Despite only taking up a small portion of a person’s lifetime, secondary education, especially high school, can have an outsized impact on one’s life, often determining the paths they will take in the future. The experience students have in high school has the potential to shape their thought processes and determine the type of people they will grow into. Thus, it can be concluded that variations in the structures of schools can influence their students in different ways. School structure encompasses physical and organizational structure, curriculum and learning, as well as community and culture. This structure can lean more towards rigid, testing-focused curricula or more flexible, inquiry-driven ones. Test-based structures follow a standardized curriculum and emphasize testing, such as in the form of APs. Inquiry-based structures usually forgo this in favor of more project-oriented assessments with a focus on real-world applications.
Both test-based and inquiry-based structures have their merits and fallacies, with various parties championing or berating each in turn. In regard to test-based school structures, many have criticized the rigidity of standardized testing and curricula, saying that they invoke higher levels of stress, promote destructive competition, and are not accurate measures of intelligence or ability. Psychology-wise, schools that emphasize test scores and a singular pathway of learning can discourage independent thought and creativity. This can be attributed to the fact that, with a curriculum that already prioritizes memorization and does not allow for personal input, students may not be able to explore their own interests. Furthermore, encouraging students to focus only on grades can result in a fixation on their test performance and a fear of failure. Test-based school structures can also alienate students who better utilize different learning methods, and thus may not produce outstanding results on these standardized tests, resulting in a vicious cycle wherein they lose more and more confidence in their abilities.
On the other hand, there are several arguments to be made in favor of test-based school structures, and indeed, this is the structure that most schools, especially public schools, employ. Some have argued that standardized testing and curricula are a reliable provider of data that can aid both teachers and governments in assessing progress and areas for improvement in the curriculum, as well as academic performance within certain demographic groups. They also claim that a standardized grading system minimizes subjective grading practices and prevents grade inflation, issues increasingly prevalent in schools. Furthermore, the uniformity of standardized tests can assist teachers in identifying exactly where a student is struggling and whether they are meeting a specific standard.
At the same time, inquiry-based school structures have their own positives and negatives. One of the most significant differentiations between the two structures is the emphasis on project and group work in inquiry-based structures. Many have lauded the advantages of project and group work over standardized testing, saying that they promote originality, creative thinking, and innovation, and provide students with an outlet to explore their individual passions. Group work in particular is said to develop skills in collaboration, flexibility, open-mindedness, and several other skills that can be crucial after graduation. The format of inquiry-based school structures forces students to consider their paths beyond their school careers and allows their thought processes to develop in a more curious and holistic direction. However, the prevalence of project-based assessments can cause a deficit in the core skills taught in standardized curricula, and the lack of standardized curricula may create a wider variety of teaching styles and grading methods due to a lesser amount of uniform guidelines, which can lead to its own host of issues, such as the aforementioned grade inflation.
Concord Academy, like many other high-ranking private schools, utilizes a mostly inquiry-based structure. While having an absence of AP courses, CA is filled with project-focused assessments and emphasizes group work and student-led discussions. As such, the school benefits from numerous advantages associated with inquiry-based systems; CA students are given a good deal more opportunities to share their ideas and delve further into their interests than students in schools with test-based structures, and therefore are more likely to develop the mindsets associated with inquiry-based learning. Additionally, the community at CA is more tight-knit than many other schools, potentially allowing the school’s students to inhabit a more community-oriented mindset. Regardless, CA’s education system still exhibits some of the pitfalls exhibited in non-standardized curricula, such as a large variation between teaching and grading styles, even within a single course. To summarize, test-based and inquiry-based school structures can result in disparate ways of thinking and learning for students, both with their merits and demerits. In comparison to public schools, which already have a preset curriculum planned out for them, private schools must spend copious amounts of time and effort designing a curriculum that will benefit the most students. CA, in particular, is always changing its course offerings and looking to improve itself, and we, as a community, should make an effort to aid in that advancement.