Using only the test scores of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System as the basis of the state's accountability program may offer what seems to be a clear accounting for the state's education reform, but such a narrow test-based accountability system actually hides from public view the full picture of how well schools are working for all students. The author reviews how annual changes in the population of test takers and random variation associated with score gains in small schools make the use of score gains to describe improvement trends especially problematic. By analyzing the increasing rates of student attrition, grade failure, and 9th grade dropouts, as well as the decline in dropouts returning to school and declining graduation rates, she reviews how test-based accountability hides schools' holding power and graduating power. She also points out how the state has miscalculated pass rates by ignoring the impact of the increasing dropout rates. She suggests that an accountability plan proposed by the Coalition for Authentic Reform in Education would draw a more comprehensive picture of school performance. A complete account of education requires attention to a wider variety of indicators, including those that highlight the status of the state's most vulnerable students.

Myopia in Massachusetts

Anne Wheelock

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School improvement and reform

Assessment and grading

Education policy

Accountability

Diverse classrooms and schools

Some critics argue that urban schools should stick with basic skills, basal readers, and scripted instruction. But three schools in Chicago implemented the Junior Great Book reading program as a way for students and teachers to mine a wide range of literature on themes of fairness, justice, cleverness, greed, love, friendship, respect, revenge, and good and evil. Students read literature, take notes, and discuss their ideas in a group. Schoolwide adoption of the program required many teachers to change their beliefs about pedagogy and student learning, but teachers and administrators soon discovered that all students welcome the opportunity to read, to think, and to share their ideas.

Anne Wheelock

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Myopia in Massachusetts

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