Students getting global test

Students compare with peers globally

Assessment measures against international benchmark.

“The results allow a school to figure out how to improve overall.”

Kelly Goodrich, senior director of policy and advocacy at test provider Northwest Evaluation Association

The Broward County School District will soon get a glimpse at how its students stack up against others around the globe.

About 12 schools have signed up to administer a voluntary new test to assess the attitudes and critical thinking skills of 15-year-olds. The exam mea-

sures a school’s performance against an international benchmark, and is aimed at helping schools improve.

The “no-stakes” exam was created by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international group of member countries formed 50 years ago to stimulate economic progress and world trade. It became available in the U.S. in 2013 and has caught on slowly but steadily since then.

“It is my belief that Broward should be a leader in this space,” said Dan Gohl, chief academic officer for the Broward County School District. “And I believe we are the right place to be a leader because we get kids from anywhere in the world, and we should be able to send them anywhere in the world.”

OECD countries currently test randomly selected 15-year-old students every three years using the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which allows for side-by-side national comparisons. The new OECD Test for Schools brings the comparison

down to an individual school level.

More than 400 U.S. schools have administered the new test since its launch, with the results stacking their students against others in countries from China to Brazil.

In each participating school, 85 15-year-olds are chosen at random to sit for the two and-ahalf hour exam. In addition to measuring math, reading and science skills, it also asks about a school’s climate, student motivations and relationships with teachers. Students are chosen to represent the school’s makeup based on gender and socioeconomic standing and are given the option of bowing out.

Questions in previous versions of the test have asked students to calculate the likelihood that a person will win a concert ticket in a drawing or choose the best of several cellphone plans based on costs and terms.

“It’s focused on whether students can use what they’ve learned in school in real-life situations,” said Tue Halgreen, a policy analyst with OECD. “So these are the type of skills that are needed for students to be prepared for college – and later, work.”

Results are not broken down to the individual level. Instead, schools get a detailed, 100-plus page report that profiles their students and shows how the school is preparing students vs. schools globally. The goal is to help administrators see where their students struggle and where they excel, and where changes might be needed.

“There’s no other test like it in the world, and the results allow a school to figure out how to improve overall,” said Kelly Goodrich, senior director of policy and advocacy at test provider Northwest Evaluation Association. “It’s a test that can really make pretty dramatic change over the years as far as improving the culture of the school, as well as academic achievement.”

The Broward County School District helped pilot an online version of the assessment, with students at four high schools sitting for it last fall. Results from those schools are expected to be available soon, and more schools have decided to administer the exam in the spring, Gohl said.

Gohl is hoping grants will help offset the $5,000 per school cost of the exam.

Though many parents, teachers and education officials are wary of overtesting, the OECD test has not yet drawn complaints in Broward, Gohl said. He said that could be be- cause it’s not mandatory and does not attempt to hold individual students or teachers accountable.

“I think the OECD test is useful,” he said,” because by providing back a profile of what the characteristics of the students are in your school and then providing some points of comparison, you get to ask yourself, is this what we want to be?”