School Accountability Without Standardized Testing

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Q: Is it possible to ensure educational accountability without giving standardized tests?

 

A: Not only is it possible, it is necessary.

 

In fact, we will never have accountability while we continue giving standardized tests.

 

This is the irony of modern education policy.

 

High stakes testing is seen as the only tool that can ensure schools operate correctly when in reality it is the very thing that blocks true responsibility.

 

Pundits and policymakers cry crocodile tears as they draw up elaborate ways to punish teachers and students for low test scores. Meanwhile they ignore some of the most basic facts about how education works.

 

FACT: Students and teachers are not the only factors.

 

FACT: Students and teachers don’t decide how much funding their schools get.

 

FACT: Students and teachers don’t get to decide education policy.

 

FACT: An education system is made up of a complex interplay of several interconnected factors that include parents, the community, the economy, culture, media, and local, state and federal governments.

 

FACT: High stakes testing ensures that teachers and students are held accountable for the entire education system including the vast majority of factors beyond their control.

 

So let’s stop pretending that standardized tests hold schools accountable. They don’t. They just point the finger without offering anything to help.

 

True accountability would be about diagnosing problems so we can fix them, not trying to fire your way to the top. When you break your arm, the doctor doesn’t immediately suggest you chop it off. He sets the bone and puts it in a cast and sling so it can heal.

 

When it comes to true accountability, we need to look beyond the school at all the factors involved. We also need to look to the legislature, the taxpayers, parents, the community, the media, and all stake holders.

 

However, this does not mean there are no ways to assess if schools, superintendents, administrators, teachers, and students are doing a good job.

 

In fact, it’s not even difficult to achieve. And we don’t need a single standardized test to do it.

 

We need a two-pronged approach. We must assess student learning, but we also must assess the adequacy of school funding, where it’s going and where it needs to go.

 

These measures are most often ignored in accountability discussions. When it comes to adequate funding, we usually blame the poor for being unable to provide for their children. And since many states allocate education funding based largely on local property taxes, we have rich schools with oodles of cash and poor schools that are falling over. True accountability would ensure all students – both rich and poor – start from an equal playing field. When society neglects this, it is society that is failing, not poor children.

 

When it comes to how funding is spent, we either throw up our hands that there’s no way to evaluate school funding or we pretend that school directors will be transparent just because. Both are untrue.

 

I still believe that local control is the best way to ensure true accountability. When school directors are not elected but appointed– as they are in charter schools – there is no reason to spend wisely. In fact, the laws are set up to shield charter school boards from having to show the community how they are spending taxpayer money. And since most are set up for-profit, there is an incentive to reduce services for students while keeping the saving as profit for themselves and their shareholders.

 

When school boards are elected and are required to hold deliberations in public, accountability is built in. Voters decide who gets to make decisions and if those decisions made in the light of day are in the best interests of their children. Moreover, elected school directors who come from the community have an incentive to make that community in which they live the best it can be and to provide the best quality education they can.

 

This isn’t to say that elected school boards are perfect. They are made up of human beings and are therefore fallible. You don’t have to go far to find local school directors who try to deliberate important decisions in private without notifying the public, circumvent the bidding process, make backroom deals, etc.

 

But there are ways to hold them and the community accountable for providing a quality education.

 

California has come up with an ingenious plan.

 

For the second year, the Golden State has been engaged in a bold experiment. Policymakers have initiated a new K-12 finance system: the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and the Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs) that go with it.

 

Basically, California public schools use multiple-indicators to determine where funding needs to go and how to hold schools accountable for spending it wisely.

 

It’s not perfect. It certainly has some bugs in it, and I do NOT recommend we simply extend the program nationwide as is.

 

For instance, the program still uses standardized testing as one of many multiple measures of success. This is better than having testing be the sole measure or even the most important one. But – as you shall see – we can do better.

 

The law requires each district to identify specific goals and spending priorities in eight areas. I would modify them as follows:

  1. Basic services such as equipped classrooms, qualified teachers, textbooks and materials. It is essential to know if these needs are being met so we can budget accordingly. If funding is lacking, assessing the deficiency in this way helps make the argument for an increase of cash.

 

  1. Implementation of District Created Standards for all students, including English Learners (ELs). California specifically denotes Common Core standards here. I think that is a mistake. Accepting wholesale a set of unproven standards made by non-educators who have never been inside a district building or in front of a classroom is a recipe for disaster. Instead, teachers in each district should develop their own standards and then test whether they are achieving their goal. Many policymakers are in love with the idea of national standards but that’s like suggesting all restaurants must have some version of the McDonalds value menu. Standards should be locally developed to meet the needs of real students not idealized ones.

