Current AYP Models a "Pass/Fail" Model and Insufficient

As No Child Left Behind winds its way through reauthorization, one thing seems patently clear, the measurements of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is almost certain to change. In the Wasington area, school systems normally regarded as pretty good are starting to see schools pop-up on the Needs Improvement list. Northern Viriginia's schools saw a doubling of the number of schools getting listed as Needs Improvement, from 76 schools in 2005-2006 to 146 in 06-07. School officials are blaming the influx of immigrants, most with poor Enlgish skills, for the increase in Needs Improvement schools. Maryland schools also saw a slight increase in Needs Improvement schools, but not as drastic as the change in Virginia. Without looking at nationwide data, I would surmise that most states fall somewhere between Maryland's and Virginia's experience.

To a certain extent, the fact that school systems are seeing this problem is to be expected. Public schools are designed to focus on the students in the middle of the class. The really smart kids don't get the attention they really need to fully develop and the kids with special needs or the most needs get more attention, but don't really move the achievement needle much.

At the start of NCLB's accountability regime, schools stepped up with the most common-sensical approach--focus on those kids who were "on the bubble," that is students who would need only a little intervention to get them to passing status. The problem with such an approach is that, on the outside, only about 15 percent of students fall into that category. Now, five years into the accountability structure, those bubble kids are gone or have reached the limits of improvement that the schools can provide and now we will see more "backsliding" on achievement levels.

Now, Congress is going to change the manner in which AYP is measured, from what Harvard research Paul Peterson calls, an all or nothing, pass/fail format to some sort of growth model.

Under his (Peterson's) plan, schools would be given letter grades, from 'A' through 'F,' based on the amount of progress their students are making toward the goal of universal proficiency by the end of 2013-14 school year. He compares the current "you made it or you didn't" AYP structure to "pass/fail" grades.

"I have learned from bitter experience that such a grading system both gives students license to do nothing and, ultimately, provides less information to those who rely on grades as a way of ascertaining whether students have learned something," writes Peterson, who is a professor of government at Harvard University.

Of all the ideas being floated by Congress and the pundits, movement to a growth model is the most logical one. A legitimate worry, however, is that a growth model will completely supplant AYP, a step in the wrong direction.

It does not take a genius to recognize that 100 percent efficiency is a difficult goal at best to reach. However, if the bar is set any lower, you face the debate of which two or three or five percent of kids are acceptable to write off as not needing to be proficient. Thus, in the respect of avoiding that debate, you open another debate on how to achieve 100 percent proficiency. But abandoning the goals laid out in NCLB for AYP would be just as wrong as setting the final goal at 97 percent profiency. Lowering or eliminating goals in favor of just achieving "growth" gives states and schools a pass to ignore the law.

The appeal of a growth model of course is that such a model accounts for the fact that students and schools can miss AYP for a given year, but still be making progress. But I think what a fair number of people are forgetting is that even in a growth model, there is an expectation of continuous, sustained growth. The progress has to consistent over a long term and that can be harder than I think schools, states and political leaders can imgagine.

However, we have to reengineer who we hold accountable in our eductaion system and those who must be accountable are students and teachers. Right now, only schools and by implication but not specifically, teachers are held accountable. Students get a pass, sometimes literally, from being responsible for their own education.

In ordinary language, only individuals, not entities such as schools, can be held accountable. We hold drivers, not cars, responsible for accidents. Or, if cars are faulty, we hold responsible those who made them. But under NCLB, only entities (schools, school districts, states), not students, teachers, or administrators, are held responsible for what is happening. To fix the NCLB accountability system, we need to find ways of holding accountable the individuals, that is, the students and teachers, who are involved in the education process.

Recently, some cities and states have introduced policies that return to more traditional practices. The results have been surprisingly promising. In Florida, the performance of 3rd graders jumped the first year they were expected to pass a test if they were to move on to 4th grade (see “Getting Ahead by Staying Behind,” research, Spring 2006). Those held back benefit from being required to repeat the 3rd grade. In Massachusetts, the expectation that students pass a 10th-grade test if they are to graduate from high school spiked student performance the first year the law was introduced, with continuing gains in subsequent years. Internationally, Ludger Woessmann has shown that students score higher in countries that require students to perform well on comprehensive examinations than in countries that, like the United States, have no such expectations (see “Crowd Control,” research, Summer 2003).

Teachers and administrators should be held accountable as well. Once the other elements of a well-designed accountability system have been put in place, it is reasonable to hold teachers accountable for student learning. As Thomas Kane and his colleagues have shown (see “Photo Finish,” research, Winter 2007), the best measure of teacher quality in any given year is how much students learned from that same teacher the preceding year. The research simply confirms what every school child knows: certain teachers are consistently effective, while others are not.

Once the information is available to track student progress from one year to the next, one can identify the classrooms in which the most, and least, learning is taking place. That information can be used to reward the high performers and to counsel the low performers, who should be dismissed if they remain consistently ineffective classroom teachers. Of course, any teacher can have a bad year, and any accountability system may make an error, so all personnel decisions must be made by administrators who are fully informed of particular circumstances. But until teachers are held responsible for the performance of their students, it is unlikely that accountability systems will prove effective.

But Peterson notes the real political problems associated with growth models--they are dependent upon and impact real people in real ways, ways that are more personal than holding a "school accountable." That is, students being held back and teachers losing jobs. After all, accountability is a joke if there are not consequences for failure.

Peterson concludes:

The defects in NCLB, as originally written, are not accidental. The law took the form that it did because Congress navigated among powerful political interests—those of unions, suburbanites, state and local education officials, and other interested parties. Had teachers been held accountable, union opposition would have blocked the law’s enactment. Had states not been given the option to set any standard they wanted, many state and local officials would have balked at excessive federal control. Had states been required to put in place a data collection system that tracked student performance over time, privacy fanatics would have insisted that every child had a right not to be known, even to those responsible for the child’s education. Had every school been measured for growth in student performance, many a suburban district (as well as its board and superintendent) would have been found wanting. Had students been held accountable, groups of students and parents would have raised strenuous objections.

It willtake a strong national back bone to accept these consequences, but if we are truly serious about rebuilding our education system in such a fashion as to be worthy of the world's only superpower, then we must show the fortitude of a great power.