I worked in the public education system from 1984 to 2018, at the height of standard-based accountability based on high-stakes testing. Students were held back, teachers and principals fired, campuses labeled “sucky schools”, and school boards voted out because of test results. We were convinced that this type of accountability would fix our public schools.
It didn’t.
Last fall I read with interest an article written by Doannie Tran, a partner of Liberatory Co-Creation, Center for Innovation in Education and Co-Founder at Open Systems Institute, and Jason Glass, the Commissioner and Chief Learner of Education for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, titled “Whose Accountability System is this Anyway?”
In the article, Tran and Glass write,
“The current state of [accountability] incoherence stems from a key dilemma within the modern test-based accountability movement of the 1990’s and 2000’s. The goals of this movement were laudable: create a publicly available and transparent system of school and district ratings that could shine a light on inequities and differences in outcomes between student groups, compelling school organizations to better serve students who had historically been ‘left behind.’”
“But as our colleague Paul Leather notes…there is another system of accountability which receives much less attention – local districts’ accountability to their communities. If the federal and state accountability question is, ‘Do all students regardless of zip code have equitable access to educational opportunity?’, then there is also a local accountability question of, ‘Are we meeting the expectations of local community needs, once we have answered the state and federal concern?’”
“While the system of tests and accountability in the United States certainly achieved some of its goals in that we have readily available measured outcomes in reading, math, and science highlighting differences between different student groups, the confidence of both educators and the public in these tests and ranking systems continues to erode.”
“A compelling argument can be made that what is currently measured on a machine-scored standardized test gives us a reductive view of student capabilities. These tests do not capture well the depth and breadth of skills necessary to be a successful and happy worker, citizen, and human being. Further, the testing data used in accountability rating systems do not capture the values and priorities of local communities in what they want from their schools. Rather, it too often simply reflects current socioeconomic conditions of given communities, thus exacerbating social divisions.”
“Deeper and more durable achievement requires the buy-in of communities, educators, families and students. If assessment and accountability systems are to have a meaningful impact, their authority and meaning must matter internally to the people in communities, instead of imposed externally from the state or federal government- a concept Northwestern University’s Cynthia Coburn calls ‘reform ownership’.”
“But how do we actually attain this level of community ownership, especially after two decades of assessment and accountability being something imposed on communities externally?”
“This question is central to our educational improvement efforts in Kentucky and we have worked to both include and empower community voices from the start. As part of a statewide outreach and visioning process, we listened to the stories of over 1,200 Kentuckians to hear about their experiences as learners and aspirations for Kentucky’s schools We then pulled together a large and intentionally diverse group called the Kentucky Coalition for Advancing Education, which was formed to craft an honest description of the current state of education and to chart and aspirational future state for learning in the Commonwealth, represented in the United We Learn report.”
“There is certainly still skepticism as we are working against years of externally imposed accountability systems, where local and community voices have felt powerless to decide what is valued. States feel controlled by distant federal decision-makers, districts feel controlled by state agencies, teachers and principals feel their work is controlled by districts, parent values are not reflected, and student voices are marginalized. After years of top-down and externally designed and imposed systems of assessment and accountability, it is not wonder why confidence in the tests and ratings are low.”
“One key finding of the report written by the Coalition is that the people of Kentucky – its students, families, educators and community members – all wanted to be seen as more than a test score and that they were tired of the culture of ranking and competition that our accountability system creates. And there was a strong sense that our current system of testing and accountability was a real barrier to the kinds of shifts in learning and student experience our students will need to thrive in an accelerating, globally interconnected, and automated world.”
“To be clear, no one is shying away from accountability. What Kentuckians are asking for is a deeper and more authentic way of building shared and reciprocal accountability between districts and their communities. Our local communities want the state department to find ways to be in reciprocal accountability with them. How can we learn about what they value? How can we help inform them about what it takes to be ready for the rapidly changing global economic and social environment our children will enter as adults? If we care about both local values and equity of opportunity, then what do we measure, and who gets to decide?”
It seems like Kentucky is on a better path than most states. Offering communities the opportunity to be part of an educational accountability system is a good move. But it remains to be seen if states can demonstrate to their communities that they are indeed interested in partnering to create a better way of deciding whether schools are good or not.
What we really need is individual learner accountability, where a learning coach, the young learner’s family, the family’s community, and the young learner themselves are part of creating a learning plan dependent on accountable measures.
Til tomorrow. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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