Accountability and the “Hick’ry Stick”

School days, school days, dear old golden rule days,
read-in’ and ‘rit-in’ and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of a hick-ry stick
Gus Edwards

As inveterate sports fans we are used to a range of statistics. We blithely discuss batting averages, runs batted in (RBIs), earned run averages (ERAs) and on and on, however, in spite of all the statistics the final judgment is winning the games.

Most teachers are unaware that schools generate a host of statistics that are used to judge the success of the school. Ask your principal: what is your schools Actual Performance Index? (AMO) If you get a blank look your school may be in trouble. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) requires that schools meet AMO targets for each cohort of students and the Performance Index goals increase each year. The Performance Index is based upon the number of students in a cohort who are Level 1, Level 2 and Level ¾ in Math and ELA.

Schools that fail to reach their AMO targets are designated Schools in Need of Improvement (SINI) or Schools Requiring Corrective Action and are required to write improvement plans. Eleven thousand schools nationwide have written plans.

If schools fail to meet AMO targets by specific dates under NCLB they must be redesigned, the redesign can result in the school being closed.

In New York State the State Education Department analyzes data each year, and in January designates schools as Schools Under Registration Review (SURR). If the SURR designated school fails to make adequate progress the school can redesigned, the closing of the school is a possibility.

The Department intends to create a new level of school assessment.

The Department has unveiled its new “comprehensive accountability initiative.” As described on the DOE website

each school will receive a Progress Report with an A, B, C, D, and F letter grade beginning in the 2007-08 school year as well as a Quality Score of (well developed) and (underdeveloped) based on an individual onsite Quality Review.

Schools will be evaluated on three separate quantitative measures, (Progress, Performance and School Environment) and qualitative measures that will involve onsite reviewers.

“Schools that receive chronically low grades and Quality Scores” will have serious consequences.

To return to the baseball analogy: more statistics does make for a better baseball team! Believe me: if a school is struggling the school staff knows it!

Individual student data is essential to create plans to meet the needs of individual and groups of students. Effective “data driven” instruction is a key component in an effective school. Unfortunately regionally imposed mega education programs are rarely effective. The practitioners in the classroom, supervisors and teachers, must have access to a range of student achievement data and the responsibility to create and implement programs.

School plans should be “bottom up,” driven by the skills of teachers and result in a school-wide plan that drives school budgets.

The creation of the expanded Autonomy Zone appears is an admission that the current top-down model has failed.

The current Autonomy Zone schools are divided into networks of about a dozen schools each. The networks choose a common professional development provider and work together without a Region and a Local Instructional Superintendent beating on them.

The Department will rollout the expanded Autonomy Zone, scaling up from fifty to two hundred schools in early May.

If the new accountability initiative/Autonomy Zone is simply a new club to threaten and punish principals and teachers these “new initiatives” will simply be more of the same.

The “hick’ry stick” will not result in teachers “teaching better.”

Have you ever noticed the similarity between Steinbrenner and Bloomberg? To continue the baseball analogy: if team is not doing well you fire the manager … is Bloomberg a baseball fan?

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