An Interview About a Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.

Michael F. Shaughnessy - June 30, 2009
Senior Columnist EducationNews.org
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico

These questions have been answered by members of the accountability committee of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign (www.boldapproach.org), and are based on that committee’s report (http://www.boldapproach.org/report_20090625.html), released on June 25, 2009. Committee members who collaborated in answering the questions that follow include Lynson Beaulieu, Jackie Bennett, Helen Ladd, Susan B. Neuman, Tom Payzant, and Richard Rothstein.

1.  I think a lot of people would agree that the education accountability program needs to be overhauled. Any ideas as to one specific area in which we should start?

We should start by broadening the scope of accountability, so the accountability system does not create incentives to withdraw to a narrow and shallow curriculum.

The current NCLB accountability model requires assessments only in reading and mathematics. It ignores the importance of providing all students with a comprehensive education which includes other subjects such as science, history, art, music, physical education and second languages. These are essential for all students to graduate from high school ready without remediation for post-secondary education and the work place.

Reliance on quantitative evaluation by test scores alone is insufficient. Qualitative assessments are also important because they can focus on the essentials that are evident in good schools, such as effective instruction in classrooms, motivated students, rigorous standards, capable leaders, engaged parents and a culture of collaboration.

As a candidate, Barack Obama said:

One of the problems with No Child Left Behind is that it has become so reliant on a standardized test model that—first of all—subjects like history and social studies have gotten pushed aside. Arts and music time is no longer there. Which means the child is not having the well-rounded educational experience that I benefited from and most in my generation benefited from…

President Obama recently reiterated this point, saying,

If we're all we're doing is testing and then teaching to the test, that doesn't assure that we're actually improving educational outcomes. We do need to have accountability, however. We do need to measure progress with our kids. Maybe it's just one standardized test, plus portfolios of work that kids are doing, plus observing the classroom. There can be a whole range of assessments, but we do have to have some kind of accountability.

            The Broader, Bolder Approach campaign’s accountability proposal is an attempt to elaborate, in greater detail, how such a range of assessments, both standardized and qualitative, can be designed.

2. We all want our high school graduates to be good citizens. Now, how do we measure good citizenship and in which classes will this be taught?

Preparing children to be good citizens is more about the school communities we create than the individual lessons we teach. That is why schools should be held accountable for creating communities that reflect the responsibilities and privileges of civic life.  In part, that might mean engaging children in community work, giving them a voice in school decisions, and celebrating the full spectrum of American diversity in school-wide events. It also means implementing thoughtful day-to-day approaches that explicitly invite children to play a positive role in the communities of their classrooms, cafeterias, and playgrounds. Civics, in other words, must be part of everything schools do.

Citizenship skills should also be part of our curricula, in history classes or in discussions that arise around works of literature. Such discussions have been casualties of a single-minded chase for higher math and reading scores, much to the detriment of higher achievement as a whole. Ultimately, however, teaching citizenship in isolation is a little like teaching grammar. What’s the point if students never get to practice using grammar by writing essays too?

Can success in citizenship be measured? Yes. School quality evaluations, or inspections such the Broader Bolder Approach campaign proposes, are the best way to do that. Schools that successfully encourage good citizenship have usually developed school-wide approaches by engaging the whole community, setting goals, and paying close attention to implementation. That work will be evident to trained independent observers when they speak to and observe teachers, principals, parents, or students.  Standards and rubrics would have to be developed to allow these observers to measure success in a fair and consistent way.   

3. Over the years, the schools have taken on driver’s ed, sex education, home economics. Should these subjects be eliminated to overhaul the system, and if so, who will provide these services?

In fact, many of these areas have been dropped from or severely reduced in the curriculum, as NCLB has held schools accountable solely for test scores in math and reading.

Such areas need to be returned to the curriculum. Sex education, for example, should fall under a more comprehensive health education curriculum and is critical, given our nation’s extraordinarily high rate of teen pregnancy, and the life-or-death consequences of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, HIV, hepatitis, herpes, and Chlamydia.

As presently structured, however, schools can’t cover all these essential areas. That’s why the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education campaign stresses the need for extended school days, and high quality after-school and summer programs for disadvantaged children.

These would provide more time to address other topics and to partner with community-based organizations that may provide some of the necessary programs and teachers.

