In this report, we assessed this accountability system as it relates to pre-existing
systems of accountability measures, and made two recommendations of how to expand this system.
Not exact matches
Lawmakers spent a lot
of time talking about meaty issues, including establishing a
system of paid family and medical leave, reinstituting tolls on state highways and setting up new
measures to address police
accountability, but in the end, a lack
of consensus scuttled chances for a vote.
«By every
measure, Governor Cuomo's tax cap has successfully reined in out -
of - control property tax increases and has been a key part
of this administration's efforts to restore fiscal sanity to this state and bring
accountability and rigor to our education
system.»
«As financial incentives change in the U.S. health care
system, valid
measures of care quality are increasingly important for ensuring transparency and
accountability.
And their purpose is clear enough to function as the heart
of an
accountability system, giving force and purpose to additional
measures.
The provisional school results will include performance
measures such as the percentage
of pupils achieving five or more GCSEs or equivalents at A * to C, the percentage
of pupils achieving the English Baccalaureate (EBacc), and the Attainment 8 scores, showing average achievement across eight subjects, including English and maths, for those schools that have opted into the new
accountability system a year early.
But for proponents
of accountability, it's just as easy to hold up these educators as an example
of why strong objective
systems are needed to oversee and
measure educators» performance.
The
measures used in the NEPC report — whether schools make AYP, state
accountability system ratings, the percentage
of students that score proficient on state tests, and high - school graduation rates — are at best rough proxies for the quality
of education provided by any school.
These lessons focus primarily on the transparency
of the
systems, but this is just one
of several principles that states should attend to (which I have offered previously):
Accountability systems should actually
measure school effectiveness, not just test scores.
Accountability systems should
measure and reflect this broader vision
of learning by using a framework
of indicators for school success centered on academic outcomes, opportunity to learn, and engagement and support.
The Sunshine State had instituted school voucher programs, increased the number
of charter schools, and devised a sophisticated
accountability system that evaluates schools on the basis
of their progress as
measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).
In the meantime, policymakers should resist proposals to incorporate survey - based
measures of non-cognitive skills into high - stakes
accountability systems.
One harbinger might be California Governor Jerry Brown's veto
of a bill to tweak his state's
accountability system by adding «multiple -
measures» to a test - score laden index.
In good
measure, the failures
of the current
system have festered as long as they have because many
of the advocates
of test - based
accountability simply didn't want to face the evidence.
The new version
of the law, he said, will need to ensure effective teachers and principals for underperforming schools, expand learning time, and devise an
accountability system that
measures individual student progress and uses data to inform instruction and teacher evaluation.
These testing and
accountability systems don't provide accurate
measures of individual academic growth.
Today's «years
of growth»
measures are often tricky though — both to equate to a state's
accountability system as well as to understand what they really mean.
With better
measures of academic growth and a little extra money, states could attract providers to underserved populations, rather than discouraging them as a result
of the requirements
of current
accountability systems.
They'd have
accountability systems composed
of statewide
measures («base points») and locally determined indicators.
North Carolina education officials last week ordered a major audit
of the state's testing and
accountability program to determine the soundness
of the
system after problems emerged over interim scoring
measures for the state's end -
of - grade math exam.
While no one is claiming these efforts will fix what's broken with America's educational
system, there remain pockets
of support for some type
of parental
accountability measure.
If you follow the increasing use
of Value - Added
Measures (VAMs) and Student Growth Percentiles (SGPs) in state -, district -, school -, and teacher -
accountability systems, read this very good new Mathematica working paper.
Too many states try to include too many
measures into their
accountability system, and then none
of the individual
measures are really important or really guide schools on what their learning outcomes need to be.
Longtime Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley had won control over the school
system in 1995 and generally received accolades for rising scores on state tests; hard - charging superintendents, including Paul Vallas and Arne Duncan; tough
accountability measures such as reduced social promotion; and a slew
of new schools and shiny buildings.
