How to Implement NCLB Accountability

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How to Implement NCLB Accountability

• Marilyn Savarese Muirhead
• Center for Equity and Excellence in Education
• The George Washington University

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Comparison of IASA and NCLB Accountability Policy
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NCLB Accountability Policy for LEP Students

• There are no exemptions from the state assessment
  system including LEP students.
• 95 of enrolled students (for both aggregated or
  disaggregated data) need to take the state
  assessment and be included in AYP.
• During their first three years in the US, LEP
  students may take a native language test version
  of the state Reading Language Arts assessment or
  have accommodations on the English version of the
  state Reading Language Arts assessment.

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NCLB Performance Accountability

• A system holding schools, districts and states
  responsible for academic performance.
• An expectation that schools will face and solve
  the persistent problems of teaching and learning
  that lead to academic failure of large numbers of
  students.

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Implementing Large-Scale Reform

• NCLB is a large-scale reform policy.
• Other large-scale reforms failed to make a
  difference because issues of implementation were
  ignored.
• Fullan defines implementation as the changing of
  practice.
• To change practice you must pay attention to
  culture and capacity.

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Organizational Culture

• American schools are the same as they were in the
  late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Teachers are solo practitioners operating in
  isolation from other adults.
• The work day is designed around the belief that
  teachers work is only about delivering content
  not increasing knowledge and skills to improve
  their work.

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Organizational Culture

• An assumption that teachers learn about teaching
  before they enter the classroom.
• Most of what they learn after they enter the
  classroom experience which usually means a
  lowering of expectations of what they can
  accomplish with students.
• The learning that is expected is predicated on
  the model of solo practice accumulation of
  credits from university courses.
• From Bridging the Gap Between Standards and
  Achievement by Richard F. Elmore

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Capacity

• Is broadly defined as the knowledge and skills
  that individuals and organizations need for doing
  the work.
• It is the glue that, , will hold accountability
  systems together. (Elmore 2000)

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Individual and OrganizationalCapacity

• Curricula
• Instruction
• Assessment
• Leadership
• Data-based decision making

• Data collection, organization analysis of
  performance and processes of the organization
• Allocation of Resources
• Communication
• Data-based decision making

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High Poverty Low-performing Title I Schools

• Usually have low-capacity, both individual and
  organizational, to accomplish the core work of
  schools teaching and learning.

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As a result ?

• The current culture, organizational structures
  and capacity of schools and districts are badly
  matched to a performance-based accountability
  system.

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The solution?

• Reciprocal Accountability
• for every demand for an increment of performance
  there is a reciprocal responsibility to provide
  the capacity to meet that expectation.

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Accountability for Capacity

• Adopting a strategy that invests in the knowledge
  and skills of educators.
• In NCLB, Title II - Preparing, Training, and
  Recruiting High Quality Teachers and Principals
  provides funds for professional development.

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How do you build accountability for capacity?

• By providing professional development connected
  to the practice of improvement.
• AND
• By developing an internal accountability system
  that informs you about the quality of practice.

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New Jersey Whole School Reform

• 1997 NJ Supreme Court decision Abbott v Burke
  required NJ to develop a comprehensive reform
  policy.
• As part of this policy, schools had to adopt a
  WSR research-based model such as
• Success for All
• Districts had to develop a district-wide
  accountability system.

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Potentially

• A WSR model helps build the individual and
  organizational capacity around teaching and
  learning in a school.
• A district accountability system provides school
  and district staff with information around the
  quality of practice/individual and organizational
  capacity.

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Plainfield Public School District

• Developed a district accountability plan for
  collective responsibility for student performance
  results based on four principles
• Alignment of Effort
• Continuous Improvement
• Communication
• Inclusiveness

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Alignment

• Means asking the right questions, requiring data
  in usable formats, and challenging prevailing
  aspects of the school systems culture and
  operating norms.
• NSBA The Key Work of School Boards

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Continuous Improvement

• Is about paying attention to the quality of what
  we do.
• Is change with direction, sustained over time
  that (Elmore, 2000)
• moves entire systems,
• raises the average level of quality and
  performance,
• decreases the variation among units,
• engages people in analysis and understanding of
  why some actions seem to work and other dont.

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Internal Accountability

• Plainfield is working towards an internal
  alignment of
• individual responsibility,
• collective expectations and
• formal and informal accountability mechanisms.