What is your assessment of the potential for external central exams to improve student motivation to study and do well at school and thus, increase student success? What are some potential pitfalls? How can these be addressed?
External central exams would be outside tests that are given to students, most likely at the high school level. So rather than students being graded by their teachers, they are given grades or scores based on how they achieve on these external tests. The tests could be just one overall test for high school graduation, or could be multiple subject tests at different levels - although they should all be tests that a student can prepare and study for. AP tests are one form of current external central exams, but their level is above what most high school students are achieving.
Some possible benefits of these tests are that students (and teachers) would have more clarity on what they need to learn (although this benefit only comes if the tests are well-constructed). Another possible benefit is that students would stop seeing their teacher as the 'judge', and start seeing their teacher more as a coach - someone who is in the situation with them and ready to help them. While this may happen a bit, I think that there would need to be some change in teaching style in addition to the change of testing for most students to change their vision of the teacher to a coach.
Student accountability and external exams are being brought up as an issue for older children, because as "The Adolescent Society" article notes, "adolescents don't like school". However, I don't know if more tests are going to help teens to like school more. As the article also talks about, the school culture is in part defined by the structure of rewards. If the football team is always celebrated after a win, then playing football will be the popular thing to do. Where as if the science olympiad team is celebrated after a win, then perhaps science will become the popular thing to do. (Which reminds me that I've been wanting to send an email to the local high school I drive past some days that congrats students for academic achievements on their scrolling electric signage! It always makes me happy because my high school growing up had a state ranked football team and a nationally ranked science olympiad team - but guess which one got much more publicity?)
Anyway, we need to consider if the external exams will help to shift schools back to their latent function, or if students still won't care. Or if there may even be a negative effect. If the external exams are seen a the 'white' way to achieve, then will African Americans and Hispanics underachieve? I think this may be the case if there are multiple levels of the external exams, such as an academic test and a general test. While African-American participation in AP tests has increased recently, the percentage of African-American students taking the test is still very low, and their scores are lower as well (http://www.jbhe.com/features/59_apscoringgap.html). It would be interesting to see how this external test taking and scoring correlates with Fryer's work on 'Acting White'. Do more or fewer minority students take AP tests in integrated schools vs more segregated schools?
There's also the basic issue of type of motivation. Having an external test that the students and teachers can rally together to do well on may be motivating to some. But do we want to focus on external motivation or internal motivation? Do we want to students to be studying because they want to ace the test or because they're engaged and interested in the material and see its relevance in their life? Granted, building internal motivation is often more difficult and a longer process than giving out gold stars, but internal motivation and grit seems to be more important in the long run. In one study, they looked at West Point cadets and found that those who were internally motivated were more likely to make it through than those who were going for outside reasons (http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/07/one-type-motivation-may-be-key-success)
Overall external tests may help for curriculum clarity and possibly to have teachers work more as coaches. But unless the overall culture of the school and the local community rewards higher test scores, I don't know if just the tests will motivate students to achieve at higher levels. And even if the external rewards are in place, what about internal motivation?
One way to possibly increase internal motivation while using external tests is diversity of choice, that Bob Schwartz mentioned briefly in the video. If different subjects had different external tests, and students could choose a selection of which courses & tests they would take, that may increase some internal motivation because students would likely be taking courses and tests based on what they're interested in or want to do in the future. The International Baccalaureate or IB Diploma has a system like this, where students choose one subject from five groups to ensure breadth, but also choice. http://www.ibo.org/diploma/curriculum/
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