Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 8/21/18 Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 8/21/18

Texas A-F Accountability System - More Questions than Answers

On Aug. 15, the Texas Education Agency released academic accountability ratings for districts, charter schools, and other campuses across the state. In this first implementation of an A-F scale to rate how well school systems are functioning, Texas joined 15 other states across the country that have implemented a similar accountability system.In 1999, Florida became the first state to adopt an A-F school rating system as part of its A+ Education Plan. In 2015, when the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was signed into law, the federal government gave states the authority to meet education standards without hampering them with excessive mandates and stipulations. In response to this new flexibility, several states began implementing accountability models like Florida's. Now that the approach is becoming more widely used, educators all over the nation are debating the merit and implications of an A-F accountability system.

A-F Accountability Proponents

States that have adopted the A-F school rating system claim that it gives students, parents, educators, and communities clearer information regarding how well their schools are doing. Proponents also argue that the A-F system provides a transparent and objective way to communicate school performance to community stakeholders as well as an incentive to compel improvements in low-performing schools.Another attractive feature of the A-F accountability system is its ability to incorporate standardized test data. Texas policymakers believe that standardized tests, which are tailored to the Texas curriculum standards, offer one of the only consistent statewide metrics that can be used. The state assessment should, therefore, be a significant component of the state's accountability system.

A-F Accountability Opponents

Many schools systems counter states' support for an A-F accountability system by arguing that assigning a letter grade to a school system based almost exclusively on quantitative data (e.g., test scores) does not account for numerous other factors that contribute to school performance, including many that are outside of educators' control. According to critics, the lack of clarity about the relative difference between each letter grade and the absence of explanations about the how or why of low performance impede future school improvement efforts. Some opponents also believe that schools or districts that receive a low grade may find it more difficult to attract and retain the highly effective teachers and school leaders necessary to turn around school performance.Finally, in spite of all the support for such a system, there has been little research conducted to determine the reliability or validity of using them for state accountability. Simply put, many A-F accountability system opponents find that a single letter grade for schools does not tell the whole story.

The Reason for the Disconnect

Regardless of what your opinion is in regards to the national A-F accountability system trend, one has to wonder why we have such divergence between state policymakers and educators. What lies at the heart of this disagreement? I believe it is rooted in the differences between two schools of educational theory that have been in conflict for centuries - progressivism and essentialism.

To give a brief overview, the progressive education philosophy was established in mid-1920's America and was led by major educational philosophers like John Dewey. Those who subscribe to progressivism believe that learning is rooted in the questions that students devise as they experience the world. They also believe that schools should improve the way of life of citizens through offering the experience of freedom and democracy in schools. This multi-dimensional purpose for schools would lead one to support a more comprehensive and descriptive accountability system that goes beyond standardized tests.

An opposing educational philosophy, essentialism rose in response to the progressive movement. With the goal of molding productive citizens, educators with this perspective emphasize academic rigor and focus on teaching essential knowledge and skills and moral standards. This more conservative belief about the purpose of schools would lead one to support a simplified accountability system that is based on the measurement of the essential knowledge and skills students must know (e.g., standardized tests based on rigorous state standards).

With philosophical differences in mind, it appears that the A-F accountability system, supported by many politically conservative states, is mostly based on a belief that schools and districts should focus in teaching students the essential knowledge and skills addressed through state standards. Conversely, opponents of an A-F accountability system seem to believe that such a system oversimplifies school performance and ignores the fact that schools today are multi-dimensional institutions charged with teaching students much more than what can be measured on a standardized test.

How to Solve the Problem

It is abundantly clear that there are real differences between how proponents and opponents of the A-F accountability system understand what it means. Those differences go beyond what each side argues for: a system that makes it easier for parents to know how schools are doing; or a system that provides comprehensive ratings that don't make it difficult to recruit good teachers and administrators.

A more in-depth analysis should lead us to shift the debate over accountability systems to a debate over what kind of education we want for our children. At the heart of the argument, we should be debating the answer to these questions: what should be the purpose of public schools today? Should schools focus on teaching students the essential knowledge and skills, or should schools and districts focus on preparing students to be productive members of a democratic society? Of course, anyone could conclude that both are necessary for schools. However, people might take a more nuanced perspective when considering the traditional role of the family and public schools have had in educating children.

