全国学力テスト 「抽出」で失った貴重なデータ

The Yomiuri Shimbun (Aug. 3, 2010)
Partial participation in scholastic test gets a 'D'
全国学力テスト　「抽出」で失った貴重なデータ（8月2日付・読売社説）

A prompt return to full participation by every school in national achievement tests is the only way the government will be able to accurately ascertain students' scholastic ability and for the state and schools to use data collected through the tests to improve teaching methods.
　児童生徒の学力を正確に把握し、全国規模で蓄積されたデータを国や学校現場が指導の改善に生かすには、すみやかに全国学力テストを全員参加方式に戻すべきだ。

The education ministry recently published the results of the national achievement test, the fourth of its kind, that was conducted in April. Unlike the three previous occasions in which all primary and middle schools took part, only about 30 percent of schools chosen at random participated in the latest test.
　文部科学省は、４月に実施した４回目の全国学力テストの結果を公表した。全員参加を前提とした過去３回と異なり、今年から全国の小中学校の約３割を抽出する方式に変わった。

Schools not selected were allowed to take part in the test if they wished. In the end, about 23,800 schools--more than 70 percent of the nation's primary and middle schools--took part, with 1.63 million sixth-grade primary schoolers and third-year middle school students taking tests in Japanese and arithmetic or mathematics.
　ただ、抽出に漏れた学校の希望参加は認められた。最終的に全体の７割を超す約２万３８００校が参加し、小学６年、中学３年生の計約１６３万人が、国語と算数・数学の問題に取り組んだ。

Many schools wanted to participate in the test. We think all schools should be equally entitled to be provided with test results to discover the shortcomings of each student and draw up detailed teaching programs.
　多くの学校がテストへの参加を望んだ。子ども一人ひとりの答案からつまずきを見つけ、きめ細かな指導につなげる。そうした検証の機会は、すべての学校に等しく提供されるべきである。

Limited data

The state shoulders the cost of marking the tests and compiling the data only for about 10,000 chosen schools. Schools that volunteered to take part have to mark the exam papers themselves. Many teachers at these schools will spend some of their summer holidays scoring the tests.
　国が費用を負担して答案の採点と集計を行うのは、抽出対象の約１万校だけだ。希望参加校は独自に採点しなければならない。夏休み返上で採点にあたる教員も多いことだろう。

Students who took the first exams when they were sixth-grade primary schoolers in 2007 sat the 2010 test as third-year middle schoolers. The latest results showed more than 10 percent of these students could not calculate the area of a circle--repeating the error they made three years earlier. This finding should jolt teachers into thinking about improving how such calculations are taught in class.
　今回は、２００７年のテストの際に小６だった子どもが、中３としてテストに臨んだ。３年たっても円の面積の求め方がわからない子どもが１割以上いる実態もわかった。指導法の改善が課題として教育現場に突きつけられた。

Randomly selecting schools means the only useful data that could be gleaned from the tests was the average percentage of questions answered correctly by prefecture. Furthermore, with fewer samples available, each prefecture's average percentage of correct answers was within a range of one or two points. Correctly ranking the prefectures became a hopeless task.
　抽出方式への変更で、把握できるのは都道府県別の平均正答率までになった。しかも、サンプル数を絞ったことにより、正答率は１～２％程度の幅があるため、正確な順位は出せなくなった。

Data specific to each city, town and village or school could not be obtained from this year's test. This made it impossible to compare the latest test's data with that collected from previous tests. This, in turn, will make it difficult for prefectural education authorities to analyze this data and appoint more teachers to schools that produced poor test results.
　市町村別や学校別のデータは途切れてしまった。そうしたデータを都道府県が分析し、成績の悪かった学校に教員を手厚く配置することは難しくなった。

Saving dollars, losing sense

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government abolished the policy of requiring all students in the designated grades to take the tests without properly discussing the matter, and did so only to save money. The cost of holding the test was cut from 5.7 billion yen to 3.3 billion yen, but the loss of a chance to collect valuable data could have a heftier price than that.
　民主党政権はコスト削減を理由に、十分な議論も行わないまま全員参加方式を中止した。全員参加の場合の予算５７億円は抽出方式で３３億円になったが、貴重なデータが失われた代償の方が大きいのではないか。

The government has appropriated 400 billion yen to make high school tuition free, a policy that has been roundly criticized.
　批判の多い高校無償化には４０００億円が投じられている。

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry is considering adding science, social studies and English as test subjects from fiscal 2012. Cultivating talented human resources in the science and technology field will be crucial for this nation's future, so collecting data on students' scientific knowledge is essential.
　文科省は２０１２年度以降に、理科や社会、英語をテスト教科に加えることを検討している。科学技術分野における人材育成の重要性を考えれば、理科の学力把握は欠かせない。

We want the ministry to settle on a test method that gauges scholastic ability from many angles and produces usable, effective data without imposing an excessive burden on the students.
　子どもに過度の負担をかけない範囲で、学力の実態を多角的に測定し、それを効果的に生かせるテストの方法を追求してほしい。

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Aug. 2, 2010)
（2010年8月2日01時04分 読売新聞）