 

 

  1. Parental Involvement. This simply cannot be ignored. Schools need to know if parents are invested in the district, and if not, administrators and faculty need to work to find ways to bring them in. Schools can institute family game nights, community picnics, parent-teacher nights with food and babysitting services. No school can ever achieve greatness without parents. We must find ways to increase involvement where it is lacking and encourage increased involvement where it is present at all. We must work to make parents feel welcome and make them a part of the decision-making process for school activities and functions.

 

  1. Student Achievement as measured by district assessments, English Learner reclassification to fluency, and other criteria. California includes Common-core aligned standardized tests in this area. I think this is a mistake and that we can find better assessments here. I’ll return to this in a moment.

 

  1. Student Engagement determined by rates of attendance and absenteeism, dropout rates, and graduation. We must gauge how well students are buying in to what the school has to offer. And if it is lacking, we must take steps to improve it. Schools shouldn’t just provide a prepackaged product. They should actively engage students and provide classes and services suited to their needs. Student engagement is one way to determine if schools are successfully doing that.

 

 

  1. School Climate evident in rates of suspension and expulsion, as well as other locally-identified measures. Discipline is very important but must be conducted judiciously. It must be fair and not unduly harsh. It must serve the purpose of improving academic outcomes. Moreover, we need to make sure there are no racial or cultural biases at work – even if they are unconscious. We want to create an inviting atmosphere, not a stepping stone to the prison system.

 

  1. Access to a Broad Curriculum evident through student enrollment across grade levels and subject areas. We know high stakes testing narrows the curriculum. We must work to actively broaden the curriculum and offer students a wide range of classes to maximize their educational experience. This includes arts, music, foreign languages and extra curricular activities. If we don’t have the funds to make that happen, what better tool to help argue for an increase than a detailed account of what’s missing and why it’s important?

 

  1. Other Student Outcomes as identified locally, which may include locally chosen tests and assessments. This could include participation in AP exams, college courses, etc. No accountability system would be complete without an “Other” category. Districts should be free to customize to meet the needs of students, parents and the community.

 

Which brings us back to testing.

 

We’ve got to have it. There must be some way to assess student learning. But we needn’t resort to money-making corporate products.

 

Teachers have been creating tests since the beginning of time. No one ever thought there was anything wrong with that until giant corporations discovered they could make huge profits selling us their standardized assessments.

 

We need to trust teachers again to assess as they see fit. But we can do more than that. We can have district-wide assessments systems that are not standardized – that are personalized – yet comparable across the district.

 

Performance or portfolio-based assessments.

Schools around the country are incorporating direct demonstrations of student learning into their assessment programs. These include projects, individual and group presentations, reports, papers and portfolios of work collected over time. These provide much more accurate reflections of student learning than snapshot tests developed far from the classroom. Moreover, if properly coordinated by departments and administrators, these assessments are comparable across the district.

 

The New York Performance Standards Consortium is leading the way. It consists of 28 schools, including grades 6-12, throughout the state that rely on these teacher-created assessments to the exclusion of standardized tests.

 

And the results have been tremendous! These public schools have higher graduation rates and better college-retention rates, while serving a population similar to that of other urban schools. We say we’re looking for innovations that work. This is it!

 

Just imagine a school that used such an accountability system. It would have a plethora of data about what’s working, what isn’t working and what needs to be done to correct deficiencies.

 

We forget that accountability systems show our values. High stakes testing pretends that the only thing that matters is the results of a standardized test. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

 

A system like the one I’ve described would ensure every student receives a robust education that is assessed fairly. It would invigorate children, parents and the community. And when students graduate from such a school, they would be prepared for whatever comes next.

 

Moreover, there’s not a single standardized test necessary in the whole system!

 

Our policymakers need to start thinking along these lines. These aren’t pie in the sky suggestions. Most of these ideas already have been tested and proven effective.

 

We need to free our minds from a reliance on the testing industry. We need to think outside the bubble and free our children from corporate servitude as education policy – a system that ensures they won’t receive a quality education – all under the guise of “accountability.”

 

Can real accountability exist without standardized tests?

 

Yes. That’s the only way it can.

74 thoughts on “School Accountability Without Standardized Testing”

  1. I think we need to push back on the whole idea that schools need “accountability”. Public schools have always had accountability simply by virtue of being public schools. Any community member could walk into the school, ask questions, look at the books, get a tour, talk to teachers, attend the science fair or the band concert, etc. The people who have the greatest stake (in fact, the only stake) in schools – parents and the community – have always had accountability from schools – if something isn’t right, they would know and demand it be fixed.