Such an analysis should also force us to take a more critical look at how educational philosophies like essentialism and progressivism have manifested themselves in our modern educational programs and accountability systems today. Educators should not overlook how relevant these fundamental theories impact what we do in public education and what we believe the role of public schools should play in educating our students today. If we are more explicit about the purpose of our public school system, then we can be more precise about how to measure its effectiveness.

I encourage you to share your thoughts below on what the role of public schools and districts should be in educating children today.

Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 1/1/16 Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 1/1/16

How to Improve Teacher Preparation Programs for Aspiring Urban Educators

When I first became an educator, I taught secondary Mathematics and Physics to high school students in the largest district in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and in a much smaller school system in the suburbs. I first worked with low-performing and economically disadvantaged students and later in an environment with all talented and gifted students. Once I decided to move beyond the classroom and into a role as instructional coach, I began mentoring teachers and delivering professional development training. With this background as both an urban educator and teacher leader, I had a close-up opportunity to see the problems that are pervasive in K-12 education. Having served as a District administrator for 9 years, I now have a bird’s eye perspective of those problems as well as potential strategies for success, particularly, in an urban setting.

I am concerned about the fact that, in the 15 years that I’ve been in this field, we have not witnessed more dramatic changes in urban school systems in addressing issues such as the culture of poverty, achievement gaps, dropout rates, and the scarcity of funding and resources. The problem that is most salient to me is the lack of effective educator preparedness. I have made several observations regarding teachers’ general areas of weakness. Some difficulties include: recognizing and addressing student’s social and emotional needs in the context of their content area; developing learning experiences designed to expose student thinking in a culturally diverse classroom; using culturally responsive teaching methods; and recognizing and addressing the needs of students of poverty.

Relatively few teacher education programs concentrate on urban teacher preparation. Moreover, high-quality educators are more likely to work in affluent, suburban school systems than other places, leaving a deficit number of highly skilled educators to serve high-need, urban students. A natural consequence of this produces a significant number of urban school students with learning gaps and low standardized test scores. This leads me to wonder how school leaders can facilitate best practices that meet the needs of their students. From an administrator’s view, I clearly see the need for systemic investment in different models of teacher development. Specifically, I am interested in how models of educational coaching could be utilized to scale up urban teachers’ expertise and, thereby, increase the achievement of students in high-need urban schools and close educational divides.

How Preparation Programs Can Prepare New Teachers for Success in Urban Schools

In addition to including more and specific training about how to work effectively in urban settings, programs should be sure to include certain components in the curriculum. In particular, programs should place a heavy emphasis on social and emotional learning methods, seamlessly connecting social teaching strategies with instructional teaching strategies. Training programs should clarify for teachers how to develop culturally rich learning experiences that, rather than alienate students, create an inclusive environment that takes into account the diverse perspectives of urban students. Teacher preparation programs need to elucidate brain-based research regarding the impact of poverty on learning and shed light on how teachers can address the learning differences of students of poverty with effective lesson design.

One example of a program that is on the right track is Urban Teachers in the Baltimore/D.C. area. It uses an evidence-based approach to guide the structure of their program, requiring that students engage in methods-related coursework (e.g., writing lesson plans, reviewing actual district curricula), participate in a variety of quality and time-intensive practical experiences in school settings like ones in which they want to work, and instructional coaching that involves self-reflection and data collection. Their ideas look promising, and I would love to see more programs take similar approaches to address teacher preparation.Feel free to comment below about programs you believe are innovative about preparing teachers for work in urban education.

Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 1/6/15 Jeffrey Miller, Ed.D 1/6/15

The Role of the Community in Education

In today’s economically and culturally diverse society it is vitally important that educators and community leaders find clarity on each other’s role in supporting our students' academic achievement (Anderson-Butcher et. al., 2010). This need is only intensified when we consider the context of the required school reform actions brought on by No Child Left behind (NCLB) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability measures. However, the formation of effective school and community partnerships is usually defaulted to the responsibility of the schools and often are not established due to communication and expectation barriers (Hands, 2010). With increasing reports of economic disparities between parents and communities of high performing schools and those of schools in need of academic achievement improvements, various factors have served as barriers to strong school and community partnerships.

