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The Select Committee on Public School Accountability, with days numbered until a report is due to the Legislature, held one of its last meetings September 19 in Austin, Texas. After traveling the state for months to collect public testimony about the strengths/weaknesses of our current school accountability system, as well as suggestions for changes, the purpose of the September 19 meeting was for committee members to identify their top priorities for a new accountability system in an effort to start to coalesce around some ideas to present in the committee report.
Perhaps the most dramatic suggested changes to the system were to replace TAKS in grades 3-8 with a norm-referenced test, and to eliminate the Student Success Initiative (SSI) (requires students in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade to pass TAKS in order to be promoted to next grade). Although at least one committee member was resistant to the notion of eliminating the SSI, stating that prior to the SSI there was no objective measure for how students were promoted, other members argued that teachers have more data now, are better at using the data, and that their authority to decide whether a student should be promoted should be restored without having to rely on a test. Some members also pointed out that the current ability of the grade placement committee to promote a student even if the student did fail the state test was a giant loophole which rendered the SSI meaningless.
Another priority that the committee discussed was maintaining the student subgroups used in the current system, in which state test scores are disaggregated by race and low socioeconomic status. Although several committee members floated the idea of reporting on all student subgroups, but only counting the low socioeconomic status subgroup for accountability purposes, it was unclear whether the committee was in agreement on the issue, as questions were raised about whether such a system would be in compliance with the federal No Child Left Behind Act. In the alternative, several school district representatives on the committee pushed for a "proportional" system in which the system would treat districts with large diverse student populations on a level playing field with small, homogenous districts. However, some committee members communicated concerns about the risk of a student subgroup being able to continue to turn in subpar performance under a proportional model, without repercussions to the school.
There was also a fair amount of discussion by committee members about how complex the system should be, with some members insisting that in order to be fair, the system had to be complex. Related to this discussion was a point raised by Susan Lewis, TCTA president-elect and member of the committee, about reducing the emphasis on high-stakes testing by basing ratings on more non-test indicators, such as teacher turnover and dropout recovery. Lewis pointed out that these and other "leading" indicators had been validated by research as accurately identifying potential problems before they occur, allowing states to concentrate resources in problem areas early on. Chair Shapiro asked Lewis to share that research with the committee.
At least one member of the committee pushed the notion that the goal of the accountability system was to ensure that all students graduate from high school ready for college or a career, and that all measures in the system should track progress toward that goal. He stated that our current system is not geared to goals for the 21st century. He added that along with raising the standard, the state needed to increase resources in order to help teachers and students meet the higher standard. However, other members of the committee struggled with the notion of all students having to meet one standard, and cautioned that any such goal must allow room for several pathways to be available to students in order to graduate from high school, including pathways geared towards career and technology. These committee members cautioned that coursework must be relevant to students in order to avoid students becoming disengaged and dropping out. In response to the focus on increased resources in the form of teacher training, one committee member pointed out that all the training in the world would be meaningless unless teacher salaries were raised in order to make the profession more attractive.
One issue that the committee seemed to agree about was that student growth should be part of the new accountability system, so that schools could get credit for students starting out behind the rest of the class.
Finally, a particularly troubling idea for the new system came from committee co-chair Sen. Shapiro, who floated the idea of districts that had done well under the accountability system being exempt from various state mandates, including class size limits. Although under current law class size limits can be waived, it is only in certain circumstances, and there are other laws that cannot be waived, including employee rights and benefits. TCTA has vigorously resisted attempts in the past to allow high-performing districts to be exempt from these protected laws and will keep a close eye on any developments on this front.
Committee members were instructed by the co-chairs to submit their priorities as well as elements of each priority to committee staff within the next week so that staff could begin to draft a framework for the committee to consider at its next meeting, scheduled for October 21, 2008.
Web posted: 09/22/08
