A new study published in London concludes that students perform better in school–both academically and in their behavior–when teachers focus on learning rather than on test scores, results, and competition.
Children’s attitudes and behaviour improve – along with their results — when teachers and schools are more concerned about helping them learn than pushing them to gain particular exam scores, Watkins found. Such points have been recognised by Ofsted reports on successful schools, and also mirror the evidence on achievement in other fields such as sports and business.
Never-the-less, evidence suggests that the “goal climate” in classrooms becomes increasingly performance-oriented as children get older, and that this continues to disadvantage the groups of children who have always struggled to achieve in school.
Watkins says schools have two challenges:
• To recognise that passing tests is not the goal of education, but a by-product of effective learning.
• To recognise that even when we want pupils to do their best in tests, pressure and performance orientation will not achieve it.
He concludes “If there’s one new thing we need in our school system right now, it’s a well-developed focus on learning. And if the coalition government is serious about its wish to close the gap between high performers and low performers then a focus on learning will make a significant contribution. Learning is for life, not for league tables.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These are interesting findings:
• To recognise that passing tests is not the goal of education, but a by-product of effective learning.
• To recognise that even when we want pupils to do their best in tests, pressure and performance orientation will not achieve it
The powers that be seem to be believe the goal of education is higher test scores (and only higher test scores) and the way to achieve that goal is to use sticks and carrots (though mostly sticks) on teachers, administrators and schools.
I say they “seem” to believe these things because I don’t really think they do believe them. I think they use these as excuses to smear public education and public school teachers as “bad” so that they can pursue their ultimate agenda – privatization and profit.
You often note, Dr. Ravitch, that the schools where the powers that be send their kids – the Sidwell Friends School, The Dalton School, Waldorf Schools and the like – are not set up this way. FEAR does not rule the day in these schools. Test scores do not rule the day.
Clearly the powers that be know what good education is and what a good school system looks like – so why isn’t the same good enough for the vast majority of America? Why do the children and grandchildren of Obama, Emanuel, Christie, Gates, Bloomberg, Jobs, et al. get to experience a progressive education that privileges and values learning, wonder, reflection, trial-and-error and enrichment while the rest of America gets the Common Core Federal Standards, standardized tests all the year long connected to the CCFS, teacher evaluations tied to the test scores, and fired teachers and closed schools that result from the scores?
I can only think that they do it on purpose to educate the populace to be, as George Carlin said, compliant obedient workers and consumers who are just competent enough to run things but not educated enough to see how badly they’re getting screwed by a system that threw them overboard thirty+ years ago.
Interestingly enough, George Carlin went to a progressive Catholic school which he described like this:
“Even though I went to a Catholic school, it was a very permissive setting. There was no corporal punishment. This was an experimental school across from Columbia University in the 1940s that had no report cards, no grades of any kind, and no uniforms, and the sexes were not segregated, and the desks were all movable. You changed groupings every month. It was a complete experimental school, and I had eight years of that. In spite of the overlay of the religion, it was not the kind of thing we think of when we think of Catholic schools. So that contributed to my trust in my own worth and thought…They sure gave me the tools to reject the very religion they wanted me to have. They taught me how to think for myself and to be independent.”
No wonder the powers that be do not want that kind of education system for the vast majority of Americans. They fear a country where children are taught to think for themselves and be independent – those kind of children grow up to be adults who think for themselves and act independently and just might not be the obedient compliant workforce and consumer group the powers that be want them to be.
LINK for Carlin interview: http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0701
These findings are not novel in any way. Achievement goal theory posits that learning suffers when students are pushed to “show what they know” instead of to master the material. Scores of academic research studies published over the past two decades clearly support the theory.
I would contend that writing goals on the board can be a form of pressure. “Students will be able to…” I don’t know if they will be able to! How about a wish list? (Today I hope to address these topics in some form or another.) I am really tired of performance targets.
Can’t say I’ve ever thought of it that way. It’s an interesting insight.