A common factor impeding the formation of strong schools and communities partnerships is the lack of contextual understanding of the dynamic nature of the interactions between schools and their surrounding environment (Hands, 2010). Hands (2010) states, "While schools and communities are distinct entities, the borders between them are permeable" (p.191). This is demonstrated very clearly in larger school districts with diverse economic and cultural communities. Each community has diverging expectations of support from the schools which influence the school's efforts and expectations of the community (Goldring & Berends, 2009). The cycle of influence can change as the school leadership or community resources change.

A key factor in revealing some of the school and community expectations can be observed through the collection and measurement of data regarding parent and community opinions and views on being involved in the decision-making process. Proper collection and use of the data from tools such as climate surveys can be useful in informing an array of school reform and school improvement efforts. According to Thapa et. al (2013), "In the United States and around the world, there is a growing interest in school climate reform and an appreciation that this is a viable, data-driven school improvement strategy that promotes safer, more supportive, and more civil K–12 schools” (p.357). Public opinion surveys could also be employed to identify community priorities, attitudes, and opinions. In my district, several of our schools and programs, such as our Career and Technical Education (CTE) program have established advisory committees to welcome community involvement in many educational decision-making efforts. As a result, we have been able to not only gather a deeper understanding of the communities perceptions of the district, but we have also shared the responsibility of contributing to the success of our students and academic programs.

Encouraging parental and community involvement in the decision-making process of an instructional improvement committee can definitely be both beneficial, but it would require a higher level of accountability. Often we can become so engulfed in the state accountability measures that we lose sight of how we are accountable to our first level customers, students and parents. In my district, we are required to have parent and community involvement on our Campus Improvement Committees (CICs), but it is interesting to me, how that involvement actually plays out. I am fascinated by how differently we, educators and educational leaders, define parental involvement. This is also because every community has different means and constraints that impact their ability to be “involved” in the schools. In my experiences, these differences in community coupled with our differences in defining involvement often lead to a disconnect in expectations and communications.

As an urban educator, I have witnessed many expectation discrepancies between school and community that end up negatively affecting students. For example, many teachers and administrators, due to a lack of expected parental involvement, have found it necessary to provide various supports for students and parents that go beyond the traditional K-12 setting. In my humble opinion, this action, in the larger sense, has done more damage than good. Now I am not saying that when a school gets involved in grassroots efforts within the community that all students and parent are harmed, but I do believe those types of efforts have adjusted the communities expectations of the school's responsibilities. This could lead to a different kind of scrutiny when schools are not able to effectively take on these additional burdens, and it causes some communities to feel absolved of some of the need to be an active participant in the education of our students.

On one hand it is evident that developing partnerships between schools and the community have a significant impact, but on the other hand, the process of establishing partnerships is a challenge due to the differences in expectations, resources, and other contextual influences (Hand, 2010). To this end, both schools and the community need to work together to share the responsibility of working through these differences to find common ground and ultimately improve student achievement in every community and intended by NCLB.

References

Anderson-Butcher, D., Lawson, H. A., Iachini, A., Flaspohler, P., Bean, J., & Wade-Mdivanian, R. (2010). Emergent Evidence in Support of a Community Collaboration Model for School Improvement. Children & Schools, 32(3), 160-171. doi: 10.1093/cs/32.3.160

Goldring, E. & Berends, M. (2009). Leading with Data: Pathways to Improve Your School. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Hands, C. M. (2010). Why collaborate? The differing reasons for secondary school educators' establishment of school-community partnerships. School effectiveness and school improvement, 21(2), 189-207.

Thapa, A., Cohen, J., Guffey, S., & Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. (2013). A Review of School Climate Research. Review of Educational Research, 83(3), 357-385. doi: 10.3102/0034654313483907