Accountability and Assessment: From “A Nation at Risk”  NCLB  Race to the Top

1. Accountability and Assessment: From “A Nation at Risk”  NCLB  Race to the Top

2. Framing Questions: • Who can and should be held educationally accountable, for what, to whom, and why? • How can we measure student learning in a way that both reflects and promotes concerns about equity? • How did No Child Left Behind (NCLB) change educators’ practices and national conversations about these issues? • How are Race to the Top and current ESEA reauthorization negotiations influencing the national conversation, on the one hand, and educational policy and practices, on the other?

3. 1917, 1946: Federal aid to schools for vocational, agricultural, and home ec education 1958: National Defense Education Act (response to Sputnik) funds improvements in science, math, and foreign language instruction 1965: Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), including Title I funding for disadvantaged children. Requires reauthorization every 5 years. 1964: Title VI of Civil Rights Act 1972: Title IX of Education Amendments 1973, 1975: Section 504 of Rehabilitation Act, Education for All Handicapped Children Act prohibit race, sex, special needs discrimination in education 1980: Department of Education created (at Cabinet level) 1983: A Nation at Risk 1980s – 2000s: States and professional groups develop content standards, assessments, and accountability mechanisms 2002: ESEA reauthorized as No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 2004: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act revamped 2009-??: Race to the Top, ESEA reauthorization 2010: Common Core Standards

4. Assessment and Accountability: The Early Years 1980s – early 1990s • “Off the shelf” tests: Stanford, ITBS, California Achievement Test • Norm-referenced • Minimum competency tests: e.g. Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (1979), Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (1984)

5. Assessment and Accountability: The Early Years 1980s – early 1990s • “Off the shelf” tests: Stanford, ITBS, California Achievement Test • Norm-referenced • Minimum competency tests: e.g. Texas Assessment of Basic Skills (1979), TX Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (1984) Mid-to-late 1990s • Achievement tests: e.g. Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (1993), Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (1999) • Criterion-referenced • Tests start to be aligned with state standards

6. Criticisms of StateAssessment Systems • Wildly variable in quality and rigor • Often not aligned with state standards (state standards didn’t always exist) • Student-level accountability (e.g. must pass to graduate) but no teacher, principal, or school-level accountability • Not used to guide instruction

7. Accountability as… PUNISHMENT

8. Accountability as… Lever of Change

9. Pause and think: Pause and Think • How have state assessment and accountability systems changed over the past 30 years? • Do these changes represent progress, regress, or some of both? • What purposes do you think state-level assessment and accountability systems should play in education, if any? • What questions do you still have?

10. NCLB(No Child Left Behind)

11. (100%-current % proficient) (2014-current year) = % increase expected Major NCLB Requirements: • All students (100%) at “proficiency” by 2014 – AYP determined for each subgroup: • Failure to make AYP in any subgroup = overall school failure to make AYP • Progressive sanctions, some including increased funding • Reading and math tests every year grades 3-8, once in grade 9 or 10, science at three diff. times • Graduation and attendance rates now part of AYP

12. How NCLB Promotes Equity: • Disaggregates scores • Judges schools by their least successful students, not their most successful • Establishes clear and common achievement standards; eliminates between-school and even between-district variation in standards for success • Provides strong incentives for school improvement focused on student achievement • Purportedly offers students/families in failing schools additional options, including to transfer to a non-failing school

13. Challenges to Equity:The Threat of Perverse Incentives • States • Schools • Students

14. Perverse Incentives for States: Lower Standards to Increase Passing Rates Source for following slides: National Center for Education Statistics (2007). Mapping 2005 State Proficiency Standards Onto the NAEP Scales (NCES 2007-482). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: Author.

22. Perverse Incentives for Schools: Don’t Let Students Get to 10th Grade(unless they can pass the test)

23. District Retention Rates: Evidence of the Urban Ninth Grade Bulge http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/retention/. Updated Apr. 16, 2009. Accessed December 15, 2009.

