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One of the most important and exciting pieces of legislation to pass in the last legislative session was Senate Bill 1031 which, among other things, required a state-level committee to take a look at our public school accountability system and come up with ways to change it or even design a new one. This bill was pushed through by Raise Your Hand Texas (RYHT), a relatively new business group working to “celebrate, defend and strengthen the public schools.” One of the founding members of RYHT is former Sen. Bill Ratliff who authored the current accountability system. But Ratliff and RYHT saw the perverse consequences of our current system–teaching to the test, narrowing of the curriculum, increasing the dropout rate, and eroding instructional time–and knew that a drastic overhaul was needed. So the Select Committee on Public School Accountability was appointed to review the system and make suggestions for improvement. Comprising 15 members representing business and education, the committee includes only one teacher, TCTA President-Elect Susan Lewis of San Antonio.
What’s wrong with current system?
Since February 2008, the committee has held monthly hearings around the state to hear from experts and the public about the problems of our current system and how it might be repaired. TCTA has attended all of these meetings and testified before the committee. Two consistent themes emerging at the hearings are the overemphasis on testing and the fact that the current system is heavy on sanctions and light on helpful interventions. There have also been calls to give credit for student growth and to have a system that levels the playing field between large diverse districts and small homogeneous districts.
It is true that our current system relies heavily on our state assessment–it is one of only three indicators used for ratings (the other two are dropout rates and completion rates). Because a school’s rating is based on how well each student subgroup does on each subject test, a heavy emphasis on testing is inevitable. And there are inequities in this system: large diverse schools/districts with more student subgroups have more hoops to jump through to get a good rating than small homogeneous districts, and elementary schools are rated solely on test performance since dropout rates and completion rates aren’t relevant. The identification of these issues provides a focus for committee recommendations.
RYHT has presented the committee a proposal for a new system that gives credit for student growth and levels the playing field between large diverse districts and small homogeneous districts. However, the group’s recommendations don’t address the issue of too much emphasis on testing. RYHT is one of the three entities that have submitted specific recommendations on how to fix the system. Another is the Texas Institute for Education Reform (TIER), a spin-off group of the Governor’s Business Council which successfully advocated in the past for incentive pay for teachers. TIER has proposed vouchers as an alternative to failing schools and significant changes to performance indicators with the end goal being post-secondary readiness. The third is the Education Resource Group, a private company offering a system based on a regression formula that includes both financial and academic accountability under one system.
The key decisions to be made
The committee has determined a number of decision points that will form the basis for recommendations to the Legislature next session as follows:
What kind of test should we have? Clearly, everyone wants to get rid of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test–and that’s actually been addressed at the high school level with the advent of end-of-course (EOC) exams (beginning with 9th graders in the 2011-12 school year). Statements from the co-chairs of the Select Committee, Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) and Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands), indicate that replacing TAKS in the earlier grades is next. However, one of the questions is whether to use criterion-referenced tests or norm-referenced tests. Norm-referenced tests are designed to gauge how a student is doing relative to other students and not whether a student is proficient (meets a standard). Criterion-referenced tests measure whether a student meets a standard or masters the material taught. Which test to use depends on the purpose–some experts caution that, legally, if a student has to pass a test in order to be promoted or graduate, the test needs to be closely linked to curriculum, which would be a criterion-referenced test. However, norm-referenced tests are useful for measuring student growth. It is possible that both could be used, depending on the purpose sought.
What should schools be held accountable for? There is a push by several influential business leaders for schools to be held accountable for post-secondary readiness, a term that has yet to be defined in this state, although these same business leaders have proffered a somewhat narrow definition encompassing two-year and four-year college degrees, technical certification, advanced military training, or skilled workforce employment. However, “skilled workforce” has yet to be defined, and with most of the jobs with the largest growth only requiring on-the-job training, this proposed definition seems to cut out a large group of jobs.
Should schools and districts be ranked based on performance or rated under a pass/fail system? Under our current state system, schools are ranked based on performance and earn various ratings accordingly. Under NCLB, states and schools either pass (meet Adequate Yearly Progress–AYP) or fail (don’t meet AYP). Having a pass/fail system might eliminate what some see as too much focus by schools/districts on receiving the highest rating, while a pass/fail system might not give parents and the public as much information about how far above the passing level a school/district is.
Should the state hold schools accountable for performance of student subgroups (i.e. economically disadvantaged, African-American, Hispanic, White, etc.) or only identify and report on student subgroups? NCLB requires that AYP be based on performance by each student subgroup, including the ones listed here, plus special education and Limited English Proficient (LEP) students. With research showing that socioeconomic status has more influence on student performance than race, and with the negative implications associated with categorizing students by race, some thought might be given to continuing to report results for student racial subgroups, but for purposes of accountability only using socioeconomic status and perhaps special education and LEP categories.
How should growth models be incorporated into the accountability system? Experts have identified two basic models: a growth to the standard model and a value-added model. Value-added models compare a given student’s growth to typical student growth which is a normative-type of comparison. But this model is limited in that a student could grow more than is typical but still not enough to be on track to reach the standard. A growth to the standard model fills in this gap by setting a target for each student who is below the standard and then setting a benchmark each year that a student must meet in order to reach the standard within the required number of years. Since each growth model addresses a different purpose, some have called for both types of growth models to be used in the accountability system.
Of concern to TCTA
A major goal for TCTA is to reduce the emphasis on high stakes testing. We have some suggestions, such as including more indicators like student attendance, teacher turnover, out-of-field teaching assignments, recovering dropouts, and class size limit waivers in accountability ratings. Other states use indicators such as school safety and teacher satisfaction surveys.
There is no doubt that this review of our system presents a tremendous opportunity to address concerns about our current system. Whether the Select Committee ends up making recommendations that “nibble around the edges” or seeks systemic change remains to be seen. The committee’s recommendations are due by Dec. 1, 2008, and will be considered by the Texas Legislature during the 81st legislative session that begins on Jan. 13, 2009. The Legislature must adopt a new public school accountability system by Sept. 1, 2011.
Web posted: 08/20/08 from The Classroom Teacher, Fall 2008
