Measuring the Wrong Things

In the world-wide drive for school improvement there is a consequence for a focus on narrow set of indicators. We’ve seen improvement as being achieved by small gains in effectiveness and efficiencies; Taylorism. This is exactly how improvements in the factory production line were achieved in the nineteenth century. But what has been considered important is now recognised as being only part of what a good education should be.

Measuring the wrong things, or perhaps more correctly, not better considering what the right things might be, is a human problem. We seem to get caught up in, as Daniel Kahneman tells us, in making the easier choice. It is now accepted that the primary tool of global economic performance, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), has impacted our world in unintended and problematic ways. It had its origins in the late 1800s and has dominated thinking about what is important, at least in economic ways. As Robert F. Kennedy is purported as saying… it ‘measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile’.

There are many issues with GDP as a measure. Aggregated data on what is spent on goods and service includes items that are not necessarily good for humanity; spending on incarceration, the cost of crime, clearing of forests, cleaning up pollution and environmental damage, addressing mental health and obesity, production of weapons, litigation and to strategies to address inequality.

In GDP terms the more of these things the better. It also ignores what might be positives for a community; volunteer work, social entrepreneurship, community gatherings, establishing national parks rather than clearing land for development and being in the natural environment. These don't add to a nation's GDP.

Along a similar line of thinking, standardised test results measure only part of what is important in a full education. Scholars and thinkers, including Sir Ken Robinson, have been telling us this for years. However, we find it difficult to find new worthy indicators for school performance. It is complex work. But as American educator Carol Black suggests ‘Collecting data on human learning based on children’s behaviour in school is like collecting data on killer whales based on their behaviour at Sea World’. Yet we persist in doing this.

The point is that standardised test results have shaped our learning and our schools for decades. A rethink is necessary, and especially if we are to better shape the future. We need to appreciate the importance of Creative Thinking and how to focus on this in our schools. There is more to living a good life than economic growth (measured by GDP) and test scores (measured by standardised tests). What we need in the primary school are students that are Literate, Numerate and Curious and to do this through a clearer purpose for schooling.