Educational testing, the question of the public good, and room for inclusion: A comparative study of Scotland and the United States

Testing is a technological tool best addressed from within society at large, along with attendant questions of power, education access, education management, and social selection, rather than as an object to be treated in isolation. It has been argued that modern societies, in keeping with the increased division of labour, are dependent on some form of selection system to establish criteria of human worth. In a democratic society, such a selection system must be granted legitimacy in terms of objectivity, fairness, and justice to determine which individuals are allowed access to various positions in society. Introducing a high-stakes testing practice, in this respect, is linked with imaginaries of the public good, which can be understood as a justifying referent for governing.
This chapter investigates the discourses surrounding the launch of key high-stakes testing practices in the United States and Scotland. The chapter employs a comparative methodological design to identify contrasts and recurrences. The sources used are policy documents, newspaper articles, and minutes from parliamentary debates.
The chapter concludes that, while the values of the public good seem to be a shared experience of the two case countries, their political priorities differ. Scotland is oriented towards traditional social democratic welfare state values, arguing its links and commonalities with the Scandinavian and Baltic states. The United States, on the other hand, has largely embraced the neoliberal economic and social paradigm, which has meant the continual erosion of structural state support for social well-being in favour of market mechanisms.