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Standards-Based Accountability: Student Achievement is the Result

Commentary:

Standards-Based Accountability: Student Achievement Is the Result

By Dr. Holly Robinson, Ed.D.

One by one, states have worked over the last decade to set standards for all students. The passage of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation last year reinforced the theme behind the reform movement that every child can learn and that high standards should be set for all students across the board while closing the gap for those students historically left behind. As President Bush said of the law, “It believes in setting high standards, it challenges the soft bigotry of low expectations, and its cornerstone is strong accountability measures.” This agenda has become America’s main strategy for raising student achievement, strengthening school effectiveness and renewing our education system.

Standards-based reform is a three-part system of academic standards, testing and accountability. The standards define the knowledge and skills that schools teach and students learn, grade-by-grade and subject-by-subject. The tests or assessments tell the teachers, parents, community and policy-makers how well the standards are being met, child-by-child, school-by-school and state-by-state. The accountability element is much more complex and can include incentives, interventions and sanctions to encourage progress toward meeting the standards by rewarding those who succeed in meeting or exceeding them and disciplining those who do not.

Certain key principles must be established in order to move forward in the standards-based accountability world. States, schools and teachers must set and maintain high standards for all students in all schools. Once standards and goals are established at the beginning of every year, the progress made over the course of the year—the value-added—as well as the ability to meet the state standard must be measured. The fundamental idea underlying value-added is that all students can improve academically each year at the same rate as all other students . . . regardless of current academic achievement level, race, sex, family income or parent education level.

Quite simply, each student can and should gain one year of learning in a year of schooling. This value-added concept of educating a child, as described by University of North Carolina Research Fellow William L. Sanders, is like constructing a 13-story building one floor at a time, starting with the kindergarten entry level on the ground floor. If a soundly built floor were added at each level/grade—one year of learning for each year of schooling, then each student’s educational structure would have 13 stories.

For the first time in American history a quality education—measurable and meeting high standards—is required by law for every child by an absolute date. (Every child is required to be proficient in math and reading by 2013-14.) This mandate will require a refocus of energy and budgets on teaching and learning. The law also requires education research to be scientifically based and tied to student learning. With all the required state assessments and tests, the data will be available to meet these measures.

At the Georgia Public Policy Foundation a group of schools is selected each year based on data from the Report Card for Parents. These “No Excuses Schools” are models that prove all children can learn regardless of current academic achievement level, race, sex, and income or parent education level. The “No Excuses Schools” have poverty rates above the state average and show significant student academic achievement. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, these schools are “so named because of an unflinching commitment from students, parents and teachers to achieve academic excellence despite the wrenching poverty that surrounds them.” Without excuses schools succeed! The data supports that these schools clearly “are proving what can happen in the lives of children as soon as grown-ups stop offering excuses and begin working together to find solutions.”

Across the state, other common characteristics of these schools are a dynamic, effective principal who establishes measurable achievement goals, high expectations for all, testing for continuous student achievement to provide results and strive for more, discipline and parent/community involvement. Sounds like the right formula to meet all the requirements of No Child Left Behind. The principals from these schools talk about “discipline, encouragement and accountability,” being a “full-service school,” “a no-frills approach” and “motivating students to care about their performance.”

Nationwide there are examples of schools with high poverty where high standards and high expectations lead to success. One such example is William Howard Taft Elementary in Boise, Idaho, whose students come from low-income homes facing stiff challenges, yet they have been able to turn a tough school around. The same principles were applied—a strong principal, reliance on data from student tests to drive classroom instruction, establish and maintain high standards, restore order and discipline and scrounge for additional dollars to get better training for teachers.

Every child can learn regardless of background. When schools insist children can learn—they do!

Holly Robinson is senior vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent think tank that proposes practical, market-oriented approaches to public policy to improve the lives of Georgians. Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before the U.S. Congress or the Georgia Legislature.

© Georgia Public Policy Foundation (January 31, 2003). Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the author and her affiliations are cited.