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Understanding the Place for Testing in Holding Schools Accountable Test-based accountability relies on outcome measures, chiefly student achievement as determined by test scores, to hold schools responsible for student performance. Proponents of test-based accountability generally come from three different points of view regarding the inadequacies of American schools. Those that support standards-based reform argue it is one component of a broader strategy to overcome the complex and uneven nature of the K-12 educational system. Others are primarily interested in ensuring that teachers and school administrators are answerable for student performance. Yet others champion test-based accountability as a tool to address the significant disparities in educational outcomes across socioeconomic and racial groups.
Several researchers have come up with the consistent conclusion that test-based accountability has fallen short in three ways. First, it pays little attention to the social factors that affects student achievement such as socioeconomic conditions that are related to access to resources that support learning. Second, it pays little attention to the state, county and district’s role in operating schools and provides little insight about which approaches are effective and why. Finally, test-based accountability tends to focus on consequences for poor performance rather than improving or promoting effective practices in schools. Because test-based accountability does not provide information useful to understanding causes of performance variation, identifying effective practices or improving school performance, additional evaluative tools need to supplement testing to assess schools on a broader set of outcomes than test scores alone. The education field can draw lessons from accountability efforts being developed for other large systems. At the Improve Group, a project that has developed and reflected on the effectiveness of tools beyond data-driven metrics is the Department of Human Services Waiver Review Initiative. For this project, we use statewide system data including enrollment, expenditures, services and needs as well as analyze the local policies and systems that counties use to deliver waivers. Surveys, interviews and focus groups supplement our understanding of the waiver delivery system and its outcomes. This approach not only evaluates how the system is performing at the county level, it also provides an internal diagnostic assessment on the causes of the system’s performance. A relevant policy question regarding using broader measures in schools accountability is whether benefits outweigh costs for these evaluative tools. However, institutions, including schools, should give serious consideration to whether single measures answer the most important questions about accountability. For more information on this topic, check out: (1)Stecher, Brian M., and Sheila Barron. "Unintended Consequences of Test-Based Accountability when testing in 'Milepost' Grades";(2) "The Economics of School Accountability," H.F. Ladd and David Figlio;(3) Left Behind by Design: Proficiency Counts and Test-Consequences of Test-Based Accountability," Derek Neal and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach; http://www.nber.org/papers/w13293 ;(4) Medina, Jose, and Michelle M. Riconscente. "Accounting for Quality";(5) Hanushek, Eric A. and Margaret E. Raymond. Does School Accountability Lead to Improved Student Performance? http://edpro.stanford.edu/Hanushek/admin/pages/files/uploads/accountability.jpam.journal.pdf;(6) Ladd, Helen F. “Rethinking the Way We Hold Schools Accountable.” http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/23/20ladd.h27.html?print=1
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| New Staff Member at the Improve Group by David Rothstein I am happy to be on board as the new proposal writer for the Improve Group. With a PhD in English from the University of Minnesota, I have traveled through several writing-related positions before landing here with a fascinating clan of research analysts in Mendota Heights. Eight years as an English professor at St. John’s University brought opportunities for teaching writing courses and nineteenth-century British literature, as well as coordinating academic assessment activities and writing assessment reports. I then changed scenery entirely, moving to a non-profit conservation organization, writing grants and coordinating membership development and fundraising. From there I pursued technical writing and academic advising positions with Capella University. In my most recent position, I wrote management assessment reports for Personnel Decisions International. When not writing proposals, I keep busy with my other part-time work as a spiritual director at the Loyola Spirituality Center in St. Paul. I look forward to being a part of the Improve Group’s many unique planning and evaluation projects for programs and organizations around the country. |
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Enough time has passed and enough research performed to draw some conclusions about the strengths and limitations of test-based accountability systems. This research shows that it can be a powerful tool to encourage educators to focus additional time on the tested subjects such as reading and math. Such systems proved to have a positive impact on student achievement. However, the research has consistently shown that test-based accountability has not generated the significant gains in achievement or equity between different socioeconomic and racial groups that its proponents intended. 