The landmark federal education law “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) required states to create (or build up) accountability systems based primarily on student achievement measures. Success or failure on these measures is based on how well schools and districts are moving every subgroup of students toward a state-defined level of “proficiency.” Persistently being labelled a “failure” on this system comes with increasing consequences for schools.
Two distinct camps emerge on accountability. One side presses for ever greater accountability, with some members of this group even hoping that more and more schools “fail” so they can justify any number of policy directives. The play is simple. Perseverate and point to the number of schools failing, then insert whatever policy you want as the panacea because clearly whatever schools are doing isn’t working.
The other camp pushes back against accountability, holding that schools (and those working in them) are performing heroic acts in the face of insurmountable circumstances. This camp even presses a goal of eliminating the use of standardized student achievement measures, or making them so subjective and qualitative as to be of no use for accountability purposes.
Rather than get in the cliche’ and worn-out business of criticizing NCLB, or of buying into another false dichotomy narrative, what if we instead considered what an accountability might look like … or even better, what it should look like.
Consider an accountability system that…
• Used a sophisticated suite of student achievement measures, beyond one test.
• Considered student growth, or improvement, as an equal (or perhaps higher) goal with proficiency.
• Provided actionable and timely student results available to guide instruction.
• Considered several measures of organizational health along with student results, such as fiscal responsibility.
• Considered the concepts of student hope, engagement, and well-being.
• Considered parent satisfaction and partnership.
• Considered staff working conditions.
• Discovered the “bright spots” in those schools that are beating the odds … and shared them as models.
• Provided targeted resources and proven expertise to those schools needing improvement.
• Allowed for “earned autonomy,” where successful schools have little oversight but failing schools are prescribed and directed.
• Required collective accountability and a “transparency of practice” where teaching and leading schools are open to peer critique.
• Empowered and required local professionals to hold each other deeply accountable through a democratic process.
This sort of system I describe would not only better identify the real continuum of performance in schools (as opposed to fail/not fail), but would actually provide information and supports on how all schools might get better. Instead of a system of “blame and shame,” we might instead have a system of “intelligent accountability.”
Jason Glass
12 comments
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August 14, 2011 at 7:27 pm
Sean Grainger (@graingered)
You may wish to visit http://www.seangrainger.com/2011/08/edukare-choose-your-own-path-but.html
I and a growing group of educators and engaged in ed individuals and groups are definitely looking for “intelligent accountability…” what we are calling EduKare.
I appreciate your perspective. It would be great if you could join the #ecosys Twitter chat tonight at 7:00 EST. “Pathways to school success…”
Cheers,
Sean
August 17, 2011 at 2:22 am
Jason Glass
Sorry I missed the chat Sean. Thanks much for the link and appreciate your comment!
August 15, 2011 at 11:52 am
Noah Cornelius
I don’t have a problem with being held accountable. I work my tail-end off and I would love to be held to a standard and be expected to meet it. I already hold myself to a higher standard than any system holds me too. However, I’m a music teacher, and that presents problems with your model.
1) What student achievement would be used to measure my students’ achievements, since they are not formally tested?
2) How can my superiors hold me accountable for something they know nothing about. They don’t know the difference between a good choir and a bad one except for what they hear. Should my accountability be so subjective?
August 17, 2011 at 2:26 am
Jason Glass
Hi Noah,
I think you may be confusing the concepts of school and district accountability with individual accountability. My apologies for not being more clear, but this post is really about systems accountability.
To your point, certainly the ability of a standardized assessment to measure the untested subjects and grades is limited at best. However, I would argue that even in something subjective like music performance, we can establish both process and outcome measures through a thoughtful process of development and a democratic process of review.
Results do matter, even to music teachers. We should consider if our actions as educators are effective for students.
Thanks much for your comment.
August 17, 2011 at 2:33 am
Noah Cornelius
I see where I misunderstood, but in my mind, system responsibility ultimately boils down to individual responsibility. I agree that process is an important part of how music teachers are and should be evaluated, but the outcome measures you mention could be scary. If you’re going to judge a teacher based on a performance, then I surely hope that the person evaluating has some background in music. I love my principal, but he/she is not qualified to judge a musical performance.
Thank you for responding to my comment.
August 16, 2011 at 8:59 pm
Rob
I think your list is an excellent one. As an educator, I think these conditions are the beginning of a strong foundation for accountability.
However, I see one variable missing, and it happens to be the most important single variable in predicting student success: socioeconomic factors. Research over the last decade makes a clear case that socioeconomic forces account for about 60% of the variability in student achievement.
