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Now more than ever, policymakers face a number of difficult and technical questions in the design and implementation of new accountability approaches. This book gathers the emerging knowledge and lessons learned offered by leading scholars in the field.
To assist in the redesign of accountability systems, the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) and the Center for Research on Evaluation, Student Standards, and Testing (CRESST) sought to assemble knowledge from new research on emerging accountability systems. A book, "Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education," edited by Susan H. Fuhrman and Richard F. Elmore (Teachers College Press, in press), contains chapters by leading accountability researchers. This issue of CPRE Policy Briefs summarizes the book by focusing on four questions the authors of the book address: (1) How valid are new accountability systems?; (2) How fair are new accountability systems?; (3) What are the effects of new accountability systems?; and (4) What is necessary to improve the functioning of accountability systems? This Policy Brief reviews the many issues that states are confronting as they implement accountability systems, and provides guidance for states looking to fine-tune or redesign accountability systems to help meet policies as they were intended. Specifically, this Brief offers recommendations for improving accountability systems by enhancing the use of expert technical advice, by improving the collection and interpretation of system data, and by investing in capacity building to ensure that both students and educators have the necessary means to effectively respond to accountability systems. (Contains 1 footnote.).
The Infrastructure of Accountability brings together leading and emerging scholars who set forth an ambitious conceptual framework for understanding the full impact of large-scale, performance-based accountability systems on education. Over the past 20 years, schools and school systems have been utterly reshaped by the demands of test-based accountability. Interest in large-scale performance data has reached an unprecedented high point. Yet most education researchers focus primarily on questions of data quality and the effectiveness of data use. In this bold and thought-provoking volume, the contributors look beneath the surface of all this activity to uncover the hidden infrastructure that supports the production, flow, and use of data in education, and explore the impact of these large-scale information systems on American schooling. These systems, the editors note, “sit at the juncture of technical networks, work practices, knowledge production, and moral order.
In recent decades testing has become a much more visible and high-stakes accountability mechanism that is now seen as a powerful tool that can be used to drive school improvement. The purpose of this book is to identify and analyze the key issues associated with test-based educational accountability and to chart the future of educational accountability research. Chapter contributions are intended to be forward looking rather than a compendium of what has happened in the past. The book provides an accessible discussion of issues such as validity, test equating, growth modeling, fairness for special populations, causal inferences, and misuses of accountability data.
In summer of 2014, two groups of scholars and policy experts met separately to rethink educational accountability. These groups came from what most would consider different "camps" on school reform--one focused on transforming teaching for "deeper learning" and the other focused on choice as a means for leveraging school improvement. However, both were motivated by concern that accountability as enacted under No Child Left Behind had begun to create a strait jacket for schools that was undermining the goals of improvement and equity. At the same time, both groups felt it important to maintain the law's goals of focusing the nation on raising achievement for all children and closing the achievement gap. Both believed the federal government still must play a role in ensuring that states and localities work seriously and effectively to improve options for children at risk. The papers resulting from these separate sets of discussions agreed on many important points, including that: (1) Parents and the public need to know whether children are learning what they need to graduate high school, enter and complete four-year college, or get a rewarding, career-ladder job; (2) Student test scores can provide valuable information, but they should be used in combination with other valid evidence of school effectiveness and student progress (e.g., course completion, progress toward graduation, and more); (3) Assessment of schools should focus on meaningful learning, not just on what is easiest to test. Measures should be tightly linked to the knowledge and skills needed for college and career readiness, including students' abilities to learn and solve problems independently, and apply knowledge; (4) Because a student's level and pace of learning in any one year depend in part on what was learned previously and on the efforts of many professionals working together, the consequences of high and low performance should attach to whole schools, rather than to individual educators; (5) School leaders must have sufficient authority, flexibility, and resources to lead their schools and must take affirmative responsibility for fostering school-wide collaboration aimed at continuous improvement in teaching and learning; and (6) States and school districts must have and exercise multiple options when children learn at low rates that threaten their adult opportunities, including remedying resource shortfalls, supporting teacher and leader improvement, changing school staffing, redesigning or replacing chronically ineffective schools, assigning schools to new managers, and allowing families to choose other school options. This paper shows that these agreements have important implications for the design of accountability systems at the local, state, and federal levels, particularly: (1) The need for evidence, judgment, and action, used in combination to ensure that all children learn effectively and that schools continuously improve; (2) The importance both of testing with high-quality instruments used appropriately, and of considering multiple sources of evidence in judging student, educator, or school performance; (3) The need for sophisticated judgment systems that put data in context and weigh and balance evidence to determine constructive actions; (4) The need for a clear and sensible delineation of the roles of different levels of government; and (5) The need for continued capacity building and experimentation with approaches to accountability. This paper ends with five implications for the reauthorization of the "Elementary and Secondary Education Act" (ESEA).
