March 18, 2008

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UFT Accountability: A Better Approach to Get Results

Filed under: Education Testing by Jackie Bennett @ 8:56 am

Over at Eduwonk Andrew Rotherham expresses cautious praise  for the UFT’s accountability proposal, which asks that schools and their systems be held accountable for more than tests.  Rotherham says, “Weingarten is on to something with the idea that a district-level accountability matrix should measure more than just test scores and should incorporate some concept of reciprocal accountability.”  Since we are a union, we can hardly expect Rotterdam’s praise to come without its share of caveats.  Still, it’s a start.  Rotherham invites dialogue, and in that spirit, I address here his chief concern.

Rotherham worries about what corporate-style reformers call inputs and outputs.  These individuals say they want school systems to focus almost exclusively on outputs, and by that they generally mean test score results. Inputs, meanwhile (i.e., are teachers licensed? how big is the class?) are less important. Rotherham says he is not averse to broadening the accountability base, but he worries that the UFT (which is asking schools and their systems to be held accountable for things like discipline and providing a well-rounded curriculum) will “move accountability too far away from demonstrable outputs.”  Says Rotherham, “It’s not that inputs don’t matter; only that genuine accountability must focus on results.”

Now here is the problem with focusing on outputs: there’s really no such thing. I mean, yes, there is such a thing as “outputs” (though the word is repugnant to me when applied to educating children), but there is no such thing as focusing on them.  After all, how long can you look at a test score? Sooner or later, you have to look at the things that you think might influence that test score, and that’s inputs — that is,  the nature of instruction and the quality of conditions at the school.Since there’s no escaping inputs, what outputists really do is simply replace one set of inputs with another.  My experience with this is in NYC’s schools, but I suspect the situation is similar nationwide. Chancellor Klein and Deputy Chancellor Cerf  make a big deal about being anti-inputs, but for all their talk, we’ve never had an administration more obsessively focused on them.  On the school level, this takes the form of straight-jacket micromanagement (Did the children work in little groups?  Did the teacher make a word wall?).  There is not a shred of evidence to show that these particular input obsessions will lead to a better education for children, and yet they’ve been imposed on teachers and children based on the hunch of the very people who dismiss compliance to a set of inputs as distracting to a focus on success. 

Of course the real input obsessions for administrations  these days is found in their insistence on creating a test prep culture. If tests are what matters, than it’s the tests we focus on.  I can think of dozens of specific  “input” choices schools have made in the hope of getting a short-term blip in the scores, even if those choices might undermine the long-term education of students.  More generally, look at the current craze for using diced up reading tests to determine instruction.  Test scores themselves may be outputs, but once we make the assumption that the dissected data from couple of multiple choice questions should shape education  (teach Johnny main ideas, but teach Jimmy how to use a context clue), we have made an enormous — and I would say unjustified — leap from using tests to measure outputs, to using them to decide exactly what instruction ought to be: test prep.  

That’s an input, and the ascendancy of the test prep culture has been the result of a system that has too narrowly defined those things for which schools ought to be held accountable.  The minute we name the scope of accountability we have influenced cultures at the school.  Since we can’t avoid that,  we need to ask ourselves: what things must we hold schools and their systems accountable for in order to influence the inputs that will contribute to the long-term health of schools.

Thus, the UFT card, which suggests that test scores themselves don’t make great education; great schools do. Great schools have well-rounded cohesive curricula; safe and orderly environments; healthy respect for the voices of parents and the competence and experience of teachers; and support from the larger system in which they operate.  These things are good unto themselves, and as such they should be part of the accountability equation.  But just as important, only by holding schools accountable for them can we encourage the kind of inputs that are the foundation of sustained academic success.

It is time that we all realize that we are all moving forward. Fifteen years ago, the focus may have been on inputs alone with little connection to results.  Then came the output enthusiasts, running empty on test scores if we are to judge by the pitifully small gains that have come from it. Now its time to move forward again. 

Let’s go.

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