"These are competency-based tests, but it's very important to clarify that they are not tests of basic skills." This was the emphatic statement made this Monday by Núria Planas, director of the Agency for Evaluation and Foresight of Education – formerly the Higher Council for Evaluation – when speaking about the end-of-stage exams that some 4th-year ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education) students began taking this Monday. "These are not the tests from five or six years ago; these are end-of-stage tests that measure three levels of achievement," the mathematician insisted. Planas made these remarks from one of the 69 Catalan secondary schools – whose names will not be disclosed to protect anonymity – that are administering what were traditionally called basic skills tests this week. These tests will not only analyze students' basic knowledge, nor will they be administered in a standardized way. The exams will be taken by 5,700 students and will cover five subjects: Catalan, Spanish, English, mathematics, and science, technology, and engineering. "These are not tests that assess recalling facts or repeating routines or memorization techniques. They are tests that assess the ability to connect and extrapolate content to new and diverse situations," Planas explained. The tests, which premiered this Monday, include questions of basic, medium, and high difficulty levels. In fact, the Agency's director highlighted that "a considerable percentage, close to 20%, of the questions are cognitively demanding and designed to measure excellence." In this regard, Planas asserted that the basic competency tests did not include "items to assess the achievement of excellence." Results in the fall

Once the tests are completed, the evaluation agency will have six months to analyze the results. "We will conduct a mixed data analysis: quantitative and qualitative," Planas specified. In this regard, they have committed to having the results in the fall, not in the summer as was the case until now. "We will move very quickly because six months is a very short time. Keep in mind that PISA takes approximately a year, and the general system evaluation—a new national test—takes about 15 months," Planas explained. Regarding the reason why this year 6th-grade students are not taking the end-of-stage assessment, the Department of Education already explained that students finishing primary school will undergo the general system evaluations; these are new exams defined by the Spanish government that 6th-grade students in all regions must take, and which will also be sample-based (meaning not all schools will take them). In fact, from now on, since the state exams will be held every three years in the 6th grade of primary school and the 4th year of secondary school (ESO), the Catalan end-of-stage assessment will be combined with the state one. Specifically, there will be two years in which students finishing primary or secondary school will take the Catalan exams and one more year in which they will take the state exam. Both the Catalan and state exams will be administered using a sample test, meaning that not all schools and institutes will participate as before. Therefore, the test results will no longer be able to serve as a barometer for schools and families to gauge a student's performance. Planas justified this change by insisting that this information can be obtained from the diagnostic tests (the exams that all 4th grade primary and 2nd year ESO students will take) and assured that "the objective" of the end-of-stage assessment "is to capture a snapshot of the system, not of the school or the student." In this regard, he insisted that the quantity of data should not be confused with scientific evidence, and that with the new system there will be less data, but it will be comparable and can be transformed into scientific evidence. "It's not a matter of quantity but of quality," he concluded.

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The new director of the Agency for Evaluation and Foresight of Education – formerly the Higher Council for Evaluations – Núria Planas, has already In his first public appearance, he warned that he believed the basic skills tests needed to be modified.This Tuesday, the Catalan Department of Education confirmed in a statement that it is "reformulating" the assessment calendar and its design "with the aim of achieving scientific representativeness." The most significant change in this new approach to evaluating Catalan students is that, starting this academic year, the end-of-stage tests—known as basic competencies—will no longer be administered in all schools and institutes across the country. Instead of being census-based and covering all schools, as has been the case until now, these exams will become sample-based and will only be applied in approximately seventy schools and institutes. The Department of Education assures that the selection of schools will be done "randomly, using representativeness standards, that is, with scientific criteria based on levels of school complexity, ownership, and size." The Catalan Government and the Catalan Evaluation Agency justify the change in criteria as necessary "to introduce aspects of grounding and issues of rigor, representativeness, and scientific and statistical reliability." Planas argued that "the tests inform the education system, so all test design and analysis standards must be followed, such as those used by international organizations." "They will inform the system and be comparable year after year using scientific criteria; we didn't have this before," the Director of the Evaluation Agency insisted. However, this year the new end-of-stage tests will only be administered in the 4th year of ESO (Compulsory Secondary Education), since in the 6th year of primary school, the general system assessments, defined by the Spanish government and mandatory throughout the country, will be carried out. External Diagnostics

On the other hand, the diagnostic assessments that all 4th grade primary and 2nd year ESO students have been taking for the past couple of years will continue to be administered to all students, meaning that all students will be assessed. However, some changes are being introduced: from now on, these exams will be graded "externally and automatically," and therefore, teachers in schools and institutes will no longer be responsible for grading the tests. Teachers had complained that This work placed an excessive burden on them.In addition, the oral expression tests in Catalan and Spanish will be maintained; these will be administered to all students, but each center will correct them internally.

