Looking at charts comparing the rate of growth of a fast developing economy like Ghana (with a GDP per capita of 1,884$) to the rate of growth of a developed economy like Finland (with a GDP per capita of 38,083$) one should be aware of the “meaning” of 1% growth in each of these countries.

Country Rank according to test scores 2000s

In brackets place according to tests

scores in the 1990s.(Hanushek and Wobmann)

Rank according to real GDP

growth2010

Rate of real GDP growth2010

Finland 1( 5) 112 3.122

Korea 2( 2) 48 6.14

Taiwan 3( 1) -- --

Japan 4( 3) 94 3.938

Estonia 5)--( 113 3.105

Singapore 6( 4) 3 14.47

China 7)--( 6 10.3

Canada 8( 19) 115 3.071

Australia 9( 8) 120 2.747

Netherlands 10( 14) 140 1.748

Ireland 11( 26) 174 -1.04

Switzerland 12( 20) 124 2.55

Growth Patterns and a Global Shift of Power

  According to the 2011 report of HBSC research center the countries that will grow fastest in the next few decades are:

The Philippines, Peru, Malaysia, Egypt and Pakistan. The developed Western countries especially small states like Finland, Sweden and Norway (all known for their high quality of education and excellent test scores) will drop out of the list of the 30th strongest economies and will grow relatively slowly.  

Karen Ward, The world in 2050, quantifying the shift in the Global Economy, HSBC Global Research 2011

Economic Watch: Fastest Growing Economies

Economic Watch lists the fastest growing economies in 2010 were:

Ghana, Qatar, Turkmenistan, Liberia, India, Iraq, Ethiopia, Mozambique, East Timor and Laos

.

Economic Watch lists the fastest growing economies in 2010: Ghana, Qatar, Turkmenistan, Liberia, India, Iraq, Ethiopia, Mozambique, East Timor and Laos, [1] except for China none of these countries participated in the international tests and if they would have done so they would have probably ranked rather low on the achievements list. Moreover, one could hardly claim that they are capitalizing on past educational achievements as their educational systems are relatively poor and the level of illiteracy is very high.

Illiteracy and growth

In one of the fastest growing economies, Ghana, 12% of the population never attended school, 10% dropout between 1st and 5th grade, 40% dropout between 6th and 9th grade, 32% finished 9th grade without being literate and only 5% were

literate at 9th grade .

In fact the global map of fast growing economies correlates better with the map of high levels of illiteracy than with that of high test scores.

 

Forecast of growth rates of real GDP

Developing world: The influence of the balance of acquired skills and cheap labor on economic growth.

Developed world: what is the present rate of return to improvements in education and test scores? Are reaching an educational plateau? Are we losing out in the “Global Auction”?

Test Scores and Growth in the Developed World

Tienken analyzes the correlation between test scores and Growth Competitiveness Index (GCI) and shows that "nations with strong economies (e.g., the top 22 nations on GCI) demonstrate a weak, non-significant relationship between the ranks on international tests of mathematics and science achievements and economic strength as measured by the GCI ranks. The relationships are stronger in countries that are grouped in the bottom 50% of the GCI ranking.  

• Christopher H. Tienken, Ranking of International Achievement Test Performance and Economic Strength: Correlation or Conjecture?, in International Journal of Educational Policy and Leadership, 2008, Vol. 3 no. 4. p. 9

The 2011 HSBC study relies on the work of the Harvard economist Robert Barro yet argues that the original model overestimated the impact of education assuming an extra year of schooling serves to raise GDP growth by 1.2% points.

Countries with very high levels of education, such as Germany, were therefore forecasted to grow much faster than they did, and countries such as India with very low levels of education were barely forecast to grow at all.

 • R. J. Barro, 1991 Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 106,

pp. 407-443; Kareb Ward, Ibid., p. 32

"recalibrating the model to lower the impact of education produced remarkably accurate forecasts for such a simple

model".

An Artifact ?

Examining the relations between test results and real GDP growth in the developed world and the strong linear correlation between the two variables now seems as

an artifact of a certain political environment and historical period (European states in the post World War II period) when GDP and educational achievements grow synchronically.

Questioning the Ruling Educational Paradigm

In the developed world improving test scores =

improving global competitiveness and enhancing growth

“If we don’t out-educate them they will out-

compete us!”

What can we learn from PISA and TIMSS?

A recent report coming out of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation suggests that regression models used explains the variation in TIMSS scores show that :

68.1% of the variation is explained by “out-of the system variables” (number of books at home – that probably correlated to parents' education and income influences 45.5%!!!!, immigration rates (3.2.%); urban areas (4%); and controlling for Asian countries (13.5%); 6.6% to education quality factors (class size, teacher development workshop) and 2.2% to institutional factors (pay-for –performance.

•  •Jack Bugas, Porter Kalbus, Jackie Rotman, Ali Troute, Pa Nhia Vang, What Can we Learn about the US Education System from

International Comparisons? A paper prepared for the Silicon Valley Education Foundation, March 2012, p,IV

The rest of the analysis asks how to improve the 8.8% in-the-system variables

"Although the large majority of the variation is explained by out-of-system factors, these factors are largely fixed, so education policy must primarily focus on making changes to in-system factors."

Social conservatism educational reforms

Most of the debate about improving education – which seems reformative in form – is deeply conservative in nature -- it attempts to improve education in order to create a better foundation for economic growth while keeping the present social order intact.

The gap between the inspirational language of educational reform and the real amount of change it can bring about accounts for the ongoing disappointment from the power of education to change social reality. It also places an enormous, unfair burden, on the shoulders of those who are affected by the 68% out of school variables (students and teachers alike) to catch up educationally and overcome socio-economic limiting factors they can hardly control.

:A question

as PISA and TIMSS show a strong

correlation between social class and

educational achievements why is it that best practice

recommendations rarely deal with

social equality fighting poverty

malnutrition

Missing the Target?

The international tests have many virtues but they miss

the target:The tests carry no global receipt for growth or

competitiveness

The “promise” systematically overestimates the contribution of improved test scores to economic growth in the developed world.

Best Practices avoid recommending social policy necessary to improve education

Educational achievements/failures are de-contextualized

The blame for slow growth, “no hope”, lack of profitable jobs and the growing class of educated poor is placed on the shoulder of educators.