24. District Retention Rates by Race/Ethnicity (2007-08) http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/retention/

25. Perverse Incentives (or at least outcomes) for Students: If You’re Not Passing, Drop Out

26. Retention and Dropouts • Repeating any grade correlated with and even clearly contributes to dropping out • Persistence to 12th grade dramatically lower for students repeating grade 9 (TX & Philadelphia) • Up to 40% of ninth grade students in cities with the highest dropout rates repeat 9th grade; only 10–15% of those repeaters go on to graduate • 40% of dropouts in low–income high schools left after ninth grade vs. 27% in low–poverty schools Balfanz and Legters 2004, http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/c1/c1s6.htm, http://www.betterhighschools.org/docs/NHSC_FirstYearofHighSchool_032807_000.pdf,

27. Cohort 2009 4-year Graduation Rates in Massachusetts: Source: http://www.doe.mass.edu/infoservices/reports/gradrates/ * Limited English Proficient

28. Pause and think: Pause and Think • What are the strengths of NCLB both overall and particularly with respect to the achievement of educational equity? • What are the weaknesses of NCLB both overall and particularly with respect to the achievement of educational equity? • Is it possible to retain the strengths while overcoming the weaknesses, especially those resulting from perverse incentives? How? • What would you do if you were in the position of reauthorizing ESEA? What would you tell your senator or congressperson, and why?

29. ESEA Reauthorization:Points of Agreement • Make AYP (or its equivalent) more nuanced, not just yes/no • Measure individual student growth rather than cohort comparisons: “value-added” measurements (VAM) • Incorporate multiple measures into accountability system: e.g. dropout and retention rates, possibly higher-ed access • Do everything possible to avoid perverse incentives • Provide resources (“opportunity to learn”) and not just consequences • Use data to guide instruction and not just guide sanctions and rewards • Promote complex teaching for complex thinking

30. Value Added Measurements • Track individual student growth under one classroom or in one school, rather than comparing cohorts • Many concerns about wild fluctuations in VAM assessments of teacher effectiveness year-to-year • ~30-40% predictive power: about 1/3 of teachers in top group one year will be in top group next year • But multi-year averages may provide reliable data on individual teacher effectiveness, especially when combined with other data sources Sources: Prof. Andrew Ho and http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2010/1117_evaluating_teachers/1117_evaluating_teachers.pdf

31. VAM in Los Angeles: Data-driven teacher accountability at work • Los Angeles Times used seven years of district math and English data to conduct a VAM analysis of LAUSD teachers in Summer 2010 • “Grading the Teachers. Who’s teaching L.A’s kids?” (8-14-2010) published with teacher names and pictures • Full searchable database available to the public online • Protests, rallies, and threatened teacher’s union boycott of Los Angeles Times followed • LA Unified School Board voted soon after to include VAM in teacher evaluations • Male elementary school teacher committed suicide in Sep. 2010. Public VAM data was blamed in media. The Times issued their condolences. Data are still available online.

32. Race tothe Top(RTTT)

33. Race to the Top: Goals $4.3 billion in incentives to get states to: • Adopt standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college, the workplace, and the global economy • Build data systems that measure student growth and success and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction • Recruit, develop, reward, and retain effective teachers and principals especially in high-need schools • Turn around lowest-achieving schools

34. RTTT: Standards & Assessments States must demonstrate their ability to: • Participate in a consortium of states that are working toward adopting a common set of K-12 standards that are internationally benchmarked • Develop & implement common, high-quality assessments aligned with the common standards Common Core Multi-state assessments

35. RTTT: Data Systems States must demonstrate their ability to: • Implement a statewide longitudinal data system; • Make the data available to those working with local instructional improvement systems Research into risk factors, causal relationships Value Added Measurements Data-Driven Instruction Formative assessment

36. RTTT: Teachers & Leaders States must demonstrate their ability to: • Allow alternative routes to certification; • Design and implement evaluation systems for teachers and principals that take into account data on student growth; • Develop a plan to distribute “effective” teachers and principals equitably; • Link measures of “effectiveness” to preparation programs and professional development

37. RTTT: Low-Achieving Schools States must demonstrate their ability to: • Intervene directly in low-performing schools and districts; • Identify the lowest-performing schools; • Implement one of four school intervention models: • Turnaround • Restart • School Closure • Transformation

38. Pause and think: • Who can and should be held educationally accountable, for what, to whom, and why? • How can we measure student learning in a way that both reflects and promotes concerns about equity? • How did No Child Left Behind (NCLB) change educators’ practices and national conversations about these issues? • How are Race to the Top and current ESEA reauthorization negotiations influencing the national conversation, on the one hand, and educational policy and practices, on the other?