Built on the power relations in society, the link between economics and other institutions of society has become more apparent with the widespread influence of neoliberal policies after the 1970s. Since then, neoliberal policies and their embedded practices have become a means of class formation and reproduction of power relations in societies. The neoliberal policies of the contemporary capitalist countries abetted the sustainment of class differences by making education a commodity through privatization (Giroux, & Schmidt, 2004). Albeit different definitions of privatization exist, it is mainly:

… the transfer of activities, assets, and responsibilities from government/public institutions and organizations to private individuals and agencies.’ Also, privatization is often thought of as ‘liberalization’ – where agents are freed from government regulations, or as ‘marketization’ – where new markets are created as alternatives to government services or state allocation systems (Belfield, & Levin, 2002, p. 19)

Education privatization, then, broadly refers to the transfer of education, and educational decisions in some cases, from state to private entities (Adamson, 2016). Education privatization not only cements the alliance between education and economy by creating “education consumers who use schooling as a means to acquire credentials in a competition to maintain or advance her or his socioeconomic status.” (Lonsbury & Apple, 2012, p. 761) but also downgrades education into a technical process in which future productive citizens are trained (Apple, 2013; Hursh, 2015). Besides, as Ball and Youdell (2008) contend, both endogenous and exogenous forms of privatization alter the equal distribution of educational opportunities and the meaning of educational equality itself.

On the other hand, standardized testing has become a means of social engineering (Ravitch, 2013). Put differently, high-stakes tests are used to legitimize educational inequalities through emphasizing meritocracy (Macedo, 2013). In this context, private schools are extolled as they are claimed to have a better performance in standardized tests than public schools. This so-called success of private schools creates a vision of failing public schools (Ravitch, 2013). 

The case in Turkey is not different than other countries. As a country that adopts a centralized education system, transition from one school level to the upper is managed through national standardized tests (Caner, & Bayhan, 2020). As the number of students taking those exams is high and there exists a limited quota particularly for attending the top institutions, the Turkish education system is accepted as highly competitive. Besides, education privatization has accelerated within the last decade and the share of private high schools has reached almost 30% of the secondary schools in Turkey (MoNE National Education Statistics, 2020) resulting in a widened inequality of educational opportunities (Alacacı, & Erbaş, 2010).

In this paper, we aim to situate how education privatization and high-stakes tests result in a schooling approach in which teaching to test is prioritized over formal curricula through depicting the schooling process at Basic High Schools (BHS) in Turkey. BHS were a type of private schools that were introduced into the education system in Turkey with the amendment in the Private Education Institutions Law, No 5580. The amendment regulated closure of private tutoring centers –dershanes- and their transformation into a new type private high schools. These schools continued their activities from the 2014-2015 school year to the end of 2018-2019 school year. Most of them functioned in the apartment buildings or within commercial buildings where they served as a dershane. Then, the ones that met the private school standards regulated by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) operate as private schools.

We designed this qualitative study as a multiple-case study (Merriam, 1998; Miles & Huberman, 1994). We included five BHSs in this study. We selected the cases by employing maximum variation sampling strategy to document the unique characteristics of each case while depicting common aspects of them (Patton, 2002). The criteria we used were location, institutional characteristics, and the physical facilities of the schools. In total, we interviewed 39 students (from all grades), 38 parents, 19 teachers from different majors, five school principals, and three school counselors. We also observed various processes in each case (e.g. classrooms, breaks, recitation hours, etc.). We spent at least one week in each of the schools. The interview schedules and the observation form designed to reveal the curricular and exam-oriented (university entrance examination –UEE-) practices at BHSs. To analyze the data, we used a qualitative data analysis software, MAXQDA 2018 (VERBI Software, 2017). We content analyzed the data through coding, generating themes, organizing and describing the themes, and interpreting findings (Strauss, & Corbin, 1990). In doing so, initially, we completed a close reading of all the qualitative data and assigned codes to meaningful segments bearing our research questions in mind. Then, we brought together the codes to determine categories and themes. Our initial categories included preparation for the UEE (codes: e.g. tests, recitation hours, trial tests) and implementation of the formal curricula (codes: e.g. courses, student assessment, teaching methods). After consulting two professors, who are experts in qualitative data analysis, for their feedback, we made changes in the wording of our categories. We labeled our categories as curricular practices and exam-oriented practices. We also added a new category as “dual education structure at BHS”. Triangulation of data sources and data collection methods and employing maximum variation sampling strategy, along with prolonged engagement and use of low-inference descriptors to take field notes, helped us to ensure trustworthiness of the study.

3.1. Curricular practices at BHS The national formal curricula were implemented at BHS. Compulsory courses such as math, physics, and literacy were offered. Teachers mainly used direct instruction as the teaching method particularly in their 11th and 12th-grade classes. To explain, they presented the topic on the board, provided examples to help the students comprehend the content, and asked questions to the students. The questions, however, were limited to low-level questions that required the students to recall information or make simple calculations. 3.2. Exam-oriented practices at BHS Our findings unveiled that BHSs continued their exam-focused practices after the transformation. One of those practices was recitation hours in which the students studied for the UEE under the guidance of the teachers. The other practice was the administration of trial tests which consisted of multiple-choice questions similar to the ones asked in the UEE. These tests functioned as a feedback mechanism for all of the school stakeholders. To explain, the performance of the students and teachers were evaluated mainly based on the student progress on these tests. 3.3. Dual education structure at BHS A seminal finding of this study was that although curricular and exam-oriented practices represent different processes, they were interwoven aspects of the schooling process at BHS. Specifically, the exam-oriented mission of the BHS infiltrated almost all of the curricular processes. For instance, teachers presented the short-ways of answering multiple-choice questions; taught patterns followed in the UEE administered in the previous years. Moreover, elective courses existed on official documents, not in practice; instead, more class hours were allocated for the courses such as math and science that are tested centrally. We conclude that prioritization of test-taking skills to schooling downgrades education into a technical process and exacerbates educational inequalities among students from different social classes.

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