Counting on Accountability

School level test scores, graduation rates, annual student achievement growth measures, district progress measurements, and SAT results are but some of the modern indicators used to measure public school performance. Increasingly, public school districts are required to administer and report these statistical data in order to secure funding, justify existence, maintain budget allocations, and acquire confidence and support from the taxpaying public. While educators lament these facts and often struggle to find ways and means of curbing this trend, the general public (especially the taxpayers) are firmly supportive of the accountability measures.

Peterson and West (2003) note that Americans began their love affair with accountability when the military used tests measure soldier’s abilities and intelligence. These tests later bloomed into the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). Thus, the SAT was our first academic testing tool used to measure education levels and, indirectly, the educational institutions from whence the test takers were schooled. Peterson and West go on to lift the veil of how school accountability came to light. It began in the 1960s when the national SAT average began to decline. The general public was alarmed and a national education reform movement began. But because the SAT was taken primarily by selective students, the Education Commission of the States developed the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) in the 1960s. The test was administered, randomly, to students aged nine, thirteen, and seventeen. The test was not designed to be an accountability tool, but according to Peterson and West, “...even though it was designed so as to not inform anyone about how any individual schools were doing, NAEP, ironically, would prove to be a key mechanism in hastening the accountability movement forward”.

As the 1980s dawned, the accountability movement gained greater ground. It was Terrel H. Bell’s commission that authored A Nation At Risk in 1984. Bell’s report predicted dire consequences for children and the nation if the American education system did not begin serious reform measures. Within a few short years, the federal Department of Education became a powerful and guiding force. States were ramping up their student achievement measurements, companies were designing and selling standardized tests, and talks of national curricula and testing were beginning. It was a nice marriage of education and business cloaked in the robe of learning, success, patriotism, and accountability.

Subsequently, today public schools are burdened by measurement tools. States are burdened with funding issues directly related to testing costs and accountability measures. Students are burdened by curricula that seeks not mainly to educate, but to ensure their success on standardized tests. Administrators and teachers are burdened with proving their worth and relevance - through the measures and results of timed tests.

A New Jersey student will be subject to the following standardized tests between prior to earning a high school diploma:

• The New Jersey ASK 3
• The New Jersey ASK 4
• The New Jersey ASK 5
• The New Jersey ASK 6
• The New Jersey ASK 7
• The New Jersey ASK 8
• The New Jersey Algebra I End of Course Exam
• The New Jersey Biology End of Course Exam
• The New Jersey High School Proficiency Assessment
• The College Board’s PSAT
• The College Board’s SAT

For more aggressive and ambitious students, the list can grow to include a number of the College Board’s AP exams. All of these tests are used as indicator’s of a school’s student achievement. But unlike the NAEP’s original intentions, the federal and state government make it very clear that these tests will be used to measure and judge a public school and a district.

Recently, another reform movement (as a result of the flood of localized accountability) has begun - the national standards movement. The Common Core Standards Initiative has gained much press lately. It is a joint reform effort by the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to bring states together under a united umbrella of reading, writing, and math standards for grades K-12. According to the CCSI, “These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills”. States opting in to the initiative will, undoubtedly, develop new testing - or common state tests - to measure the standards’ implementation, thus ensuring that accountability measures remain.

I have to be honest... for all the criticism, anguish, and discomfort that accountability has brought to public education, it is undeniable that some of the ramifications have been positive. Federal and state measurement and judgement tools have forced many districts and schools to examine, analyze, and often rebuild their methods of teaching, their systems of thinking, their mechanisms of assessing, and their means of funding.

It is also true, however, that the business of education has become the business of education; test developers, inter-state commissions, and reform lobbyists (both at the state and federal level) all now have a much more powerful voice in the conversation of learning. Thus, “accountability” now means much more than just seeing how the students are doing. It means counting.

I'm Going To Education Hell

We had our second faculty meeting of the year today.  Usually, I skim over the "memoable" material and spend some time presenting on topics like PLCs or some other interesting material.  I like to close the meeting with a humorous video clip (just to keep the hard working staff laughing).  But today I did something a little different... something seemingly heretical.

