Korean Versus American Ways of "No Child Left Behind": A Comparative Study of Accountability Policy Impact on Educational Inequalities and Achievement Gaps

• In Event: 18.014 - New Direction of Educational Reform for Educational Equality: Lessons From East Asia

Abstract

Objectives
Building on the previous findings of widening achievement gap trends in Korea (Lee, Kim, & Shin, 2016), this study examines the impact of “high-stakes test-driven accountability policy” as a tool to close educational inequalities and achievement gaps, specifically in the context of “No Student Below Basic Competency” (NSBBC) policy under President Myung Bak Lee’s administration, which benchmarked the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policy in the U.S.

Perspectives
There are controversies about whether test-driven accountability policy enhances or hinders equity. On the one hand, raising performance standards and measuring the results with high-stakes testing may contribute to narrowing the achievement gaps by motivating lower-achieving, disadvantaged minority students and their schools to improve academic achievement at a greater rate than that of their higher-achieving, less disadvantaged counterparts. On the other hand, without providing adequate support and assuring equity in educational resources and opportunities, accountability policy may widen the achievement gaps by rewarding advantaged, high-performing students and their schools more than disadvantaged ones. This policy debate, however, tends to polarize between the extremes and suffers from a lack of empirical studies, particularly in East Asian context. An international comparison will be made for Korea with reference to prior evidence and lessons from U.S. case: their similarities and differences in the policy design and impact will be reviewed and discussed.

Data & Methods
The primary method will be comparative interrupted time-series analysis applied to Korean national assessment data, comparing achievement gap trends by provinces before and after the policy adoption. Applying Hierarchical Linear Model (HLM), the study examines repeated cross-sectional achievement trend data from 2003-12 Korean National Assessment of Academic Achievement. It examines the impact of NSBB policy on achievement gaps above and beyond student, family and school background factors. In addition, PISA 2003-12 reading and math achievement data for Korea and U.S. are also examined to compare national trends of achievement gaps between the two nations.

Results
The study finds that the achievement gaps widened between different academic and social groups of students in Korean schools over the 2003-12 period. Similar trends are observed through PISA data for achievement gap between high-SES and low-SES students among 15-year olds within Korea. It remains to be examined whether this gap trend has changed after the adoption of NSBBC policy in Korea. For NCLB policy in the U.S., there was no discernable effect of accountability on minority or low-income students’ achievement and that accountability did not narrow or widen their achievement gaps.

Scientific Significance
The finding of uneven academic progress and widening achievement gaps raises serious concerns about educational inequity in Korean schools. The study is underway to further examine whether test-driven educational accountability policy (NSBBC) was effective in closing the gaps by addressing the educational needs of socioeconomically disadvantaged students relative to their advantaged counterparts who have stronger family support and private tutoring opportunities.

Authors

• Jaekyung Lee, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• chungseo kang, University at Buffalo - SUNY