DOCUMENT RESUME UD 034 589 ED 459 290 Darling-Hammond, Linda AUTHOR Transforming Urban Public Schools: The Role of Standards and TITLE Accountability. PUB DATE 2000-00-00 NOTE 55p. PUB TYPE Opinion Papers (120) MF01/PC03 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE Academic Achievement; *Academic Standards; *Accountability; DESCRIPTORS Educational Change; *Educational Quality; Elementary Secondary Education; Equal Education; High Stakes Tests; Minority Group Children; Public Schools; Standardized Tests; Student Evaluation; Teacher Competencies; *Urban Schools ABSTRACT This paper examines how urban school districts that have substantially improved student performance emphasize improvement of education guided by rigorous standards for teachers rather than high-stakes testing for students. States and districts that rely on test-based accountability emphasizing sanctions for students and teachers often produce greater failure rather than success for educationally vulnerable students. The paper reviews research on various approaches to accountability and highlights successful reforms in urban settings that emphasize the use of standards for teaching and learning to guide investments in better prepared teachers, higher quality teaching, more performance-oriented curriculum and assessment, better designed schools, more equitable and effective resource allocations, and more diagnostic supports for student learning. It argues for a broader conception of accountability that focuses on whether policymakers' and practitioners' actions, in fact, produce better quality education and higher levels of learning for a greater share of students. It suggests that genuine accountability is achieved when school system policies and operating practices work both to provide good education and to correct problems as they occur. It concludes that raising standards for students so they learn what they need to know requires raising standards for the system. (Contains 69 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Transforming Urban Public Schools: The Role of Standards and Accountability Linda Darling-Hammond U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) O This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. O Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY BEST COPY AVAILABLE Ladirodimmitoni 0 4 TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 Transforming Urban Public Schools: The Role of Standards and Accountability Linda Darling-Hammond The education reform movement in the United States has begun to focus increasingly on the development of new standards for students: Virtually all states have begun the process of creating standards for student learning, new curriculum frameworks to guide instruction, and new assessments to test students' knowledge. President Clinton and presidential candidates Gore and Bush all proposed testing as a centerpiece of accountability reforms, and many school districts across the country are weighing in with their own versions of standards-based reform, including new curricula, testing systems, accountability mechanisms, and promotion or graduation requirements. The rhetoric of these reforms is appealing. Students cannot succeed in meeting the demands of the new economy if they do not encounter much more challenging work in school, many argue, and schools cannot be stimulated to improve unless the real accomplishments -- or deficits -- of their students are raised to public attention. There is certainly merit to these arguments. But will standards and tests improve schools or create educational opportunities where they do not now exist? Some proponents of standards-based reforms have envisioned that standards that express what students should know and be able to do would spur other reforms that mobilize more resources for student learning, including high quality curriculum frameworks, materials, and assessments tied to the standards; more widely available course offerings that reflect this high quality curriculum; more intensive teacher preparation and professional development guided by related standards for teaching; more equalized resources for schools; and more readily available 1 safety nets for educationally needy students (O'Day and Smith, 1993). For others, the notions of standards and 'accountability' have become synonymous with mandates for student testing which may have little connection to policy initiatives that directly address the quality of teaching, the allocation of resources, or the nature of schooling. In addition to these differences, distinct change theories have emerged around the idea of standards-based reform. Some argue that standards for learning and teaching should be used primarily to inform investments and curricular changes that will strengthen schools. They see the major problem as a need for teacher, school, and system learning about more effective practice combined with more equal and better-targeted resource allocation. Others argue that standards can motivate change only if they are used to apply sanctions to those who fail to meet them. They see the major problem as a lack of effort and focus on the part of educators and students. Policy makers who endorse the latter view have emphasized "high stakes" testing that is, the use of scores on achievement tests to make decisions that have important consequences for examinees and others as a primary strategy to promote accountability. Some high stakes decisions affect students, such as the use of test scores for promotion, tracking and graduation. Others affect teachers and principals when scores are used to determine merit pay or potential dismissal. Still others affect schools, as when schools are awarded recognition or extra funds when scores increase or are put into intervention status or threatened with loss of registration when scores are low. Some policies take into account differences in the initial performance of students and in the many non-school factors that can