Theme 3 concluding post

For what should we be held accountable and what form should accountability take? These were two of the big questions for this Theme. Judging by your posts, I’d say folks probably had the clearest sense of where they stood on this issue than any other so far. Specifically many posts indicated a clear sense of the reasons for/against standards based accountability, what to test for, who to blame for the struggles of under-performing students, what’s wrong with test-based standards, and what promising alternatives to test-based standards might look like. Altogether folks had really interesting things to say and shared many valuable resources!

What’s wrong with the current narrowly focused test-based accountability regime? Well, you sure told me! According to Toni T, it skews the curriculum too heavily toward the subjects that are tested for, like reading, and away from other important ones, like civics. Jay M argues that in doing so, it also teaches students that subjects outside the areas tested for are unimportant. In doing so it makes it impossible for teachers to argue with students who have the testing regime to back them up. Similarly Kimberley R points out that the pressure to meet proficiency has had a demoralizing effect on teachers, no longer able to teach to their passion and in response to what they see as important in their classroom. She quotes one teacher in New York as saying that teaching has become a case of ‘forget the child, just prove you can make them score acceptably’.

So why should we have standards-based accountability? According to Levinson, the main reason is that standards are social goods that enable us to set ideal social goals and gather useful information about our progress toward them. Perhaps arguing along similar lines, Rachel N entered a moderate defense of standards-based teaching and testing on reading. In her experience as a teacher at an MiBLSi school (Michigan’s Integrated Behavior and Learning Support Initiative), she testifies to how core curriculum and testing has helped her help her students. She writes:

In order to understand if a student is not achieving grade level reading expectations, you have to have a common assessment that shows a disparity.  In order to have that assessment be valid, you have to have fidelity in the teaching of the corresponding program.  You have to buy in to what you are doing.  Whether I liked it or not, I needed to teach my core reading program.  Then, I had more supports available to me to assist those students not making progress.

This is the heart of it-kids need to learn how to read.  This is what I feel is good about our MiBLSi progress.  We have a system (albeit broken at times) that is holding us accountable for doing our job.  We teach.  Some students learn.  We teach, some students don't learn.  We don't just move on!  We don't shrug our shoulders and hope for the best next year.

Lisa E also suggests a related argument relating back to a question from our previous material, namely the question concerning how important it is to prepare students to compete on the global labor market. She writes:

…a portion of an international test was given to a group of students in Belgium and a group of US students from an above average school in New Jersey.  The Belgium students scored 76% on the test while the US students scored only 47%.  Interestingly both the Belgium and US students thought the test was pretty easy. One student from Belgium commented (in rather good English I might add) that “if the kids in American can’t do this they are really stupid.”  That is a troubling assessment from a high school student from another country.  Report after report shows American students falling behind students from other industrialized countries in math, science, and even in reading.  Considering that in 2010 our per pupil spending ranked fourth highest in the world, there also seems to be a disconnect between what we spend and what we produce.

If part of the worry here is that is our economic prosperity depends on having a globally competitive labor force is, it’s not obvious how worrisome that should be. In ‘The new global labor market’, Richard Freeman points out that our economic prosperity also depends quite a bit on trade policies regulating the fluidity of global markets and welfare policies regulating the distribution of wealth within nations. On the other hand, problems like global climate change and the international banking crisis make it clear how inter-connected our fate is to the fates of other nations, and it is difficult to imagine that problems like these can be managed well if our citizens are insufficiently prepared to think critically about them, or at least meet their global peers with similar competencies.

This issue relates to a few others that many discussed, including whether measures of student proficiency should be comparative or individualized to the student and the issue concerning the underlying causes of student under-performance (relative to standards anyway!). Bill H touches on both of these when he writes:

If I have a student that reads at a second grade level at the beginning of his freshman year and reads at the fifth grade level at the end of the year, that student has made tremendous progress but this progress will not be recognized because that student will still be compared to students who read at, or above, grade level. Many wonderful and talented young people are being “hung out to dry” by the current assessment system.  Schools are being defunded because of lack of progress.  This seems the most backward of all systems.  Shouldn’t failing schools be funded at a higher rate to help improve them?  Standardized testing does not and cannot measure progress for every student as a “be all, end all”.  Things like test anxiety, lack of proper nutrition, trouble at home or in a relationship and good old apathy make the current system a joke.  Why must we use only one assessment tool when it is clear that there are so many others to use, as well?

I think Bill (and others like Lisa H who made a similar point) makes a great point here, though I would disagree were the implied conclusion that we should do away with comparative assessments (though Bill isn’t making that claim, given the question he poses in the last sentence, but anyway, just ‘spose it were). One reason for that relates to the point above about the need for a globally competent citizenry (if not competitive workforce). But another reason is actually hidden in Bill’s second point about how the current accountability regime has punished and defunded failing schools. I’m very powerfully inclined to agree that things like poverty and troubles at home explain to a large degree the troubles that many schools have (and for more on this, see the fine posting by your classmate Toni T). And so I’m very powerfully inclined to agree that a better accountability system would re-allocate resources in just the way Bill suggests—to each according to need. But re-allocation of this sort is impossible without comparative assessment.  

If what’s needed then are additional (not necessarily alternative) assessment tools that measure individual growth, what are some possibilities? In addition to the NAEP site visit model Rothstein and Jacobsen discuss, Lisa E mentions ‘a value-added model…that takes a look at student’s individual assessment gains from the previous school year and projects how much growth a student should make in the new school year...’ Jay M also outlines an intriguing ‘portfolio model’ for secondary education in which students ‘…bring artifacts as evidence that they will present in front of a panel made up of teachers, administrators, and community members who decide if the student is eligible for promotion or graduation.’

Altogether, it seems that the possibilities for valuable assessment in addition to standardized testing are numerous (site visits, student/faculty interviews, portfolios and value-added measures) and a fully adequate accountability regime will need to make use of all of them. Adding these measures while retaining standardized measures enables us to gather valuable comparative data while also showing people how well they are progressing and supporting student and teacher morale. Finally, it will recognize the social issues that contribute to student success and failure and allocate resources and support toward struggling schools, not away from them.