As a result, trying to assess if a school is «good» or «bad» relies on a complex web
of preferences and objective
measures that, quite frankly, can not be taken into account in a centralized
accountability system.
Beginning in 2002, the
accountability system included
measures of student progress from one year to the next, a feature not incorporated into NCLB.
Almost all now have standards for what students should know in core subjects, tests to
measure student learning, and at least the beginnings
of an
accountability system to hold schools responsible for results.»
ED's press release explains, «The administration's proposal for fixing NCLB calls for college and career - ready standards, more great teachers and principals, robust use
of data and a more flexible and targeted
accountability system based on
measuring annual student growth.
That means an
accountability system must have a single set
of performance
measures that can be similarly applied to all schools.
Whether or not these complaints are valid, the
accountability system was still in the development stage, and there is now no systematic way to
measure the progress
of Head Start children through the program.
In addition, the report takes a hard look at the Adult Basic Education (ABE)
system at the state Department
of Education (DOE) and calls for a series
of reforms, new investments, and
accountability measures.
ESSA also requires state
accountability systems to include «a
measure of student growth, if determined appropriate by the State; or another valid and reliable statewide academic indicator that allows for meaningful differentiation in school performance.»
It would make matters more difficult because the most important flaw
of the No Child Left Behind
accountability system is its reliance on the level
of student achievement at a single point in time as a
measure of school performance.
States could also create entirely separate
accountability systems for alternative schools, weighting existing
measures differently (e.g. placing less emphasis on proficiency and placing more emphasis on academic growth) and using different indicators, such as high school completion rates instead
of cohort graduation rates.
The CORE is a consortium
of nine California school districts that implemented a pilot to create a comprehensive
accountability system by assessing school performance through a variety
of measures that go beyond academic achievement tests.
ESSA requires state
accountability systems to include an indicator
of academic achievement «as
measured by proficiency on the annual assessments.»
He surely has the right to offer greater flexibility to the states when it comes to the law's «adequate yearly progress»
measures and other parts
of its
accountability system.
They can try to do so indirectly, via initiatives to recruit and retain talented teachers, to implement high - quality curricula, or to include
measures of student engagement in school
accountability systems.
Instead
of encouraging innovation with the newly available tech tools,
accountability systems based on narrow and dated
measures tended to clamp down on new approaches.
• How to best display school
accountability measures to showcase your schools and lead to the most accurate representation
of how your K - 12
system is progressing.
By way
of context for California's comments, in 2013, the state embarked on a significant overhaul
of how it provided resources to districts and created a framework for a multiple
measures accountability system focused on eight state priority areas.
Achieve, which normally assesses
accountability systems at the state level for «quality and coherence,» praised the Montgomery County assessments as rigorous, high - quality
measures that are good predictors
of students» performance on state - level tests.
The Council
of Chief State School Officers has worked with several partners over the past few years on recommendations for those CCR
measures best suited for state
accountability systems.
Recognizes chronic absenteeism as an early indicator for underperformance and addresses it through inclusion
of a chronic absenteeism
measure in its
accountability system.
In standards - based reform, much
of the attention has been on states as the entities responsible for setting academic standards, developing testing
systems to
measure the standards, and then putting
accountability systems in place based on those standards.
Researchers Martin Carnoy and Susanna Loeb
of Stanford University created an index to
measure the strength
of states» pre-NCLB
accountability systems.
It also looks at what impact using new headline
measures has on the composition
of the top 500 comprehensives, and considers the implications
of the new
accountability system for comprehensive recruitment in the future.
In a competency - based
system, flexibly timed
accountability tests may provide better
measures of progress than fixed, annual tests.
Base any
accountability system designed to
measure school and / or state performance on multiple
measures of student growth and learning.
Preserve a role for student achievement in teacher evaluation
systems In light
of political pushback, some states and districts are moving to eliminate student achievement
measures from teacher
accountability systems, but that is a mistake.