    If anything, “accountability” through whatever form of testing or assessment actually undermines real accountability because everything has to be comparable across schools, districts, states, etc. (not that I could tell you why it matters how Johnny at Oak Elementary compares to Susie at 5th Street Elementary), so “accountability” involves developing a whole system of testing/assessment. Whatever system is developed is ultimately going to be proprietary, so the people with the real stake get shoved aside in favor of proprietary interests. And then you add more layers of proprietary interests because you get all the charter schools, ed tech vendors, consultants, etc. who claim that they can improve performance measures, so, again, the actual stakeholders get shoved aside. At many (most?) schools today, in the age of “accountability”, parents and community members *can’t* simply walk in and make the school accountable.

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    • Dienne, I think you have a point about accountability being built in to the concept of public schools. However, we do have an accountability crisis – though it’s not the one corporate school reformers cry about. We need a way to hold legislators accountable for their disinvestment in our schools. Voters are buying the false narrative of failing schools. If we had a system that included all stake holders, it would forever squash that lie. I think it would help us make real positive change. It would help us make the argument that we need equitable school funding. It might also help districts systematically diagnose problems and find ways to fix them. I don’t think that system and local control are mutually exclusive. We can have both. When pundits complain that only high stakes testing holds schools accountable, it’s not enough to prove them wrong. We have to show them what might actually help. At least, that’s what I think.

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      • My favorite analogy for “accountability” is imagine if someone is repeatedly hitting you over the head with a rubber mallet. You might have trouble concentrating. You might have “anger issues”. You might even become “behaviorally challenged”. Various vendors and consultants might start pouring out of the woodwork to offer you the latest and bestest cure for your lack of concentration. They might come up with all kinds of “standards” and behavioral intervention for your anger and behavioral issues. You would, I presume, firmly reject all of the above. They might sniff and say, “Fine, but then what’s YOUR solution???”

        Your answer, I hope, would be along the lines of, “Stop effing hitting me!!!”

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    • Jim, you’re right to be skeptical. The corporate school reformers have co-opted our language. We say we want individualized learning. We want personalized lessons. They turn around and market competency based education as if it was what we are advocating for. It isn’t. And it’s certainly not what I’m suggesting here. Stealth assessments have no place in our schools. Our kids need zero high stakes standardized tests – not multiple mini-tests every day.

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      • If you think kids need zero high stacks exams, campaign against teacher written exams in high school classes. Those are the only exams that have any stacks for students in my state.

        If you think teacher written high stakes exams are just fine, it seems to me that your objection to exams has absolutely nothing to do with them being high stakes for students.

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  4. Teaching economist, I don’t think you know the meaning of “standardized” or “high stakes.” Standardized means something mass produced, made far from the site of its use. For instance, McDonald’s menu is standardized. The menu at your local family restaurant is not. Second, “high stakes” means an assessment that will be used to reward or punish an entire school district. If a student fails a required class and as a result cannot graduate without remediation or repeating the class, that is not high stakes.

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    • Surely you do not reserve the term “high stakes” to things that only impact school district employees, do you?

      The high stakes exams for students are the ones that reward or punish the students not just by allowing them to graduate from high school, but also by not allowing them admission to the university of their choice (in Texas, dropping a single position in class rank will keep you from being admitted to Texas at Austin, for example), and by not allowing them the financial aid that will keep them out of debt if they do attend a university (the main scholarship program at my university is based, in part, on high school GPA) .

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  5. I am not in favor of a single graduation exam. I think graduation should be determined by passing your courses. Snapshot assessments considered alone are poor indicators of success.

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  11. I have worked as a classroom teacher and in state level ed policy, and I can say, without hesitation, that local control (out-of-control) breeds an absolute LACK of accountability. LEAs are supervised by boards typically made up of non-educators who have received very little training. They are dependent on the reports of district and school level admins who have job security to consider. Coupled with the fact that while the majority of Americans think public schools are poor, just not the public schools in THEIR communities, and you’ve got NO ONE locally who is willing to hold schools responsible. State control WITH genuine district buy-in is the only way to guarantee equitable, efficient schools…no more endless cycles of reinventing the wheel from one district to the next, with wildly different results. Someone in charge needs to mandate that everyone does what works.

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    • Jbone, democracy is messy, but I think it is far preferable to the alternative. Take a look at the state controlled districts. They do much worse than those locally controlled. Rich parents would never give up their say in their children’s education. We shouldn’t either.

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  15. […] Accountability has become a dirty word in many education circles because of the way the Bush and Obama administrations have perverted it to mean test and punish. It has become a boondoggle for the standardized testing industry, an excuse to close poorly funded and often urban public schools to be replaced by unaccountable charter schools. While this is a terrible misuse of federal power, states must be responsible for the education they provide their children. And contrary to popular belief, this can be accomplished without resorting to the usual corporate reform measures. […]

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