When Did 70% Become Acceptable?

When I worked in public education, it was amazing to me how much all of us fell in love with the “70.” Under the Texas accountability at the time, if you got 70 percent of you kids to pass the state’s high-stakes test in either reading, writing, or math, you were considered a “recognized” campus. If you got around 50 percent to pass, you were considered “acceptable” to the state. Of course, Texas also expected “sub-groups,” which were smaller groups of students based on ethnicity, to also meet the above criteria. This made attaining “Recognized” or “Acceptable” harder, but the numbers 70 and around 50 remained.

In my district, schools that hit the “50” mark for both the overall school and subgroup scores were largely left alone to “run school” throughout the academic year. Schools that hit “70” for the school and subgroups were celebrated as the “best of the best.” In my district, there were enough schools falling below “50” in either school or subgroup scores that all time and support were directed to those campuses.

I happened to be lucky enough to lead a middle school in a successful turnaround effort during my first principalship. That middle school was close to being taken over by “the suits” before I was hired. “The suits” were a group of central office administrators that would come in and basically take over school administration. The principal would usually be removed, and sometimes other administrators and teachers were assigned to different campuses. In my case, instead of sending in the central office team, the district hired me. In five years, with a lot of support of parents, neighboring businesses, and the larger community, and some excellent hiring, we were able to move that campus’s accountability rating from “Low Performing” to “Recognized.”

After the middle school, I was named principal of a brand-new high school. That school quickly became one of the better high schools in the district, flirting with or earning “Recognized” status throughout my five years there.

But you know what bothered me, even when I was receiving awards and accolades from the district, state, and media for leading an excellent middle school and high school campus? What bothered me was the “30 percent” of the student body who weren’t successful with their high-stakes test. We never were able to make inroads with that group of learners, and therefore most of them failed (at the time, Texas required a student to pass a series of high stakes exit tests to graduate.)

When I was a regional superintendent, I had a high school principal under my supervision who flat out ignored his Hispanic males test scores, since there weren’t enough of them to count as a subgroup (you had to have a total of 30 to be considered a subgroup.) That principal was given credit for leading what was considered the best comprehensive high school in our district. After my interest was ignored, no one asked that principal about his Hispanic male achievement again.

I’m afraid we’ve created a public education system that rewards schools for being successful with between 50 percent and 70 percent of their students. There was always talk of raising the expectations higher than 50 to 70, but politicians backed away fearing the entire public education system would be seen as a failure.

But it is failure, right? If you are in a classroom and earn between a 50 and a 70, then isn’t that traditionally a failing grade. Why would school accountability be any different than classroom accountability?

In my now 40-plus years of thinking about public schooling improvement, I’ve concluded that the only way to make sure every kid is learning at high levels is to build accountability around the individual, through an individualized learning plan. We’ve done it with special education students for nearly 50 years now. With an individualized learning plan, no one can hide – young learner or adult learning leader.

Traditional schools shouldn’t survive when 30 to 50 percent of their students don’t exhibit proficiency in reading, writing, and problem-solving.

It’s time for a new system of learning.

Til tomorrow. SVB