The Challenge of Accountability

1. Update on Accountability: Growing Our Way to Measuring SuccessIra SchwartzCoordinator, Accountability, Policy and AdministrationNew York State Education Department March 7, 2008

2. The Challenge of Accountability • Not everything that can be measured is important and not everything that is important can be measured (Albert Einstein). • That which is measured, improves (Unknown). • Goals worth pursuing are ones that are difficult to obtain but possible to achieve (Ira Schwartz).

3. Purpose of No Child Left Behind “…to ensure that all children have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging state academic achievement standards and state academic assessments”

4. Accountability: Status v. Growth • Status Models: takes a snapshot of a subgroup’s or school’s level of student proficiency at one point in time and often compares that proficiency level with an established target • Growth Models: models that measure progress by tracking the achievement scores of the same students from one year to the next to determine student progress

5. Why Growth? Types of Performance Status/Growth Combinations Status Change High Status Achieve-ment Improvement Status High/Low High/High Effective-ness Growth Acceleration Low/Low Low/High Low Status Low Growth High Growth

6. School Performance: Four Views

7. Betebenner, Jan. 2008, for RI project

8. Growth Models and NCLB Growth models generally refer to accountability models that assess the progress of a cohort of individual students over time with the intent of measuring the progress these students have made (Performance in fourth grade compared to performance in third grade.) USDE is permitting all states to submit growth models. Currently nine models have been approved.

9. New York State: Local Initiatives • A Number of NYS districts have developed local growth and value added models. The two most prominent are: • NYC’s Progress Report Card initiative • Capital Region BOCES initiative. • These initiatives are neither endorsed by SED nor require SED’s endorsement. • These initiatives are not constrained by USDE’s growth model guidelines and do not comport with all of the required elements of the guidelines.

10. Enhanced Accountability System • Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2007 calls for an enhanced State accountability system, including: • New accountability standards based on state assessments and other indicators of progress, such as graduation rates or college attendance and completion rates, to be established by 7/1/2008. • Growth model by 2008-09. • Value added model by 2010-2011 based on new or revised state assessments. • Expanded SURR system, resulting in the identification of up to 5% of State schools between the 2007-2008 and 2010-2011 school years for restructuring or reorganization.

11. Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2007:Growth Model “By the start of the 2008-2009 school year, the regents shall establish, using existing state assessments, an interim, modified accountability system for schools and districts that is based on a growth model, subject to approval of the United States department of education where required by federal law.”

12. Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2007: Value Added Model “The regents shall proceed with the development of an enhanced accountability system, with revised or new state assessments, based on an enhanced growth model that, to the extent feasible and consistent with Federal law, includes a value-added assessment model that employs a scale-score approach to measure growth of students at all levels. (a) If the Regents establish that the assessment scaling and accountability methodology employed have been determined by external experts in educational testing and measurement to be valid and reliable and in accordance with established standards for educational and psychological testing, and (b) the approval of the United States department of education has been obtained where required by federal law, the enhanced growth model shall be implemented no later than the start of the 2010-2011 school year”

13. Value Added Assessment Model: Chapter 57 Definition “Value added assessment model shall mean a form of growth model that includes an evaluation of the specific effects of programs, and other relevant factors, on the academic progress of individual students over time.”

14. Accountability Update: SED’s Growth Model Design Principles • Growth Model shall be implemented in 08-09 school year (pending USDE approval) • Model shall meet core principles of Spelling 11/21/05 correspondence • Model shall be based upon NY’s current State assessment program & shall not require the implementation of new assessments • Model shall utilize such data as is currently collected through State data collection processes and shall not require the collection of substantial new data elements • Models purpose shall be to measure the degree to which students are making sustained progress such that students will be academically proficient as determined by the Commissioner

15. Accountability Update: SED’s Growth Model Design Principles • Model shall use an “open architecture.” All calculations should be transparent • Model should provide information that is useful to districts and schools in planning school an district improvement efforts • Model should, if possible, serve as a platform for the development by 2010-11 of a value-added accountability system based on the next generation of State assessments

16. Enhanced Accountability System: Plans for Intervention • School Quality Review Teams to assist any school in improvement, corrective action, restructuring status or SURR status in development and implementing school improvement plans. May also conduct planning, program, and resource audits of schools. • Joint School Intervention Teams, whose members are appointed by Commissioner and must include educators from the district, review and recommend plans for reorganizing or reconfiguring schools in restructuring status or SURR schools that have failed to demonstrate progress as specified in their plans. • Distinguished educators to assist districts and schools that have failed to make AYP for four or more years. • Recommendations of School Quality Review Teams and Joint Intervention Teams are advisory. • The services of all the above are a charge to the school district.

17. What May Be On the Horizon • More rigorous standards for SURR schools. • A Growth Model. • New SED Service Delivery Models. • Reauthorization of NCLB.

18. This may be the Dawning of the Age of Accountability Key Questions: • How do we design accountability models that compel movement from awful to adequate without impeding the movement from good to great? • How do we resist the temptation to improve scores without improving learning? • How do we take data and turn it into actionable information that improves teaching and learning? • How do we move from beating the odds to changing the odds?

19. More Information Ira Schwartz, Coordinator Accountability, Policy, and Administration New York State Education Department Office of School Improvement and Community Services ischwart@mail.nysed.gov 718 722-2796