affect achievement. Some do not, holding schools to similar standards despite dissimilar student populations and resources. Many questions arise from this policy strategy. Will investments in better teaching, curriculum, and schooling follow the press for new standards? Or will standards built upon a 2 4 foundation of continued inequality in education simply support tests that more effectively certify student failure and reduce access to future education and employment? In states where high- stakes tests have been imposed without attention to existing educational inequality and access to the curriculum and teaching needed to meet the standards, a new generation of equity lawsuits has emerged. Litigation in California, Florida, New York, and elsewhere has followed on the heels of recently successful "adequacy" lawsuits in Alabama and New Jersey. A body of research has emerged that suggests that accountability strategies that have relied primarily on high-stakes testing programs have not always improved the quality of instruction or the outcomes for educationally needy students. A number of studies have found that high-stakes tests can narrow the curriculum, pushing instruction toward lower order cognitive skills, and can distort scores (Klein et al., 2000; Koretz and Barron, 1998; Koretz et al., 1991; Linn, 2000; Linn, Graue, and Sanders, 1990; Stetcher et al., 1998). In addition, there is evidence that high-stakes tests that reward or sanction schools based on average student scores have created incentives for pushing low-scorers into special education, holding them back in the grades, and encouraging them to drop out so that schools' average scores will look better (Shepard and Smith, 1988; Koretz, 1988; Smith et al., 1986; Darling-Hammond, 1991, 1992; Allington and McGill-Franzen, 1992). School incentives tied to test scores have undermined some districts' efforts to create and sustain more inclusive and integrated student populations, especially in emerging schools of choice, as test-based sanctions punish schools for accepting and keeping students with high levels of special needs and reward them for keeping such students out of their programs through selective admissions, transfer, and even push out policies (Smith et al., 1986; Haney, 2000). 3 In this paper, I show that urban districts that have substantially improved their students' performance have focused on the improvement of teaching guided by rigorous standards for teachers rather than on high-stakes testing for students. States and districts that have relied primarily on test-based accountability emphasizing sanctions for students and teachers have often produced greater failure rather than greater success for their most educationally vulnerable students. I review research on these approaches to "accountability," and I provide examples of more successful reforms in urban settings that have emphasized the use of standards for teaching and learning to guide investments in better prepared teachers, higher quality teaching, more performance-oriented curriculum and assessment, better designed schools, more equitable and effective resource allocations, and more diagnostic supports for student learning. In the course of this paper, I also argue for a broader conception of accountability that focuses on whether the actions undertaken by policymakers and practitioners in fact produce better quality education and higher levels of learning for a greater share of students. Genuine accountability, I suggest, is achieved when a school system's policies and operating practices work both to provide good education and to correct problems as they occur. Assessment data are helpful in this regard to the extent that they provide relevant, valid, timely, and useful information about how individual students are doing and how schools are serving them. But this kind of data is only a tiny part of the total process. Indicators such as test scores or dropout rates are information for the accountability system; they are not the system itself. Accountability occurs only when a useful set of processes exists for interpreting and acting on the information in educationally productive ways. This definition of accountability suggests that we should gauge policy strategies on the basis of whether and for whom they provide greater assurance of high quality teaching and 6 4 learning. We should ask who is helped and who is harmed by policies that are offered under the name of accountability. Do "accountability" systems heighten the probability that good practices will occur for students and reduce the likelihood that harmful practices will occur? And do they provide self-correctives in the system to identify, diagnose, and changes courses of action that are harmful or ineffective? Based on this definition and on evidence about successful urban school reforms, I propose the following policy recommendations: Accountability that supports learning for a wide range of students should focus on: 1) the quality of teachers and teaching available to individuals and groups of students, 2) the availability of high quality curriculum, 3) the creation of informative and appropriately used assessments that reflect student learning standards, and 4) the design of schools so that they can focus on student needs and in-depth learning. In particular, accountable school systems will: Develop and use criterion-referenced standards for student learning that reflect core concepts and important skills relevant to success in today's society and economy. Use standards-based performance assessments of student achievement as diagnostics to guide improved teaching and needed supports, not as the basis for punishing students. Use standards for teaching to hire and support teachers in all schools and classrooms who are well-prepared to help diverse students meet student learning standards. Offer professional learning opportunities that build teachers' capacity to teach effectively, use assessments to