"The purpose of this report is to summarize the work that has been done to date on developing a set of standards for accountability and inform those not familiar or well experienced in accountability about essential elements of a good/valid accountability system. In addition, [the authors] wanted to create a tool that states could use in developing a new accountability system or in evaluating a current one. The audience is intended to be state or district policymakers who are designing, redesigning, or reviewing their accountability system. This report expands accountability beyond the federal definition under NCLB" (p 1).
Accountability. The very mention of the word strikes fear in the hearts of many teachers and school leaders, leading to confusion and panic rather than improved student achievement. Author Douglas B. Reeves explains how to transform accountability from destructive and demoralizing accounting drills into a constructive decision-making process that improves teaching, learning, and leadership. Reeves encourages educators to become proactive in developing student-centered accountability systems. These systems capture the many aspects of teaching that test scores don't reveal—they tell the stories behind the numbers. Reeves shows how educators can create accountability systems that enhance teacher motivation and lead to significant improvements in student achievement and equity, even in traditionally low-performing schools. Accountability for Learning explains how to build a student-centered accountability system by examining key indicators in teaching, leadership, curriculum, and parent and community involvement. Focusing on the classroom, it outlines how teachers can become leaders in accountability by using a four-step process of observation, reflection, synthesis, and replication of effective teaching practices. Finally, the author discusses the role of local, state, and federal policymakers and corrects the myths associated with No Child Left Behind. "As educators, we have two choices," Reeves says. "We can rail against the system, hoping that standards and testing are a passing fad, or we can lead the way in a fundamental reformulation of educational accountability." Accountability for Learning gives readers the helping hand they need to lead the way to fair and comprehensive accountability.
As we hurtle through the second decade of the 21st century, the pressure for radical change to mainstream education is becoming ever more urgent, and images for what that future might look like are emerging and coalescing. But there is a problem. There is no version of this complex, exciting new world of learning that can arrive fully operational and ready to open for business on Monday morning. Redesigning Education captures the journeys of cities and countries around the world as they travel from the education systems they have to the education systems they want and need-and highlights the tools and processes they are using along the way. The Global Education Leaders' Program, or GELP, is a partnership of teams of education system leaders and world-class organizations collaborating to transform education. Its members include some of the highest performing countries in the world and those where providing education for all is an extraordinary challenge. As a community, these teams have developed, refined and shared a compelling and-critically-actionable vision for the future of education: Education 3.0. Redesigning Education is about what it takes to transform education systems when the context in which they've flourished fundamentally alters. While a fully operational 21st century education system does not yet exist, GELP teams are identifying a clear set of models and practices that together form a "roadmap" to the future, backed up by the practical lessons drawn from their experiences. More than simply a compelling case for change, Redesigning Education offers real insights grown from stories of system transformation around the globe.
School improvement that is reliant on accountability is a myth based upon falsehoods and wrong assumptions. Public educations' increased dependence on this foundation for school reform and change has failed both students and teachers. The fact remains that people who create education policy do not understand what is best for individual students and classrooms. Their devised curriculum standards are, in actuality, curriculum limits that prevent students from creating successful personal and academic futures because they thwart any natural learning exploration. As such, these market-inspired, externally-motivated standards limit higher-level learning. Instead of treating students and teachers as subjects to be actively engaged in learning, accountability systems treat students and teachers like objects to be manipulated by training. By presenting the lead-teach-learn triad, Eric Glover's The Myth of Accountability discusses the pitfalls of accountability systems in schools, while also investigating how schools have somehow managed to improve in spite of their negative influences. In order to evolve school reform, Glover introduces the concept of developmental empowerment in order to frame how school participants must view themselves as perpetually changing learners and systematically update school reform. Through open inquiry, Glover encourages educators to challenge the standardization and accountability practices that limit children's futures.