Connecting
and Correcting the Flaws in (ESEA's) High Stakes Proficiency Assessments of
Students' Academic Achievement and (OSEP's) the New Special Education Results
Driven Accountability System
Dear
Colleagues,
I hope that your January (and
New Year) has gone well. . . and that you are focused on your student, staff,
and school goals and outcomes as we enter the second half of the school year.
The
ESEA Debate on High-Stakes Testing and the Federal Move to Results Driven
Accountability
With a new Congress seated and
in session, a lot of attention is focused on reauthorizing the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) within the next two months. In fact, there have already been a number of
Congressional hearings (CLICK HERE for related story), at least two draft
“discussion bills” (one each from the Senator Lamar Alexander and
Representative John Kline, the respective chairs of their chamber’s education
committees), and a reauthorization policy speech and outline from Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan.
Unfortunately, most of the public
attention seems to be on whether the new ESEA should continue to require (a) annual
high stakes assessments to determine students’ academic proficiency, and (b)
the (flawed) use of these data to determine a school or district’s
effectiveness. In fact, over the years,
the debate has escalated to activism (CLICK HERE for related story) as student,
parent, and other stakeholders have planned and carried out actions to “opt
out” of these assessments.
_ _ _ _ _
In the parallel world of
federal policy and practice, the U.S. Office of Special Education Programs
(OSEP) is requiring every state education department to document its “Phase I”
approach to the new Results Driven Accountability (RDA) process as
represented in Indicator 17, (the State Systematic Improvement Plan;
SISP). This is a required part of each
state’s annual special education State Performance Plan/Annual Performance
Report which is due in Washington, DC in the next few days (CLICK HERE for
more information).
And so, along with the current
or reauthorized ESEA, states, districts, and schools now must attend to the RDA
initiative as described by Deborah Delisle, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for
Elementary and Secondary Education and Michael Yudin, the Acting U.S. Assistant
for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a joint May 21, 2014
letter to every state’s Chief State School Officer:
“The
U.S. Department of Education is implementing a revised accountability system
under the IDEA known as Results-Driven Accountability (RDA), which shifts the
Department’s accountability efforts from a primary emphasis on compliance to a
framework that focuses on improved results for students with disabilities. RDA
will emphasize child outcomes such as performance on assessments, graduation
rates, and early childhood outcomes. In the coming year, each State will be
required to develop a State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP) as part of the
State Performance Plan / Annual Performance Report that the State submits
annually in accordance with the IDEA. In developing the SSIP, States will use
data to identify gaps in student performance, analyze State systems, and then
implement targeted, evidence-based reforms to address the gaps.”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The
Flaw(s) of Single-Measure Accountability
One of the single biggest
flaws in the federal (and, sometimes, state) approach to accountability is the
dependence on a single measure.
While a single measure may be acceptable as part of a screening to
determine whether a student may be having academic or behavioral difficulties,
or a progress monitoring approach to determine whether a student is making
progress in a specific area, it is not psychometrically acceptable for
program evaluation.
In fact, using a single measure for school or district accountability
(i.e., a single test to measure students’ academic proficiency) increases the
probability for the following additional flaws or inappropriate/ineffective
schooling practices or perspectives:
* Concluding that a school (or student) is
academically successful and that it is doing the “right things” that are
“causing” its success, or concluding that a school (or student) is academically
unsuccessful and needs to change some of its “ineffective” practices
* Taking a “top-down”
perspective where the test-specific factors that make students successful are
analyzed, rather than a “bottom-up” perspective that looks at the curriculum,
instruction, teacher, and student factors that help students to learn, master,
and be able to apply progressive levels of “real-world” knowledge, information,
and skills
* Said a different way: Schools need to avoid teaching to the test,
focusing instead on educating students for functional understanding and
application. . . that is. . . they need
to focus less on test results, and more on “real-world” educational results
* Focusing exclusively on a
school’s academic program to the detriment of the social, emotional, and
behavioral instruction needed to address student trauma and stress, attention
and engagement, and project-based and cooperative learning group interactions
* Teaching students –
especially academically struggling students – at their grade-level, rather than
at their current functional skill, understanding, and/or instructional level
_ _ _ _ _
Relative to the special
education Results Driven Accountability State Systematic Improvement Plan
(SISP), we are already seeing state departments of education interpret the OSEP
Annual Performance Plan’s Indicator 17 requirement whereby they are planning on
using a single measure to assess the success of their SISP activities.
This is in spite of the fact
that OSEP wants state to identify “measurable result(s) for children with
disabilities (NOTE the plural possibility of multiple results or outcome
measures).
For example, one state is
thinking about using only the DIBELS to measure the literacy improvement of
their students with disabilities. . .
largely because the schools are already collecting DIBELS data. Beyond, as above, the flaws of using a single
measure to assess systemic improvement, this largely ignores much of what was
learned during the Reading First era. . . namely, that:
* The DIBELS is a screening and not a program
evaluation tool; that
* It does not effectively measure literacy
comprehension; and that
* The results of this process will likely be students
who are better at decoding text, but not better at understanding it.
And so, if state departments
of education measure their SISEP goal using (flawed) measures of convenience,
their “systemic efforts” will not help students with disabilities to become
more effective in the diverse areas of literacy. This, then, will negatively impact the
students’ ability to demonstrate proficiency on their high-stakes assessment
tests, and the vicious cycle with continue.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
So.
. . What do We do ???
In short, there are a number
of possible solutions so these problems.
For example:
* We need to communicate with our U.S. Senators
and Representatives immediately, telling them to eliminate the single-test
perspective of accountability in ESEA, and endorse a multi-faceted approach
that evaluates schools on having effective curriculum and instruction,
multi-tiered services and supports for academically struggling and behaviorally
challenging students, outcomes-based professional development and teacher
evaluation, and progress monitoring and evaluation systems that measure student
learning, mastery, and growth.
* We need to communicate (nothing is “set in
stone” yet) with the special education unit in our state departments of
education to find out what their SISEP will focus on, and how its success will
be measured . . . so that the “single measure mentality” does not predominate
this important initiative.
* We need to remember the underlying science of
effective program evaluation, and apply it in sound practice.
* We need to remember that educational
effectiveness and excellence cannot be legislated, it must be planned,
resourced, disseminated, and evaluated.
* We need to blend targeted outcomes with
common sense when implementing services, supports, strategies, and programs at
the student, staff, and school levels.
If it doesn’t make sense, it probably won’t work.
_ _ _ _ _
In the end, we have two great
opportunities with the reauthorization of ESEA, and the initiation of RDA. And yet, if we focus on politics,
convenience, oversimplification, and rhetoric, our goals will not be attained,
and we will add another layer of frustration to a process that has so many
challenges and so many needs.
Please accept my THANKS
for the great services and supports that you provide to your all students each
and every day. Have a GREAT week !!!
Best,
