How good a job are you doing? For today's educators, this question looms large.
Schools today are more scrutinized and criticized than ever before. Educators, schools, and districts are under constant pressure to show results that will convince policymakers and the public that they're effective. Adding to the pressure is the widespread perception that U.S. schools are not nearly as good as they need to be—and therefore must be "held accountable."
Accountability systems typically have several components: standards, assessments, other indicators of performance, rewards, and sanctions, says Judie Mathers, a policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States. (The assessments are typically standardized tests, while the other indicators include graduation rates, dropout rates, and so on.) In about half of U.S. states, accountability is centrally controlled; in the other states, control is more local, Mathers says.
Virginia provides a dramatic example of a centralized system based on state standards and tests. Beginning last year, Virginia students at various grade levels have taken a battery of tests geared to the state's Standards of Learning (SOL). The first time the SOL tests were administered (in spring 1998), a mere 2.2 percent of Virginia's public schools met the state's standards for performance. In the second round of testing (spring 1999), scores improved, but were still dismal: only 6.5 percent of public schools met the performance goals.
Yet the SOL tests carry high stakes. Schools must meet the targets by 2007 to keep their accreditation, and students must pass six of the high school SOL exams to graduate, beginning with the Class of 2004.
Not surprisingly, the SOL tests have drawn criticism from some educators. Donald Weinheimer, principal of McLean High School, one of the highest-performing schools in the state, says he is disappointed with the state for "mucking up" a good idea. "I'm not opposed to a statewide test," says Weinheimer. But he believes that those who designed the testing program "made some huge blunders."
Weinheimer questions why the performance goals were set so high that nearly all schools failed during the first round of testing—creating the false impression that Virginia's public schools are woefully inadequate. The low scores have reinforced many people's perception that "kids are getting dumber and teachers are getting poorer," he says wryly. The SOL results have given ammunition to the opponents of public schools, he adds.
Other educators have responded more positively. The SOL tests were "a good effort," says Robert Smith, superintendent of schools in Arlington, Va. Smith sees "much that needs to be done" to improve the tests—the history test relies too heavily on memorization of facts, for example—but he believes there's "a good chance" that students will be learning more as a result of the "clarity" that the tests provide. "We're going to see tremendous progress" toward the performance goals, he predicts.
Counting on Competition
In Michigan, policymakers have acted on "the notion that competition would create accountability," says Ray Telman, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators. The state has encouraged both charter schools and school choice.
However, Telman doubts whether these policies have had the intended effect of raising the bar for all schools. The instructional approaches used at the charter schools, he finds, are "nothing outstanding or unique"—nor are their test scores superior. In the absence of a revolutionary new approach, competition is "not creating accountability in terms of student achievement."
Like Virginia, Michigan has a statewide test, the MEAP (Michigan Educational Assessment Program). The test was originally devised to help schools diagnose how to shape the curriculum, Telman says, but it has become a de facto achievement test. Local newspapers publish MEAP scores, broken down by school and by subject. Because parents can see how their child's school compares to others, "there's a certain measure of accountability with that," he notes. In addition, MEAP scores are "the backbone" of Michigan's accreditation system.
Accreditation is based primarily on MEAP scores because the test is "the only thing that we have," says Diane Smolen, director of standards, assessment, and accreditation services for the state. But using the MEAP makes sense, she points out, because the test measures student achievement relative to the state's content standards. However, "it would be nice to have more than just that measure," she says.
Smolen notes that there has been a public backlash against the MEAP. The test has been "bitterly debated by parents who could not believe their kids were not proficient." Students who scored well on the SAT and ACT did not necessarily score well on the MEAP, and parents were upset by the mixed message. "We've spent a lot of time defending the test," Smolen says. "We've spent two years talking about the test, not about student achievement. That's really unfortunate."
Although sanctions are very rarely imposed, educators still perceive the accreditation system as punitive, Smolen says—in part because the system does not give rewards for good performance. "We would like a system that rewards progress," Smolen says, "but to do that you need rewards, which are hard to come by" in a time of thrifty budgets.
Fair Expectations
Another challenge in implementing accountability systems is to uphold high expectations for all while acknowledging that some schools deal with disadvantaged student populations.
In Kentucky, the Jefferson County Public Schools objected to proposed accountability policies, arguing that the state should take factors such as poverty and mobility into account. Eventually, the legislation was modified in "a partial compromise to address our concerns," says Robert Rodosky, executive director of accountability, research, and planning for the district.
The state set "an arbitrary standard," Rodosky says, requiring schools to reach 100 on a 140-point scale by 2014—and to make steady progress in the interim. These targets required low-scoring schools to make more progress than other schools during the same period.
The modified legislation makes the requirements somewhat less stringent. Nevertheless, Rodosky still worries that good teachers who work with disadvantaged students will be demoralized when their schools are labeled unsuccessful. "We all agree on the final destination," Rodosky says, "but plenty of research shows that some kids have shorter distances to travel than other kids."
Originally, experts proposed a four-tiered accountability system, Rodosky recalls. But state politicians rejected that proposal, saying, "That's not having the same expectations for everybody—We can't go home to our districts with this."
"We all have to have high expectations and do the best we can for all students," Rodosky says. "We're not making excuses. But we have kids who have a lot of needs." Labeling schools unsuccessful, even when they are making progress with disadvantaged students, "gives the impression that reform is not working—and I think it is."
Fairness issues are certainly of concern to urban educators. According to Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, urban educators "are as cognizant as anyone of the need to improve accountability systems, to demonstrate their responsiveness to the public for the bottom line." But current accountability systems are "still fairly primitive," he says.