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Carles Granell is a primary school teacher at the Sant Lluís School in the Prosperidad neighborhood of Barcelona and a professor of mathematics education at the University of Barcelona. He is also a member of the Federation of Mathematics Education Entities of Catalonia (FEEMCAT), which organized the Catalan Congress on Mathematics Education in Lleida last July, where hundreds of teachers analyzed the state of mathematics and how its learning could be improved.

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This Tuesday, the results of the Catalan oral tests administered by the Education Ministry to all schools and secondary schools in the country were made public. These findings show that, according to the criteria of the Education Evaluation and Prospective Agency, 40% of students have a notable level. The data also demonstrate how There are many more failures in Catalan than in Spanish. (despite not reaching 5%) and how the proportion of excellent grades among 6th grade primary and 4th year secondary school students is higher in Spanish tests than in Catalan tests.

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If we want to ride a dead horse, we are doomed to failure no matter how hard we try to change the saddle, create groups of experts to advise us on how to improve its efficiency, organize courses for riders on family constellations or mindfulness, etc. The only sensible thing to do is change horses, especially if ours was killed by our low expectations. But more likely, our discussions will focus on how to provide the dead horse with more innovative shoes.

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Once again, Catalan students are performing poorly in core subject knowledge in basic skills tests. The Minister of Education had already put the bandage on the wound before it was even healed. But the wound is still there: the desired level is not being reached in math, English, and science, especially in the fourth year of compulsory secondary education, the final year of the compulsory secondary education cycle, but also in the sixth year of primary school, where math results have been the lowest ever recorded. We still can't move forward. In fact, the problem has been clearly identified for years; it is entrenched or even worsening. We are failing to recover. Surely the responsibilities are widely distributed: in the classroom, in families, in social values, in the administration, in inequalities... Solutions? They must also be sought in all these areas.

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The regional minister for Education, Esther Niubó, had already warned that the results of this year's basic skills tests – now known as end-of-year assessments – would not be entirely good, and so it has been: the math level of 6th grade primary school students is the lowest in the history of the basic skills tests, which began to be held in 2010. This year, the average math grade of 6th grade students was a mere pass (70.4 points, when it is considered that to reach competence one must reach at least 70), the drop of almost four points compared to last year's results has meant that the math level of students who have finished school this year and are now starting. Similarly, in 6th grade, the level in science, technology and engineering is also very worrying, the only skill where the average has failed after falling from 74.3 points last year to 66.3 this year.

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Yet another academic year with poor results in the basic skills tests, which determine the academic level of Catalan students. The regional minister of Education and Vocational Training, Esther Niubó, announced this Thursday morning that this year's tests have not gone well either. "We are just finishing the study, but I can say that they will not be the results we would like either," she admitted during a conference at the Europa Forum Tribuna Catalunya.

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"This is a 4th year ESO exercise: are you telling me that ESO students can't count?" Messages like these have spread across social media this weekend, accompanied by a math problem. Mario, a 7-year-old boy, has a fever, and his parents are gradually reducing his temperature throughout the day.

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A good friend, a teacher, sent me one of the math questions from the basic skills tests. These tests are given in the fourth year of compulsory secondary education to assess whether students have "achieved" the minimum knowledge required for their age. One of the questions begins with this statement: "Mario is 7 years old. On Saturday at 9:00 p.m., his parents detected that he had a fever. Since then, they have taken his temperature several times. The following graph shows the times they did so and the temperature obtained."

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166,000 students in 6th grade of primary school and 4th year of secondary school will be taking the exams in the next few days basic skills tests to check the level of knowledge in Catalan schools. Along with the PISA tests, they are the main indicator we have. They assess languages (Catalan, Spanish, and English), mathematics, and science and technology content. After the post-pandemic declines, there was a slight recovery in 2022, except for Catalan, which has seen three consecutive years of decline and is at its lowest level since 2012. If the negative trend affecting it were to be confirmed this year, Catalan would fail for the first time. However, the worst position is that of mathematics, which has not passed the minimum required threshold for four years, although it has seen an improvement for two.

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This Monday begins one of the most decisive weeks for the Catalan education system. Although for students, basic skills tests are just another exam—in fact, the Catalan government makes it clear that these tests do not affect a student's final assessment or determine whether or not they pass a particular educational stage—when it comes down to it, they are the main indicator of how effective the measures applied in Catalan schools are.

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