In what way might an optimal accountability system take measure of the socioeconomic forces in a school district? Without such a consideration, I’d say you’re missing a pretty big piece of the pie.
August 17, 2011 at 2:27 am
Jason Glass
Hi Rob,
The issues of measuring student growth (via a mechanism like value added measures) and measuring how the achievement gap closes (as opposed to pure ‘attainment’ based measures) directly addresses your concern.
Even in high poverty districts, its not an unreasonable expectations that kids get better and that we are closing the achievement gap. In fact, I’d argue if we aren’t doing that … what good are we?
August 17, 2011 at 3:38 am
Rob
Jason,
Neither of the measurements you suggest is on your list in the original post.
Also, be more specific about how value-added measurements will factor in SES when holding teachers accountable.
Measuring “how the achievement gap closes” is fairly vague. Be more specific. How would you measure that, and how would such a measure play a role in accountability? Also, measuring is one thing; solving the problem is another. Are you operating on the assumption that what happens in schools can overcome the gap in achievement due to SES?
The devil is in the details, as it were.
Rob
August 17, 2011 at 3:11 am
Kim Jones
These statements of an intelligent accountability will require a lot of foundation and trust building at all levels. It sounds exciting, needing all levels of education working together to build and sustain that foundation. It is far easier to dream and talk about what this system should be like than it will be to build and sustain it through political, financial, human resource changes that are inevitable.
That being said, to do nothing will move Iowa nowhere, except, as the data recently shared at the Education Summit indicated, farther down those lists of test score comparisons.
I am ready to embrace an “intelligent transformation”, excited to see where we will head and how our results play out during that transformation. I do have to be honest and share my fear as well – that personal agendas, egos, and the like can get in the way of what could indeed be the best moves for our children and our future! I don’t have all the answers. but am looking forward to being part of the collective solution!
It sure sounds like other countries such as Scotland are pursuing similar avenues based on the article referenced. It would be interesting to see where they have gone since 2007.
August 17, 2011 at 4:12 am
Jason Glass
Hi Rob,
As a point of fact, I did say “Considered student growth, or improvement, as an equal (or perhaps higher) goal with proficiency.” And also reference my response to Noah in that this article is focused on systems accountability. Individual measures of educator effectiveness are an important discussion, but not the focus of this piece.
FYI – Value added uses a student’s own past assessment results to build an expected trajectory and most mixed methods models also control for socio-economic status (among other variables). At the grade, building, and district level they are very stable and accurate.
I must certainly grant that more detail is needed to flesh out this model. This is a blog piece, not federal (or even state) legislation.
The devil is in the details indeed.
August 21, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Jason Ellingson
Jason,
You consistently mention “bright spots” in your comments, and I certainly appreciate the many good works happening in districts across the state. A suggestion to you to know and share those bright spots would be to have your site visit leaders make recommendations after each visit or through a summary in the summer. I have participated in a half dozen visits already, and there are so many good things happening that I learn about from these visits. I hope you will consider my suggestion. The data is already there; it just needs to be communicated more broadly.
August 26, 2011 at 1:59 am
Pat Robinson
Yes, you are right. We don’t have time to waste criticizing NCLB. Reform has been sought for decades and still 2/3 of all students have been short changed (as verified again and again by data on skill development and dropouts at all levels.) Iowa is seeking reform effective for today’s students.
If our goal is reform with capacity for continuous improvement; and that, of course, is what education means—learning and using what you learn to make things better–then we should consider:
Fullan (1991) saying improvement means”capacity building at every level.”
Fullan (2011) saying there are right drivers and wrong drivers and starting reform with the wrong drivers can be an impediment to the whole process.
The “intelligent accountability” folks advocate “trust in the profession” and “self-evaluation” as the road to “the fullest development of every pupil.”
Goodwin (2011) summarizes McRel research saying there is “nothing terribly new” to what works and describes our “efforts are fragmented and incoherent” as he ponders why we haven’t yet put it into action. He concludes, “Its about everyone—including district staff, principal, teachers, food service workers, and other support staff—getting clear about what’s expected of them and finding new ways, everyday, to do what they already do, only better.”
Every student needs this TODAY. To expedite an effective response Goodwin suggests a fractile experience at the school level.
What if Iowa could install a school operating system in a school looking to improve and make it immediately possible?
What if Iowa created drivers for capacity building right at the school, the point where every student meets his/her teacher, NOW?
Could this “build the trust in professionals”?
Could this result in the “fullest development of every pupil”?