Accountability in Education

The season is upon us once again.  That time of year when regular instruction is replaced with state/federal mandated testing.  The time when we have to prove that we haven't been wasting the time of our students all year.  We do all of this in the name of accountability.  I could spend a great deal of time pontificating the various arguments for and against standardized testing, but why waste the time.  So many others have done it already and it isn't worth the effort.  If you would like to see some of the arguments for and against standardized testing, I found this interesting resource on ProCon.org about Standardized Testing.

I can sum up my thoughts on the matter very briefly.  I believe in accountability, but not in the way it is handled in most cases.  I think we can do better.

Here are the problems I see with our current setup.

1. There is little real world relevance.  Not only do the tests not have applicable life skills that they are assessing, but many of them have some extremely contrived methods for attempting to make them relevant with word problems that no human would ever need to or desire to figure out.  
2. The pressure is unrealistic.  Why do so many hinge promotion to the next grade or ability to get a drivers licence on the passage of a test? You already have to take tests to get a drivers license, why add another one and additional paperwork for schools?  Promotion/retention-there is so much research that indicates the impact is short term at best.  Students will often make great strides on test scores only to be back at the same percentile two years later.  
3. The data gathered does little to help the student.  By the time the results arrive, the student is in a new grade with new standards and skills being assessed.  Granted it may help the teacher provide better instruction for the next group, but where does that leave the student that took the initial test?

What is being done to fix the problems?  I do see some positive changes occurring that don't fix the problems, but at least make them more tolerable.  For example:

1.  Some states, mine included, have adjusted their standards and realigned them in a way that the standards spiral.  What I mean is we teach a standard in one grade level, then in the next grade level we teach the standard with greater depth and intensity.  In this case we can better use the data from the previous year.  A student may have been unsuccessful on a standard, so we know that we need to provide more background before diving into it again.  
2. There is also a movement to make the tests relevant beyond high school.  For example, instead of taking multiple state tests the ACT or SAT might be a possibility.  This way the tests serve a dual purpose.  You can track growth by giving it in the fall and spring and you also provide students with college entrance scores.  The trouble with this is that you don't get a direct correlation to your standards like you would with other assessments, but at that grade level you don't have much time left for remediation.  But in some cases they are able to take a zero level course while still in high school so they don't have to waste a semester of college on them.  If these can be setup to give dual credit it would be even better for the student
3. School report cards are being revised and in some states disappearing altogether.  The school report cards were intended to be an easy way for a community to know how their school is doing, but there are so many ways that the report cards don't give an accurate picture.  When certain student populations are counted more than once in the report and overweight some categories it can be unfair to schools that have large percentages of students in that category.  These populations can be ethnic, socioeconomic or special needs groups.  We want to see how we are performing in each of these areas, but should they be counted multiple times in an overall grade?  That would be like counting the reading portion of the ACT two or three times to come up with your composite score.  Great if you do well in reading, but if you are better at math or science it has a negative impact on your score.  

Ultimately I think we need to keep making improvements to how we hold ourselves accountable, but maybe we take a different approach.  At the secondary level, since we are looking at making our students college/career ready, is ACT the best option?  What about the students that don't plan to go to college?  How is this score relevant to them?  Truthfully it isn't.  They would be better off being scored on certification results than ACT scores.  

What do I mean?  If students are attending Career Tech there are certification exams related to whatever program they are enrolled in.  Why not use those to better judge the effectiveness of their high school career?  It has much more meaning to them than any other tests they would take and your results are probably going to be more accurate.  Many students see the other tests as a waste of their time since they never plan to go to college and after the test is over it has no meaning for them.  The other tests allow them to immediately go out and get a job without incurring any college loan debt and often earning more money than their counterparts that do attend college.  

What about lower grade levels?  Most of us would agree that performance based assessments are a much more accurate picture of what a student can do instead of a multiple choice test.  The problem is the time involved in administering those types of tests.  They are typically much more involved processes, but a truer picture of understanding.  

Thank you for reading The Cluttered Desk.  You can find me on Twitter @jasonbengs.  Please feel free to comment on the post and share your ideas with me.  If you found any value in this post, please share it with others.