950 likes | 1.31k Views
Assessment and Evaluation of the Israeli Education System. Michal Beller Director-General of RAMA. The National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education, Israel. April 2013. http:// rama.education.gov.il. Assessment and Evaluation Should Provide Support for an Ongoing Process.
E N D
Assessment and Evaluation of the Israeli Education System Michal Beller Director-General of RAMA The National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education, Israel April 2013 http://rama.education.gov.il
Assessment and Evaluation Should Provide Support for an Ongoing Process • Baker, 2005
Intended Instruction Hours EAG 2012
Teaching Hours EAG 2012
Class Size EAG 2012
Ministerial Goals
Ministerial Goals (2009-2013) • Promote educational values • Combat violence and create an optimal educational climate • Improve achievement • Best utilize available study time • Narrow the educational gaps • Strengthen the status of teachers and improve the quality of instruction • Strengthen the status of principals • Focus on core subjects • Suit curricula to changing educational reality • Raise the number of students in professional-technological education • Align the education system to the digital age in the 21st Century • Mainstream special needs students into regular education by enhancing the ability to retain them in classes and provide a range of solutions for them
RAMA National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation in Education Assessment for Learning
RAMA • An independent statutory unit - the National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation –RAMA - shall be established as the entity that leads and provides professional guidance to the education system with respect to measurement and evaluation. • RAMA will conduct periodic evaluations of the education system and evaluations in schools, and will publish its findings in an annual report submitted to the National Council for Education. • From the Dovrat Commission (2004)
Improving Student Learning • Ultimately, accountability is not only about measuring student learning but actually improving it • Consequently, genuine accountability involves supporting changes in teaching and schooling that can heighten the probability that students meet standards • There are at least three major areas where attention is needed: • Ensuring that teachers have the knowledge and skills they need to teach to the standards • Providing school structures that support high quality teaching and learning • Creating processes for school assessment that can evaluate students’ opportunities to learn and can leverage continuous change and improvement Darling Hammond, 2004
Campbell's Law "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” "achievement tests may well be valuable indicators of general school achievement under conditions of normal teaching aimed at general competence. But when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.” Campbell, Donald T., "Assessing the Impact of Planned Social Change“. The Public Affairs Center, Dartmouth College, December, 1976.
Unintended Negative Effects of External High Stakes Testing Narrowing the Curriculum Between-Subject Reallocation of time The Impact of Setting a Specific Target • Teaching to the Test; • Test Inflation Assessment is Only a Sample of the Curriculum “Most Children are Left Behind…”
Updating the Israeli Assessment System • The main goals of the recent update: • Implement a culture of “assessment for learning” • Mitigate the threats of external exams (including gaming the system) • Effective integration of internal and external evaluation • Decentralization of the evaluation process along with the use of centrally designed rigorous tools • Empowerment of teachers and principals • Professional design of assessments and scoring (including equating, alignment to curriculum and standards and more)
Use of Multiple Indicators Sample-based Assessments (National & International exams) Internal External Internal admin. of external tests Matriculation exams, Meitzav Formative Assessments, Assignment Data- Base, “Off-the-shelf” Assessments Schools & pupils are being examined
Large Scale Assessment in Israel • Matriculation Exams (“Bagrut”) – end of high school • Meitzav – National Assessments (Native Language, Math, Science, English) – 5th and 8th grades (+2nd grade in Language) + Climate & Pedagogical Survey to students and teachers (primary and secondary students, teachers and principals) • International Comparisons: • TIMSS - Math and Science Study – 9th Grade • (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015) • PIRLS - Reading Assessment – 4th Grade • (2001, 2006, 2011, 2016) • PISA - Reading, Mathematical & Scientific Literacy – 15+ Years Old • (2000/2, 2006, 2009, 2012, 2015) • TALIS - Teaching and Learning International Survey - Teachers • (2013) • PIAAC - Programme for the International Assessment of Adult • Competencies – 16-64 (2013) • Information Technology - SITES (1997, 2006); ICILS (2012 pilot) Sample-based Assessments