In urban districts, "accountability has often meant [replacing] the superintendent repeatedly," Casserly notes. In effect, districts have vested accountability in a single person. Now, however, many urban districts are "defining who's accountable for what at each level, from the Board of Education to building maintenance staff." By spreading accountability throughout the organization, Casserly says, these districts are "making sure each part of the operation is focused on improving the achievement of the kids."
Holding Teachers Accountable
For improving student achievement, perhaps the most critical level of the education system is teachers. Teachers are typically held accountable by their principals, who evaluate teachers' competence based on classroom observations. But some educators are beginning to question this traditional practice, Mathers says. Principals trained as "managers" don't make particularly good evaluators, nor do teachers place much trust in their evaluations, she believes.
In Rochester, N.Y., teachers play a major role in evaluating other teachers' performance, says Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association. Peer review is a feature of the regular teacher assessment process, he explains. Teachers who are up for review identify two colleagues who are knowledgeable about their teaching to evaluate them.
Teachers are evaluated based on standards that were jointly developed by the teachers' union and the district. "Without mutually agreed-upon standards, it doesn't make sense to have peer review," Urbanski says, because it won't be clear what teachers are supposed to "measure up" against.
Rochester teachers hold their peers accountable in other ways as well. For example, lead teachers act as mentors to first-year teachers. At the end of the year, the mentor recommends whether the novice teacher should be retained or terminated. Lead teachers also work with struggling teachers to help them upgrade their skills. At the end of the intervention period, the lead teacher determines whether the teacher has improved enough to be retained.
"Peer review makes sense to teachers here," Urbanski says. "No one knows the difference between good teaching and bad teaching better than the best teachers themselves." And the outcomes of peer review have more rigor than the typical due process for dismissal, Urbanski believes, because peer review is not adversarial.
"The main purpose of peer review is not to weed out bad teachers but to cultivate good teaching," Urbanski emphasizes. "We have so much faith in peer review," he says, "that if we can't cultivate a [struggling] teacher's skills, then that teacher should be weeded out" of the profession.
Community members who know about Rochester's system of peer review are "gratified to know that the union is acting on the premise that incompetence should not be tolerated," Urbanski adds.
Weighing Student Performance
Teacher accountability raises one particularly sticky issue: Should teachers be held accountable for their students' performance—or only for providing good teaching?
"I'm uncomfortable with holding teachers accountable for student performance," says Jack Frymier, senior fellow at Phi Delta Kappa and a former ASCD president. "Physicians are not held accountable for what a patient does."
Teachers should be accountable for doing the best they can, Frymier says. But everyone (including students) needs to take responsibility for his or her own actions. "The moment the teacher assumes responsibility for the students' learning, the kids pick up on that," he says. "It lets [students] off the hook." Moreover, many factors that are beyond a teacher's control affect student performance. "Nothing correlates with achievement like wealth," Frymier points out.
Test scores and student outcomes are indispensable information but not automatic "verdicts" on teaching, Urbanski says. In Rochester, teachers under review produce samples of student work and explain how students have met learning goals. But "accountability is based on the teacher's adjusting practice to maximize the likelihood of student success and to minimize student failure," Urbanski explains.
Accountability Concerns
As accountability systems have become a more obtrusive fact of life for educators, they have raised more concerns. One frequently voiced concern is that high-stakes tests result in a narrowing of the curriculum, as teachers "teach to the test."
The accountability system in Massachusetts "has vastly multiplied the teach-to-the-test mentality," says Robert Evans, director of The Human Relations Service. The state test has been "a terrorizer" more than a motivator to teachers, and it has hurt morale, he says. In suburban Boston, several schools have applied for waivers because the test forces them to "dumb down" history courses to cover minutiae, Evans notes.
"The current mode of accountability is distrustful of teachers' professional ability to assess student performance and growth," says Paul Theobald, dean of education at Wayne State College in Nebraska. The accountability movement is limiting teachers' control over curriculum and instruction, and diminishing the quality of their professional life, he believes. But if teachers complain, it looks like they don't want to be held accountable, so raising objections is "shooting yourself in the foot," he says.
Other critics assert that segments of society besides schools and educators must also be held accountable for student success. "There are plenty of others who need to be accountable, such as the federal and state governments, parents, and the corporate community," says Casserly.
Accountability isn't spread around, says Frymier. "No one has the slightest idea how to hold parents accountable," he says. "We have not devised a way to hold the general society accountable for supporting schools." In Ohio, he says, when the state supreme court held that schools hadn't met the needs of children, the legislature tried to raise the sales tax to better fund schools—but the public rejected the tax increase.
Many educators believe the calls for tougher accountability systems stem from the negative perception of schools, which they believe is unwarranted. If schools were truly scrutinized, they wouldn't be so criticized, says Frank Barham, executive director of the Virginia School Boards Association. If media portrayals of schools were more balanced, we'd see successes, not just failures. "Public education in this country is the best in the world," he asserts. "We need to start emphasizing the successes."
ASCD Positions on Accountability
ASCD Positions on Accountability
At the 1999 Annual Conference, ASCD's governance groups adopted two official positions that address accountability issues:
Educator quality and responsibility. This position states, in part, that "ASCD supports policies and practices that hold educators responsible for providing a quality education to all students and for continuously improving the education profession and all public schools."
Standards and accountability. This position states, in part, that "public policymakers, families, schools, and communities bear the responsibility for creating the conditions and providing opportunities and resources necessary for the success of all learners. . . . School systems must be held publicly accountable for all students' meeting standards."