IN CONSIDERING whether to raise my kids in America or the Netherlands, I've had to weigh the relative advantages and disadvantages of the two educational systems. Probably the hardest thing for me to get used to about the Dutch educational system is the much-feared Citotoets, a standardized test given at the end of eighth grade that plays a large role in determining what type of high school the student will attend. The test is scored between 500 and 550, a bizarre scheme supposedly chosen to lessen the anxiety-inducing impression that it constitutes an intelligence test. If the authorities wanted to lessen the anxiety, they might have done better not to give preteens (or barely-teens) a test that could determine the rest of their academic and professional careers. Score under 540, and you won't be admitted to atheneum or gymnasium, the elite high schools that prepare the top 20% of students to get a university education. It's possible to get into university via the less-prestigious "havo" ("higher general continued education") schools, that take the next tranche of 20%. But land with the rest of the bunch in a "vmbo" (vocational education) school, and your chances of making it to university are slim.
Like many an apparently archaic and arbitrary institution, the Citotoets began its life as a rationalising reform. Dutch kids have been tracked into university-bound and vocation school-bound paths since the country first adopted universal education, but until the 1960s the choice was largely made by teachers. In the mid-1960s Adriaan de Groot, a Dutch psychologist and chess grandmaster, began pushing for a more objective way to recognise top students. In 1968 the Cito (Central Institute for Test Development) came out with its test.
Americans don't like this kind of thing. We believe that every child is a snowflake: unique and multifaceted. We also believe in personal redemption and transformation. Just because you're a goof-off at 14 doesn't mean you can't pull yourself together a couple of years later and get into college and do well. Why learn a trade at 16 when you might change careers four times before you're 30? Suddenly realise you missed your calling as a physician? Go ahead, take the pre-med courses and apply to med school, my 35-year-old friend! It's never too late. This is our creed: if you work hard and believe in yourself, you can do whatever you want. We don't go for tracking people early, or so we say.
