Accountability: Recommendations

STATE BY STATE | TEACHERS | ATTITUDES | RECOMMENDATIONS

Education Week's "Quality Counts" report for 1999 offers ten recommended actions to build accountability.

They include some things California has done already, and others we haven't even started discussing. Here's how California stacks up against Education Week's recommendations.

1. Make explicit what schools and individuals are accountable for.

California's started using the Stanford-9 test to measure student performance. We've just adopted standards in the core subjects. Now it's time to bring them together, and test what we teach.

2. Rewards and consequences should be attached to performance and should be clearly defined and published. There should be no consequences for students without also holding adults accountable.

We're not even close. Gov. Davis' proposals for teacher accountability are disappointing. Take a hint from Tennessee. Use "gap analysis" to measure teachers' value-added to student learning.

3. Information from the accountability system should be widely available, especially to parents. The information should be clear and understandable, as should the criteria for any official actions taken. Schools should receive technical assistance in interpreting and responding to data.

The information now available is created by districts: school accountability report cards. Parents call them "product brochures" at best. The state's on-line Web site is for educators, not parents.

4. The assessment system should be aligned with the state's academic standards. Testing should be open and fair and include more than multiple-choice items.

That alignment hasn't happened yet, but should occur this academic year. Is the test fair to students still learning English? Hardly. Are there items other than multiple choice? Not really.

5. Incentives and consequences should encourage schools to pay particular attention to their lowest performers.

Incentives are being debated, along with consequences, in the special session of the legislature.

6. Student test scores should be a primary factor used to identify low-performing schools but should never be the sole basis for triggering rewards or consequences. Interventions should not occur without a more thorough and sophisticated review of a school's circumstances.

Gov. Davis has proposed selecting 200 low-scoring schools at random from the 5,000 that fall below the 50th percentile nationally. Schools will "volunteer" for this assignment. We hope the legislature comes up with something better than this.

7. Schools should be identified as having the capacity to improve on their own, capable of improving with help, or unable to improve. Schools that need help should be able to get it, and they should be able to pick from a bank of strategies and assistance providers. States and districts should not be the sole source of technical aid to schools.

No classification scheme is yet on the table. Sacramento and the one thousand school boards are likely to slug it out for control over the determination of solutions.

8. Because schools should be held more accountable for student performance, they need greater control over their own spending and hiring.

This wise suggestion is far from reality here in California. Schools don't even have site level budgets, let alone principals prepared to spend money wisely. Hiring — and firing — authority remains with our districts.

9. Low-performing schools should not be allowed to fail indefinitely. Schools that cannot or will not improve must be closed and replaced.

We'll have to wait and see what the legislature proposes. Gov. Davis's proposals were vague. The state's record on takeovers has been a mixed one.

10. The highest priority in closing failing schools must be to provide appropriate alternatives for the students. Students in persistently failing schools should be given the opportunity to attend a better school or to take advantage of other educational options.

Here California shines. Our laws now give parents the right to refuse school assignments they don't want, and request placements either inside or outside their home district. But this law is not well known among parents. Districts often keep it hidden under their counters. It's a good law. Let's make it stronger.

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