Reporting to a Global Standard of Student Proficiency

• In Event: Linking assessments to a global definition of minimum proficiency using policy linking

Proposal

The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview and justification for reporting student assessment results to a global standard of proficiency. USAID is supporting the development of methods for global reporting in response to the 2017 Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development (READ) Act, which intersects with the reporting requirements of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The READ Act requires the U.S. Government (USG) to:

1) Apply rigorous monitoring and evaluation methodologies to determine if programs and activities…accomplish measurable improvements in literacy, numeracy, and other basic skills development that prepare an individual to be an active, productive member of society and the workforce; and
2) Include methodological guidance in the implementation plan and support systemic data collection using internationally comparable indicators, norms, and methodologies, to the extent practicable and appropriate.

The first requirement extends the mandate established under the 2011 USAID Education Strategy for improvements in student literacy. The content areas of USAID-supported interventions – and thus monitoring and evaluation – have been expanded to include numeracy and other basic skills.

The second requirement specifies the “methodological guidance” and “development of internationally comparable indicators, norms, and methodologies” for measurement and reporting. To this end, USAID sponsored a workshop in August 2018 called “Linking Assessments to a Global Standard with Social Moderation.” The goal of the workshop was to explore social moderation – also called policy linking (and this is the terminology that we will use moving forward) – as a method to link different learning assessments by subject area and grade level to global standards of minimum proficiency. Representatives from more than forty organizations, including ministries of education, implementing partners, evaluation partners, foundations, regional and international assessment programs, universities, research centers, and donor agencies participated in the three-day workshop. The participants engaged in a variety of presentations, discussions, panels, and working groups on issues involving policy linking. In particular, the workshop sessions featured the application of policy linking for determining the percentage of students achieving the same standards of minimum proficiency across projects and/or countries.

Implementing policy linking would allow the USG to benefit from two types of analyses that are not currently possible for results in basic education from different development programs and activities on a global basis: 1) comparisons of results across assessments and 2) aggregation of results from different assessments. Comparisons of results would allow USAID to improve its ability to draw lessons learned from programs and activities. Aggregation of results would allow USAID to report across projects by subject area and grade level based on the same standards of student achievement. In addition to the benefits for USAID and other donor agencies, these analyses would permit countries to improve their own design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of literacy, numeracy, and other basic skills interventions.

Author

• Melissa Chiappetta, US Agency for International Development (USAID)