Black teachers: How to recruit them and make them stay
Lessons in higher education: What California can learn
Keeping California public university options open
Superintendents: Well-paid and walking away
The debt to degree connection
College in prison: How earning a degree can lead to a new life
The State Board of Education approved a historic policy shift Wednesday in how it will evaluate schools, moving from a system based solely on standardized test scores toward one taking a broader look at school improvement, academic achievement and student well-being.
The board endorsed a half-dozen metrics, including high school graduation and student suspension rates, and it directed staff to develop ways to measure college and career readiness and school climate for consideration when the board next meets in July.
Together, the metrics will form the key or top-level elements of a uniform state and federal accountability system that will determine when schools and districts require initial assistance or more extensive intervention. The board will adopt the new system in September and implement it in 2017-18.
The statewide metrics will include those that Congress required in the Every Student Succeeds Act: English language arts and math test scores for grades 3 to 8, high school graduation rates and how quickly English language learners become proficient in English. The state board plans to add student suspension rates and, when data become available, rates of chronic student absenteeism and test results on the new science standards. Along with yearly test results, it asked staff to factor in a school’s improvement in scores – another significant change. Together with non-test measures of college and career readiness, the metrics will give a bigger picture of how well schools are succeeding in meeting the academic and broader needs of children, as the Legislature laid out with eight priorities in the Local Control Funding Formula.
The board’s action, directing staff members to research additional metrics, came after six hours of discussion and public testimony and went further than an initial set of metrics that staff had recommended. School groups, such as the California State PTA and the Association of California School Administrators, as well as a coalition of student advocacy groups, all of whom had called for school climate, student engagement and college and career readiness indicators, praised the board’s decision. State Superintendent Tom Torlakson’s Advisory Task Force on Accountability and Continuous Improvement, whose 30 members included representatives of education and advocacy groups, also endorsed these additional measures in a report released on Wednesday.
In their presentation, staff members and Deputy State Superintendent Keric Ashley stressed limitations in choosing a single career or college readiness indicator and the potential difficulties of creating an index of measures, such as percentage of students who pass a career technical education pathway or qualify for admission to the University of California or California State University. The lack of uniform questions in student surveys poses similar challenges with a school climate metric, he said. They don’t meet the board’s criteria of data that are valid, consistent and research-based.
But board members said perfection shouldn’t be the standard. “All of the metrics have deficiencies, so the question is, ‘What can we live with?’” said board member Bruce Holaday. Metrics with limitations can still be helpful, he said, when problems, like high suspension rates, prompt new approaches to discipline.
Board member Trish Williams said that the dozens of high school students who have testified before stressed school climate and how they value feeling safe and respected. It’s important that the board acknowledge this and make school climate a priority, she said.
Diana Cruz, a high school junior from Long Beach who’s active in the student grassroots organization Californians for Justice, expressed her appreciation. “I think it’s amazing how much our state board is listening to the voices of our students, and I’m happy to be once again standing before everyone here to talk about how important it is to have school suspensions as a primary indicator,” she said. “Although academia is extremely important, so is the well-being of our students, and the first step in taking care of them is measuring our school climate.”
But in testimony and in a letter to the state board, the California School Boards Association said it opposed making suspension rates a key priority, since the data can be “manipulated,” and districts use use different definitions of suspension. It also advised the state board “to avoid expansion beyond a limited number of key indicators.” Continuing to have suspension rate “available at the local level is highly valuable, but little will be gained by including it as a key indicator,” the letter said.
The board’s motion, by Sue Burr, directs staff to define performance metrics and measures of improvement for all of the priorities that are in the funding formula by the next meeting. Even if the board doesn’t add school climate and college and career readiness indicators to the initial list of statewide measures, districts will have to address them in their Local Control and Accountability Plans, the annual planning documents they must create.
The board also directed staff to create a way of displaying the scores or ratings by student subgroups within districts and schools on all of the top-level metrics so that the public will quickly be able to identify “significant disparities” in achievement.
Panelists discussed dual admission as a solution for easing the longstanding challenges in California’s transfer system.
A grassroots campaign recalled two members of the Orange Unified School District in an election that cost more than half a million dollars.
Legislation that would remove one of the last tests teachers are required to take to earn a credential in California passed the Senate Education Committee.
Part-time instructors, many who work for decades off the tenure track and at a lower pay rate, have been called “apprentices to nowhere.”
Comments (7)
Comments Policy
We welcome your comments. All comments are moderated for civility, relevance and other considerations. Click here for EdSource's Comments Policy.
