PACE explores accountability policy impacts on educators

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@uclink4.berkeley.edu>]

From PACE (notice there is no comment on the validity of the standardized 
tests)...


PACE explores accountability policy impacts on educators
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/02/26_pace.shtml
By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 26 February 2004

BERKELEY ? California's educators appreciate state efforts to improve 
student achievement and low-performing schools, but are frustrated by a 
lack of support and teaching resources for addressing achievement gaps, 
according to a new report and joint policy brief.

Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), a policy research center 
at the University of California, Berkeley, UC Davis and Stanford 
University, is presenting its research findings about the impacts of public 
school accountability policies today (Thursday, Feb. 26) at a news 
conference in Sacramento.

Joining PACE to present additional data on school accountability reform in 
California will be the American Institutes for Research and the Consortium 
for Policy Research in Education. These three independent research 
organizations will release a joint policy brief, discussing overlapping 
findings and recommendations.

State Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, will attend today's news 
conference to comment on the reports.

PACE's full report and the joint policy brief will be released Friday, Feb. 
27, at a Sacramento seminar for education policymakers.
"School accountability continues to dominate discussions of education among 
policymakers, educators and the community, and promises to be a critical 
issue in this year's election," said Elisabeth Woody, director of PACE's 
Educator Responses to Accountability Project. "Yet, little is known about 
how teachers and school administrators are experiencing and responding to 
the state's efforts to improve education."

Woody said she hopes the study is a "first step" in the investigation and 
sharing of knowledge about how to improve schools and ensures high levels 
of accountability and student performance.

Researchers concluded that policymakers should continue to listen to 
educators and consider providing more focused support to the 
lowest-performing schools. They also said policymakers should support 
teachers' use of ongoing assessments and data to address inequities in 
student achievement.

These findings and policy recommendations come at a time of potential 
shifts in California's system of school accountability, as the state's 
testing and assessment program is up for reauthorization this year, and the 
new governor has proposed changes in public school funding.

PACE and the two other organizations investigating these issues have found 
that, while the policies are producing benefits, they also are having 
unintended, negative consequences.

For example, testing and test preparation are displacing other 
instructional activities. "There's so much that they expect you to do that 
it's science that doesn't get taught, art doesn't get taught," a teacher is 
quoted as saying in the PACE study. "The things that cause children to love 
school and learn on their own are being cut out."

Another teacher interviewed estimated that a month of each school year is 
spent in testing. "And our kids are in school for only eight months. So 
what is that? Twelve percent? And that is a long time that you cannot 
really be teaching them..."

Given teachers' time constraints, the PACE report says it is not surprising 
that they focus on teaching the subjects that form the basis for evaluating 
student, teacher and school performance.

The study also found another shortcoming of the state system: Annual 
testing is done late in the school year, with results unavailable until 
late summer. The delay prevents teachers from using those test scores to 
inform and modify instruction during the school year, it said.

Researchers did find that some schools are instituting their own measures 
for more timely monitoring of student performance and progress.

"We're using assessments in smaller increments to see student growth 
instead of, 'Oh, the next grade level, what do we do with them (now)?'" 
said a teacher in the PACE study. "And we're really trying to assess 
students and change our instruction while they're still in the classroom."

The researchers also report that educators are not always aware of the data 
available about how various student subgroups are performing, and do not 
always have the needed skills to analyze such information.

Researchers suggest that state and district leaders fund professional 
development to provide teachers with data analysis skills and ways to best 
use student achievement data in the classroom.

PACE also found that California's teachers feel unfairly burdened with the 
responsibility of guaranteeing that students meet standards and improve 
achievement.

"Teachers felt they were usually the ones blamed for any occurrences of low 
performance at their schools," says the study. "They advocated instead for 
a more holistic approach to student achievement, pointing out that 
administrators, parents and students also play a role in a school's 
successes or failures."

The role of principals and district officials in school accountability is 
largely overlooked, researchers across the three organizations found.

Although state policies hold schools rather than districts directly 
accountable for meeting targets, researchers discovered that districts 
determine how those policies are implemented, and often implement 
additional measures of their own, including district assessments and 
professional development. The American Institutes for Research found that 
district officials played a key role in deciding which schools would enter 
the state's program to assist low-performing schools.

PACE, the American Institutes for Research, and the Consortium for Policy 
Research in Education are among the first research organizations in 
California to look at how accountability reforms affect classroom teaching, 
educators' sense of professionalism, and the shifting role of the district 
in navigating new mandates.

During the 2002-2003 school year, their researchers interviewed more than 
250 teachers, principals and district administrators to see how they are 
experiencing and responding to major school accountability reforms 
implemented since 1999. The Public Schools Accountability Act of 1999 
created a system of new curriculum standards, statewide testing, and 
rewards and sanctions. In the past two years, the state's schools have also 
seen additional layers of reporting and sanctions required by federal No 
Child Left Behind legislation.