inform their teaching, and meet the needs of struggling students. Assure that curriculum materials and course offerings responsive to student learning standards are available in all schools and are accessible to all students. Develop school organizations that enable teachers to teach for in-depth learning and to know their students well. 7 5 Create strategies for school accountability that continually examine the appropriateness and adequacy of students' learning opportunities and create levers and supports for school change. Ultimately, raising standards for students so that they learn what they need to know requires raising standards for all parts of the educational system, so that it provides the kinds of teaching and school settings students need in order to learn. In what follows I describe several possible approaches to accountability. I discuss the problems with many current approaches to bureaucratic accountability in urban school systems and the possibilities revealed by systems that have taken a comprehensive approach to accountability that begins with improving the quality and equality of teaching and schooling as a means for upgrading learning. Types of Educational Accountability In education, as in other enterprises in our society, at least five types of accountability mechanisms exist alongside each other: political accountability - legislators and school board members, for example, must regularly stand for election. legal accountability - citizens can ask the courts to hear complaints about the public schools' violation of laws, say, regarding desegregation or equal educational opportunity. bureaucratic accountability - district and state education offices promulgate rules and regulations intended to ensure that schooling takes place according to set standards. professional accountability teachers and other school staff must acquire specialized knowledge, pass certification exams, and uphold professional standards of practice. 8 6 market accountability - parents and students may choose the courses or schools they believe are most appropriate. They may also be involved in other, more direct means of participating in school decision-making. All of these accountability mechanisms have their strengths and weaknesses, and each is more or less appropriate for certain goals. Political mechanisms can help establish general policy directions, but they do not allow citizens to judge each decision by elected officials, and they do not necessarily secure the rights of minorities. Legal mechanisms are useful in establishing and defending rights, but not everything is subject to court action and not all citizens have access to the courts. Bureaucratic mechanisms are appropriate when standard procedures will produce desired outcomes, but they can be counterproductive when clients have unique and needs that require differential responses by those who must make non-routine decisions. Professional mechanisms are important when services require complex knowledge and decision making to meet clients' individual needs, but they do not always take competing public goals (e.g. cost containment) into account. Market mechanisms are helpful when consumer preferences vary widely and the state has no direct interest in controlling choice, but they do not ensure that all citizens will have access to services of a given quality. Because of these limits, no single form of accountability operates alone in any major areas of public life. The choices of accountability tools -- and the balance among different forms of accountability -- are constantly shifting as problems emerge, as social goals change, and as new circumstances arise. In public education, the power of electoral accountability, exemplified in the authority of school boards, has waxed and waned over the past 20 years relative to that of appointed officials. During the same period, legal forms of accountability have grown, as court cases have been used 9 7 to settle educational policy; and bureaucratic forms of accountability have expanded through increased policy-making at the district and state levels. Recently, market accountability, the least used form, has been expanded somewhat through magnet schools, charters, and other schools of choice. Finally, based on an expanding knowledge base and efforts to create more meaningful standards of practice, professional accountability has gained currency as a way to improve teaching. In most urban public school systems, legal and bureaucratic accountability strategies have predominated over the last twenty or more years. These have especially focused on attempts to manage schooling through standardized educational procedures, prescribed curriculum and texts, and test-based accountability strategies, often tied to tracking and grouping decisions that are meant to determine the programs students will receive. Few have experimented with market accountability. Most notable among them are New York City, which has launched and maintained more than 150 small schools of choice in the last decade to add to the many dozens that existed before that time, and Cambridge, Massachusetts which has had a system of choice- based schools for more than ten years. (Limited forays into vouchers for low-income students in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Cleveland, Ohio have been extremely small in scale. Since the vouchers were small and limited in scope, and since most private schools were not willing to accept either the vouchers or the students who came with them, it is not plausible to describe these as well-developed market experiments.) Finally, a very few urban districts have launched well-developed professional accountability strategies tied to standards for teaching as well as student learning. New York City's District #2, New Haven, California, and several cities in Connecticut, a state that launched a highly successful statewide reform focused on teaching quality are among these, and are described later. 1 0 8