For the last week, I have been reading Daniel Willingham's articles and pieces on this Washington Post blog.  I have been intrigued with his ideas and even more so with his research.  Maybe it's the skeptic in me, but I find his work and reference to research (or lack thereof) refreshing.  Today, I decided to share this video with my faculty.

 

Learning Styles Don't Exist

After the viewing, I asked the faculty not to convert to his thinking, but to be cautious about what we commonly accept as true.  My hope was that the faculty would engage in some fruitful dialogue about Willingham's stand.  Who knows... maybe some of them would like to read more about this topic - get in the game - get in the debate. 

Regardless of what their reactions will be, I did feel a bit like a heretic; presenting a debunk to what the edu-world and edu-gurus have been telling us for years.  I don't like being told that "differentiated instruction" or "teaching to learning styles" is the way to teach our young minds.  It is my firm belief that we are first and foremost pracitioners of curriclum (especially in the high schools).  Our loyalties are to be with the curriculum, with the content, and with facilitating information transfer and student self discovery.  This is not a new idea, but one that I learned from The Education Trust. 

I was lucky enough to have been trained by The Ed Trust in assessing assessments and about how to approach teaching underpriveldged children.  Ed Trust is not an advocate of the curriclum reaching children - rather, they want us to teach the children how to reach the curriculum.  In other words, the content of the curriculum and our ability to have the students get it is much more important that simply watering it down so that they can easily access it.  That, too , was refeshing to hear.  They preach that teachers must teach the curriculum, forgo the pity that comes with broken students, and get the students educated, not pardoned.

Some time soon, that will also be part of my faculty gatherings.  Willingham may have been my first sin in education, but it will not be my last.

We're a PLC Lab School

During the last quarter of the 2008-2009 school year, I was heavily devoted to rededicating my high school as a place of professional collaboration. Throughout the school year, we had a very dynamic Curriculum Council running; 19 teachers volunteered their time to meet as a full council four times and as sub-groups multiple times to tackle such goals as:

• Developing a Freshman Seminar course
• Developing an Option II program (Option II is NJ's program for offering non-traditional learning experiences for credits. Things like internships, college classes, independent study, community class, and service learning)
• Developing a Pathways program (Pathways are designed to focus students in college directions - i.e. Humanities, Science and Engineering, Liberal Arts, Business and Technology)
• Developing an Economics/Financial Literacy course (this is the most pertinent goal since NJ has just mandated this course as a high school graduation requirement)

With the work they completed and the experience of working as a professional community, I decided to apply to be a PLC Lab School through EIRC. EIRC and the NJ Department of Education have teamed up to make the push for schools to develop strong PLCs (Professional Learning Communities). Schools selected as PLC Lab Schools would not only get the privelege of being named so, but would also receive professional development from Stephen G. Barkley. PLC Lab schools are also able to freely communicate with other PLC Lab Schools in NJ.

Proudly, we were selected as one of 33 schools in NJ as a PLC Lab School. We are also only one of five high schools in the state to be chosen. It's quite an honor to be recognized for the efforts to bring a cultural shift to a community of professionals... but I am more proud of the faculty who made this become a reality.

So now that we have been recognized and selected to receive further training and support, what do we do? We keep going. This year we managed to do away with some non-productive duty assignments for teachers and instead build real PLC time into their schedules. We have ten teams of teachers working as Professional Learning Teams (PLTs) on such SMART Goals as revamping the Algebra curriculum, designing common assessments, continuing the Curriculum Council goals from last year, and examining and applying the new NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards to existing assessments and plans. It's a tall order. But the faculty is ready to begin to own the construct of the school.

Creating a PLC - a true community culture in the building - can be rewarding... if the administration gets out of the way. PLT's can't be designed to fulfill the wishes of the principal, the supervisor, or the central office staff. Real PLTs gain momentum and strength from themselves once the administration allows them to pursue professional goals that pertain to the classroom, the curriculum, and culture. I tell my faculty that a PLC's purpose is to empower the faculty and to allow them greater design over their profession. So far, they have taken the challenge.

As a "lab" school we see ourselves not as a fully formed PLC, but rather as a specimen; we are in a lab, experimenting, trying, searching, questioning, and looking for the answers.