Matriculation Exams (Bagrut)
~52% Do Not Matriculate • Approximately 20% do not study in 12th grade • Approximately 9% of those studying in 12th grade do not take the Matriculation exams • Approximately 23% of those who take the Matriculation exams are not eligible for Matriculation Certificate
Meitzav National Assessments and School Climate Surveys
Meitzav National Assessments המיצ"ב - מהו? School Climate & Pedagogical Environment Surveys
Achievement on Meitzav Assessments – 2007-2012Multi-Year Comparison Across Schools (Grades 5&8)
Achievement on MeitzavAssessments in 5th Gradeaccording to SES (high-middle-low) amongst Hebrew Speakers
School Climate and Pedagogical Environment Teachers Students Questionnaires Principals School Climate Pedagogical Environment
Meitzav Surveys • The surveys of school climate and pedagogical environment on the Meitzav are designed to provide a detailed picture of the school climate and pedagogical processes that occur within it, as depicted in the information gathered from questionnaires administered to students and teachers • The questionnaires provide comprehensive and relevant information on important dimensions in this area, including: • student motivation; • the relationship between teachers and students; • team work among faculty; • Violence • and more
Monitoring School Violence School & National Levels
Monitoring Level of Violence at the National Level • In order to get a more detailed picture of school violence, RAMA developed the ‘Violence Monitoring Questionnaire’ (VMQ) (based on previous work by Benbenishty & Astor and others) • The VMQ focuses on a range of expressions of violent and dangerous behaviors within schools and on transport to and from school • The goal: • Collect systematic bi-annual comparable information, based on student self-response • Identify trends over time with regard the level of violence in the education system • In both 2009 and 2011 -- RAMA administered the VMQ among a representative national sample of students (around 24,000) in grades 4 to 11 • Next survey - 2013
Topics Investigated on the VMQ • Severe violence • Moderate violence • Social violence • Violence using digital media • Verbal violence • Violent gangs and bullying in schools • Sexual violence • Alcohol and drug abuse • Violence by the school staff • Violence towards the school staff • Possession of cold weapons (knives/penknives) • Violence on transport to and from school • School absenteeism due to a fear of harm • Student feelings of safety • Students perception of the school's efforts in preventing violence
Student Reporting of Violence (1/2) • Students reporting (in %) different types of violence according to grade level in 2009 and 2011, and the rate of the change (in %)
International Comparisons
PIRLS 2006: Results for Israel Average of the leading country – Russian Federation - 565 "PIRLS Scale Average" Rank from 45 countries 31 11 40
Percentage of students reaching the PIRLS 2006 benchmark, by sector
Arabic Diglosia • Diglosia refers to a situation in which closely related languages are used by a single language community. Usually it involves a spoken language and a highly codified variety used in formal settings • Diglosia is characteristic of Arabic – • Arab children acquire their Spoken Arabic as first language (L1) at home • When they attend the Arab school system they begin to learn to speak and to read Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in first grade, to speakHebrew (L2) in second grade, and to read and write in Hebrew and in English in third grade • This in turn led the Ministry of Education to design a radically new Arabic language acquisition program starting from first grade
Trends of Change in Reading Literacy in Israel- PISABetween the Years 2002, 2006, and 2009 +22 Mean A significant rise in achievement (35 points) in reading achievement in Israel between 2006 and 2009. This improvement brings Israel closer to the OECD average (493) A rise of 22 points in total from 2002 to 2009
Trends of Change in Reading Literacy - PISA between the years 2006 and 2009 Between 2006 and 2009 Israel rose by 35 points in reading, and is positioned at third place with regard the size of improvement
Score Variance - PISA 2009 The countries are ranked according to size of the score variance (the gap between the 10th and 90th percentile)
Between and Within Variance of Science Scores on PISA 2006 Within Between Finland excels in personalized learning: 30% of instruction hours are spent by teacher outside the classroom with individual students
Release of PISA 2012 Results • in December 2013
PISA - Pushing the Envelope • Literacy of Reading, Math, Science • Financial Literacy • Problem Solving • Digital Assessments • Collaborative Learning • Innovation
Digital PISA Assessments - March 2012 PISA 2015 – fully computerized
PISA IN FOCUS 1: Does participation in pre-primary education translate into better learning outcomes at school?