The Classroom Connection


This is the first edition of The Classroom Connection, a monthly electronic newsletter with information about classroom instruction and the link between the WCPSS Curriculum and Instruction staff and classroom teachers.
November 9, 2006

DAVID HOLDZKOM: WHAT THE BEST AND WISEST PARENT WANTS

Accountability measures have become as common in our schools as books, pencils, and overhead projectors. While we often think that the accountability movement arose about twenty-five years ago, in fact, American communities have always held principals, teachers, and pupils accountable for learning. In the 1800s, it was common for schools to conduct programs during which students would recite famous speeches or poems, solve arithmetic problems, sing, and generally demonstrate what they had learned. Samples of penmanship, essays, and other student work products would be displayed, all assuring the community that students were learning the skills and knowledge that the community valued.

Today, average scores on standardized tests, usually of reading and mathematics, have replaced the students' work products; comparisons of schools with one another printed in the newspaper and published on the Internet have replaced the community performances. The purpose, of course, has stayed the same over time: to prove that the community is well-served by its investment in schools.

Do the tests students take today offer the same kind of assurance to parents and the community that learning is proceeding? Perhaps. Students in North Carolina schools—at least those in grades 3 through 8—take mathematics and reading tests annually. Students in grades 4 and 7 take a writing test. Grade 8 students take a computer skills test. High school students take end of course tests in 10 subjects. From these tests, the State's Department of Public Instruction (DPI) decides which schools and students are making adequate progress. In addition to DPI's efforts, the Governor's office also publishes an annual "report card" for every school in the state, reporting a wide variety of measures, including the experience and education of the teachers in the school, students' test scores, demographic characteristics of the students, the number of computers at the school and so on.

Using the same tests, the federal government has, through the provisions of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation. created an accountability system that measures the degree to which students in 10 population sub-groups (based on ethnicity, economic condition, and handicapping conditions) are performing. Another federal program—the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—uses its own tests to examine a sample of students throughout the state and nation to judge whether American students are learning the skills and knowledge that it has decided are important.

Of course, students learn more than reading and mathematics, important though these are. We expect schools to teach science, social studies, good citizenship, and art. We also expect schools to foster students' creativity, imagination, team work, problem-solving and other skills that are not confined to any one academic area. But we expect more. We expect schools to keep students safe, to provide community service opportunities, and to sponsor sports programs and opportunities to develop a love of learning. None of the state or federal accountability systems measures any of these things. In fact, the accountability systems measure the easiest things to test.

Unfortunately, these competing accountability systems often yield different results. For example, at Adams Elementary School in Wake County, more than 92 percent of tests in reading were scored at or above grade level for the past two years. Yet, the school failed to achieve Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) under NCLB. Is this a good school? Is it doing its job? The confusion arises not from the test scores, but in how the different systems interpret and value them. Adams Elementary is not the only school where mixed results on accountability create more confusion than understanding. In all cases, the accountability systems value some aspects of students' learning and growth, but not others. Parents and the larger community need to exercise caution in reaching conclusions based on these accountability systems. Parents' own observations of their child's intellectual progress, happiness, and emotional growth should not be overlooked in trying to determine how well any school does its job.

Parents and the larger community may not receive accountability information about the very things that are most important to them. In 1900, John Dewey, an American philosopher and educator wrote: "What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children. Anything else is narrow and unlovely." Dewey is still right: parents and the larger community want children to be well educated, to grow intellectually and emotionally, and to be prepared for their future. Determining how well schools do that is more complicated than any accountability system yet devised can measure. While these systems may provide some help, it will finally be each parent's job to make that determination. Indeed, the entire village that is raising each child will have to make that determination.

David Holdzkom is Assistant Superintendent for Evaluation and Research for the Wake County Public School System

 

The Classroom Connection is published electronically monthly for everyone interested in the Wake County Public School System. Is what you read in this edition helpful? What information would you like to see in future editions? Contact me by calling 850-1829 or e-mailing bposton@wcpss.net.

Bill Poston
Wake County Public School System
Communications Department
3600 Wake Forest Road
Raleigh, North Carolina 27611

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