The New York Times recently published a series of essays titled “What is school for?” Each author focused on a different role schools play in society, including promoting economic mobility, providing physical and psychological care, teaching kids to read, and preserving democracy. Many of these purposes are not captured in current accountability systems.
Federal accountability programs under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mostly have been about students’ academic performance. Most people would agree that building academic knowledge and skills is one important purpose of schools. But, once we get beyond the basics of reading, writing, and computation, there’s room for disagreement about what academic knowledge is essential. As Chester Finn notes in this issue, clear standards are essential ingredients in any accountability system. The trouble is that establishing those standards quickly can become contentious.
Determining how well students measure up to those standards or what the consequences should be for schools whose students don’t meet standards is perhaps even more challenging. ESSA, like its predecessor NCLB, uses standardized tests to measure achievement. But Finn points out that such tests provide incomplete information on students’ academic prowess. Plus, going back to the question of what schools are for, they leave out many important qualities — such as character and citizenship — that schools also seek to instill. Jack Schneider goes further, explaining that tests not only fail to capture important information about how well students and schools are doing but also confound our understanding by focusing on data strongly correlated with students’ demographic backgrounds. In other words, schools end up being held accountable for what kinds of students attend their schools, instead of for how well they are doing at educating them.
In her interview with Kappan, Anne Hyslop of All4Ed speaks to the value of accountability programs for ensuring that schools meet all students’ needs, especially those students who’ve historically been marginalized. Thus, accountability becomes not just about achievement but also equity. Although the pandemic pause in standardized testing has put accountability in the background, Hyslop hopes that post-pandemic accountability programs will continue to focus not on penalizing schools but on identifying the schools that need support.
Other authors in this issue address measures that go beyond what comes to mind when we think of accountability. Rudy Ruiz and Faith Connolly, for example, suggest that districts begin collecting data on how well the racial demographics of their teaching workforce match that of their student body. As the student population grows more diverse and research shows the benefits of having access to same-race teachers, would such data encourage schools to recruit and retain more teachers of color?
If such a measure were added to state or district accountability systems, diversifying the workforce would need to be a districtwide effort, and those doing the work would need support. As Mary Rice-Boothe and Tanji Reed Marshall discuss in their article on the work of equity officers, putting a person or policy in place is not enough to bring about change. Both Schneider and Finn tell us that an understanding of capacity is essential to any discussion of school accountability. All the accountability data in the world won’t be helpful if schools lack the resources and know-how to make needed improvements.
This article appears in the November 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 3, p. 4.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Teresa Preston
Teresa Preston is an editorial consultant and the former editor-in-chief of Phi Delta Kappan and director of publications for PDK International, Arlington, VA.
Visit their website at: https://prestoneditorial.com/
