DN Debate Replicas. "Today's national test cannot be used as you think"

In a debate article (DN Debatt 23/10), several writers believe that the national tests in primary and middle school should be kept. But there are several misconceptions in their argument.

First of all, today's national exam has major flaws. The exam's requirement levels are set too low and many students with support needs pass the exams even though they shouldn't. They are also not designed in a way that allows the results to be compared over time and the assessment of the results differs between principals and schools.

Today's national test cannot therefore be used for the purpose that the writers themselves argue for. It would even be inappropriate to try to use them as "nationally collected and comparable measures of knowledge". Just as the Inquiry into equivalent grades and merit values ​​writes in its report, the design of the exams would need to be changed in order to be used for that purpose - something that can be considered, if the need remains, when we know more about how the new grading and exam system falls into place.

The problem is that today's system neither leads to comparable measures of knowledge nor to us being able to evaluate political reforms

Now the government is introducing standardized tests in Swedish, Swedish as a second language and mathematics to be carried out at the beginning of the grades. This will lead to more students with support needs being caught at an early stage, while the tests will be designed in such a way that the results become nationally comparable statistics over time.

There is no doubt that the government's ambition is that the tests should be able to be used to follow the knowledge development of all students, regardless of whether they are high or low achievers, and that they should contribute to nationally comparable statistics on primary school knowledge results being available for all stages.

In addition, the government has tasked the National Education Agency with ensuring that all reforms are followed up and evaluated carefully - not least by external actors and researchers. It is of course of crucial importance to evaluate whether the reforms work and how they affect the students' knowledge results.

In summary, we agree with much of what the writers write – reliable tests are central both to early identification of students who need support and to collecting comprehensive information about schools' performance. The problem is that today's system neither leads to comparable measures of knowledge nor to us being able to evaluate political reforms. The only thing it means is that we are stuck with a system that doesn't work.