Mary 8 years ago8 years ago
Good article, good thinking, and good direction. Food for thought: adding some focus on "school climate" is not about diminishing academics or replacing the role of parents in modeling good citizenship. It is more about recognizing the significant role school climate plays in student outcomes and the reality that this role cannot be addressed in a compartmentalized fashion. Climate is braided into how students "learn to learn the basic fields of … Read More
Good article, good thinking, and good direction. Food for thought: adding some focus on “school climate” is not about diminishing academics or replacing the role of parents in modeling good citizenship. It is more about recognizing the significant role school climate plays in student outcomes and the reality that this role cannot be addressed in a compartmentalized fashion. Climate is braided into how students “learn to learn the basic fields of knowledge.” Great conversation.
CarolineSF 8 years ago8 years ago
All these measures still reward schools that serve privileged students from comfortable, safe families and communities who arrive at school well-fed, healthy and with every advantage; and punish schools that serve students who live in poverty and deprivation. Attaching stakes (rewards and punishments) to any of those measures basically guarantees all manner of practices designed to affect the measurement rather than support the student. Those unintended but harmful consequences are among the "deficiencies" to which … Read More
All these measures still reward schools that serve privileged students from comfortable, safe families and communities who arrive at school well-fed, healthy and with every advantage; and punish schools that serve students who live in poverty and deprivation.
Attaching stakes (rewards and punishments) to any of those measures basically guarantees all manner of practices designed to affect the measurement rather than support the student. Those unintended but harmful consequences are among the “deficiencies” to which Bruce Holaday refers.
Would the sensible thing to do — the best thing for schools and students — be to press reset on the entire concept of scrambling to find ways to rank schools against each other, and a basis on which to reward or punish schools and teachers? Does it seem that gaming the measurements becomes the purpose rather than educating and supporting the students? Discuss among yourselves.
Replies
John Fensterwald 8 years ago8 years ago
Over the course of the past year, hundreds of low-income high school students, from Oakland to Long Beach, have pleaded in testimony before the state board, to include school climate as one of the metrics in the new state accountability system. It's partly after listening to them that board members have asked staff to present options, beside rates of chronic absenteeism and suspension, to measure school climate and student engagement. As a regular reader of … Read More
Over the course of the past year, hundreds of low-income high school students, from Oakland to Long Beach, have pleaded in testimony before the state board, to include school climate as one of the metrics in the new state accountability system. It’s partly after listening to them that board members have asked staff to present options, beside rates of chronic absenteeism and suspension, to measure school climate and student engagement.
As a regular reader of EdSource, you know that the era of No Child Left Behind, with federally imposed sanctions on what were narrowly defined as failing schools, is over. The State Board is in the process of creating a new school improvement system. Based on the language that legislators inserted into Local Control Funding Formula, board members’ stated intentions, and the goals of a new state agency, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence (emphasis on the word collaborative), the new accountability system will be very different from the identify and punish system the state has had for the past decade. It’s apparent that state leaders are fully aware of the pitfall you mentioned and are determined not to replicate what hasn’t worked. It will take years to know whether their alternative turns out to be constructive and effective.
John 8 years ago8 years ago
Great story and great thinking by the Board. Academics are only one very small part of determining the quality & character of school life and student success. Educators do so much more to create a positive learning environment. If what is measured determines focus and we have to measure what matters. It's time we look at the entire picture of a school's strengths and weaknesses from learning, to staff and student relationships, to leadership … Read More
Great story and great thinking by the Board. Academics are only one very small part of determining the quality & character of school life and student success. Educators do so much more to create a positive learning environment. If what is measured determines focus and we have to measure what matters. It’s time we look at the entire picture of a school’s strengths and weaknesses from learning, to staff and student relationships, to leadership and support. Thanks for the story!
Replies
John Fensterwald 8 years ago8 years ago
Just to verify, this comment really is from another John.
Don 8 years ago8 years ago
I agree there's more to school than academics, but the widespread thinking evinced in your comment, "Academics are only one very small part of determining the quality & character of school life and student success," may be one of the reasons why academics have suffered. To wit, I send my children to school for academics in the main - to learn to learn the basic fields of knowledge, quaint as they may seem to … Read More
I agree there’s more to school than academics, but the widespread thinking evinced in your comment, “Academics are only one very small part of determining the quality & character of school life and student success,” may be one of the reasons why academics have suffered. To wit, I send my children to school for academics in the main – to learn to learn the basic fields of knowledge, quaint as they may seem to some. If school was mainly about citizenship and socialization they could go to any number of camps or play on teams to acquire those qualities.
Paul 8 years ago8 years ago
I’m with Don. Addressing student’s needs is at the forefront of academic success. The stinging part is that teachers have to assume the role of parents in teaching children citizenship and socialization. The burden must be put back on the parents to teach their children life skills instead of solely depending on educators (government) to teach children how to become good citizens.