Standards for standards-based accountability systems

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 81, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 209-214

  Sirotnik, Kenneth A ^a   Kimball, Kathy ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON   (United States)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0000999889     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (20)

1. See, for example, Kenneth A. Sirotnik and John I. Goodlad, "The Quest for Reason Amidst the Rhetoric of Reform: Improving Instead of Testing Our Schools," in William J. Johnston, ed., Education on Trial: Strategies for the Future (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies Press, 1985), pp. 277-98.
2. Kathy Kimball was the assistant executive director of the Commission on Student Learning in Washington State, a body that was charged with developing and implementing the statewide assessment and accountability systems.
3. See the May 1999 issue of the Phi Delta Kappan.
4. See, for example, Robert L. Linn, Eva L. Baker, and Stephen B. Dunbar, "Complex, Performance-Based Assessment: Expectations and Validation Criteria," Educational Researcher, November 1991, pp. 15-21.
5. Portfolios are not panaceas; like all assessment tools, they have their own problems related to reliability and validity. Nonetheless, they can be useful sources of evaluative information for teachers and parents - perhaps even entire education systems. See, for example, Sheila W. Valencia and Nancy A. Place, "Literacy Portfolios for Teaching, Learning, and Accountability: The Bellevue Literacy Assessment Project," in Sheila W. Valencia, Elfrieda H. Hiebert, and Peter P. Afflerbach, eds., Authentic Reading Assessment: Practices and Possibilities (Newark, Del.: International Reading Association, 1994), pp. 134-65.
6. Individuals have argued from many angles to support these notions. See, for example, Kenneth A. Sirotnik, "The School as the Center of Change," in Thomas J. Sergiovanni and John H. Moore, eds., Schooling for Tomorrow: Directing Reforms to Issues That Count (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1989), pp. 89-113; Seymour B. Sarason, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Course Before It's Too Late? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990); and Mark A. Smylie, "Redesigning Teachers' Work: Connections to the Classroom," in Linda Darling-Hammond, ed., Review of Research in Education, vol. 20 (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 1994), pp. 129-77.
7. Individuals have argued from many angles to support these notions. See, for example, Kenneth A. Sirotnik, "The School as the Center of Change," in Thomas J. Sergiovanni and John H. Moore, eds., Schooling for Tomorrow: Directing Reforms to Issues That Count (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1989), pp. 89-113; Seymour B. Sarason, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Course Before It's Too Late? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990); and Mark A. Smylie, "Redesigning Teachers' Work: Connections to the Classroom," in Linda Darling-Hammond, ed., Review of Research in Education, vol. 20 (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 1994), pp. 129-77.
8. Individuals have argued from many angles to support these notions. See, for example, Kenneth A. Sirotnik, "The School as the Center of Change," in Thomas J. Sergiovanni and John H. Moore, eds., Schooling for Tomorrow: Directing Reforms to Issues That Count (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1989), pp. 89-113; Seymour B. Sarason, The Predictable Failure of Educational Reform: Can We Change Course Before It's Too Late? (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990); and Mark A. Smylie, "Redesigning Teachers' Work: Connections to the Classroom," in Linda Darling-Hammond, ed., Review of Research in Education, vol. 20 (Washington, D.C.: American Educational Research Association, 1994), pp. 129-77.
9. Elliot G. Mishler first posed that question as the title of his classic article in the February 1970 Harvard Educational Review, pp. 1-19.
10. See Jeannie Oakes, "What Educational Indicators? The Case for Assessing the School Context," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Summer 1989, pp. 181-99.
11. See the special section on educational renewal in the April 1999 issue of the Phi Delta Kappan.
12. We had plenty of studies like these in the hey-day of the school effectiveness movement, and we are beginning to see a new wave of them again today. And from this second wave of studies, the same "stuff" is being relearned: exceptionally good schools seem to have better principals and teachers who are more focused on instructional leadership, time-on-task, assessment of learning outcomes, a safe and orderly environment, and so on.
13. Linn, Baker, and Dunbar, op. cit.
14. See Linda Darling-Hammond and Beverly Falk, "Using Standards and Assessments to Support Student Learning," Phi Delta Kappan, November 1997, pp. 190-99.
15. Unfortunately, we are seeing a new political resistance to the use of matrix sampling, which yields highly accurate estimates of school-, district-, and state-level averages without requiring every student to respond to every question on the test. Indeed, the investment of time and money would probably be only 10% to 20% of current levels if we used such sampling, and we could assess a greater range of authentic, complex performance at the system level. With this method, however, student-level scores become less reliable and not at all useful for high-stakes decisions. Yet why do we need individual-level scores for purposes of evaluating systems like schools? Moreover, why can't we use all the other more useful and diagnostic information that can be obtained for each student when it is appropriate to do so?
16. We are well aware of the problems that dog authentic performance assessment: e.g., the inverse relationship between reliability and generalizability, the negative impact of overly specified rubrics on teaching and student performance. Nonetheless, we believe that a balance can be achieved between high-quality classroom practices and system-level assessments in an accountability environment that is genuinely sensitive to the standards we are proposing.
17. See Lorrie A. Shepard, "The Effects of High-Stakes Testing on Instruction," paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1991.
18. See Ann Bradley, "States' Uneven Teacher Supply Complicates Staffing of Schools," Education Week, 10 March 1999, pp. 1, 10-11.
19. These are estimates from data in National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1997).
20. Reported in National Center for Education Statistics, Findings from the Condition of Education, No. 7, Teachers' Working Conditions (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1996).