Credible, Fair, and Useful Accountability?

1. Credible, Fair, and Useful Accountability? Forum on Student Achievement and School Accountability August 5, 2003 Jeannie Oakes Institute for Democracy Education and Access (IDEA) UCLA

2. Credible, Fair, and Useful Accountability? Not Yet Where does California’s (and NCLB) accountability fall short? • Narrow outcomes--at best • Rests only 2-legs of the standards stool • Triggers less-than-helpful remedies • An inadequate theory What do we risk? • Lost opportunities • Collateral damage What can be done?

3. Narrow outcomes--at best • Test scores matter, but not the only thing that matters • High school completion • College going (responses from Hart research opinion poll) • Risks a distorted view of achievement • Are these the same students? • The higher the dropout rate, the higher the scores.

4. Actually Graduating The Class of 2002

5. Life Chances

6. Whose achievement? Whose participation? The higher the dropout rate, the higher the scores The Class of 2002

7. A two-legged standards stool • Content Standards • Resourceand Practice Standards • Teachers • Books • Adequate facilities • Performance Standards Only with all three types standards, can we monitor and hold the right people accountable for the right things.

8. API makes the conditions of teaching & learning invisible • California fails to provide basic educational tools to many, many children--most often low-income, non-English speaking, African American, and Latino. • The insufficient supply and quality create obstacles as students attempt to meet the content standards and do well on state tests. • The similar schools index • focuses on student demographics • resources/conditions invisible, discounted • holds nobody accountable

9. Distribution of underprepared teachers to minority students 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% 1997–98 27% 1998–99 26% 25% 1999–2000 23% 2000–01 14% 13% 13% 12% 8% 8% 8% 7% 5% 4% 4% 4% 0–30% minority 31–60% minority 61–90% minority 91–100% minority Source: CDE (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001c), SRI analysis

10. Textbook shortages greatest in low-income schools

11. Overcrowding and poor facilities affect low-income and minority students most • 18 % of teachers in low-income, high minority communities rated their school facilities as “poor”, compared to 4 % of teachers in schools with few such students. • “Concept 6 schools (year-round schedules with fewer instructional days) have twice as many Latinos as schools on regular schedules.

12. Problems converge

13. Triggers less-than-helpful remedies • Limited funds • Limited focus • A high price to pay.

14. The most fundamental flaw: An inadequate theory • Privileges incentives over all else • Ignores that the most important incentives are at the students’ desktops • Presumes adequate resources and conditions • Tolerates “no excuses” • Misconstrues local control and local flexibility • Just needs more time to work

15. What’s at risk? • Opportunity costs Deflect energy and commitment to rebuilding California’s educational infrastructure • Collateral damage

16. Collateral damage • Houston, New York, and elsewhere. • Falsifying student records. • Pushing students out altogether • Could California be next? Has is it happened here already? • Pressures • History of undercounts

17. Undercounts?

18. Collateral damage • Can you think of a better data set to argue for the dismantling of the public school system? • Is this what we really want? • Is this what a diverse democratic state needs?

19. What can be done? • “Opportunity to Teach & Learn” Standards • Expanded accountability = API + OTTL • Make all the adults in the system accountable • Provide understandable information and mechanisms for constructive public responses