A school’s quality review, as an essential component of an accountability system, should evaluate whether that school is exploring such partnerships where possible, is taking steps to attempt to make such services available to its students, and is playing an active role in coordinating all institutional contributions to children’s learning and growth in the areas of a broad curriculum, not academic instruction alone.

4. Let me mention that nasty of nastiest words—subjective - are we heading down a slippery slope with a qualitative assessment and who is going to be doing this evaluation?

Your question presumes that the current accountability system is good because of its rigor and toughness and that any movement away from that would be downhill. In fact, the current system is deeply flawed because in its search for precision in standardized testing, it has spurred schools to focus only on what is most easily measured, not on what is most important.

A system with more qualitative elements would be better because it would restore priority to schools’ focus on important areas of student knowledge and skills that are more difficult to measure, but that can be observed.

The accountability system we propose is both more flexible and tougher than what we now have in place. It measures a broader array of subjects and holds schools accountable not only for reading and math, but history, geography, and areas like civics. It also holds schools accountable for the quality of their curriculum, teacher quality and evaluation; for student safety and support; and for an effective school organization, all of which are key predictors of student achievement. It provides a more valid, reliable, and transparent approach to accountability that the public can understand.

Qualitative evaluation can be done well with clear standards of what is being judged. Can such a system retain the desired rigor? We believe it can. It will require that school inspectors within a state use common protocols for all schools, that the inspectors be well trained, and that there be periodic checks of inter-inspector reliability. Rubrics presently exist that describe what good instruction and school cultures look like, and metrics can be established to represent what is observed.

Because the U.S. has so little experience with such systems (at least in the field of education), investments will be needed to develop the necessary capacity and, as we have recommended, it makes sense to let states experiment with different variations to determine which works best.

5. Why evaluate social skills? Should not parents be responsible? Who would teach social skills?

Schools should have norms and behaviors which students learn. Parents should take responsibility in this area as well, as they should in all areas of learning.

Schools may teach reading, but parents who read to their younger children, and read with their older children, are the best guarantee that children will be proficient. That’s why the Broader, Bolder Approach accountability statement insists that a qualitative school inspection should consider whether a school is coordinating with other institutions that provide parent education and support, and pursues practices that engage parents in school education policy and affairs.

Social skills are a big part of how children learn. Children need to be able to work with adults in authority, they need to be able to work with peers who are different from themselves; they need to know how to work in groups and teams; they need to know how to work in workplace environments; they need to know how to function and socialize for the transition to college; they need to know how to get along in communities. Social skills are at the root of all learning. Learning happens in social environments.  Helping children acquire social skills enables schools to improve academic achievement and to have safe learning environments.  Children need to have problem resolution skills. Everyone in a community has a stake in teaching children social skills.

A qualitative school inspection, by qualified and properly trained observers, can determine whether appropriate norms and behaviors are being taught and learned. Inspectors can supplement information on the school’s efforts to promote and evaluate appropriate behaviors with observations of students engaged in cooperative problem-solving activities, and of student behavior in the hallways and cafeteria, for example.

6. How would we modify expectations for children with health impairments, emotional problems, and other disabilities?

The present NCLB system, with its “one size fits all” federal mandate, requires the same outcome (academic proficiency) from all but the most severely mentally retarded 1% of American students. This is absurd. In fact, the NCLB system undermines the very design of special education, which requires each special needs child to have a uniquely designed individual education program (I.E.P.), in which academic and behavioral goals are established that are appropriate to that child’s individual capacities.

Many children in special education do not have academic disabilities, and can be given the same academic tests as other children. But no federal mandate can determine which children fit in this category, and whether the individual education programs of children with disabilities have been appropriately designed.

That’s why a school quality review is necessary as a central component of a school accountability system. Only an inspection team of trained inspectors can determine whether appropriate accommodations have been made to address the specific supports students need, without compromising appropriate expectations for learning. Time, pace, customization, and the training of those who teach children with disabilities are all variables that should be considered. Qualified inspection teams should include experts who can evaluate whether I.E.P.s are appropriate, and whether a school’s special education program is organized to achieve the academic and behavioral goals of those I.E.P.s.

Of particular concern is whether schools have disproportionately assigned students of color, black boys in particular, to special education, and to the category of emotionally disturbed, in particular. No accountability system based primarily on standardized test scores can make this determination.