Now that most states and districts have adopted standards, the next wave of the standards movement appears to be the development of standards-based accountability systems. A growing number of states are developing assessments tied to standards, and many are linking some form of accountability - from ranking schools to taking over low-performing schools - to results on the tests. In practice, this often means using large-scale assessments to gauge school performance. As one middle school principal noted, this can create a great deal of tension:

"We’ve always held ourselves accountable for student learning. That’s not new. But public, external accountability pressures are another matter. The increased attention on results through school report cards and the like has led to a fair degree of uncertainty and stress in our school. Our job as leaders is particularly important now. We have to keep doing what we know works with students and keep looking for new ways to improve. At the same time we have to think about the implications of new external accountability pressures."

Step 1: Identify the Initiative

As more and more states create high-stakes accountability systems, districts and schools are being increasingly confronted with the need to meet these demands, often by raising student achievement on statewide tests or other measures of performance. In this section, we presume that these demands are making it imperative for a school or district to focus efforts on responding to accountability demands.

Step 2: Use Guiding Questions to Create Specific Questions

The next step of the process is to translate the guiding questions into more specific questions, as shown in Exhibit 8. These questions are offered as examples of the systemwide issues that schools or districts typically must address as they respond to the requirements of new accountability systems. And, as we will see in the following pages, although this initiative begins with the external environment, a component of the organizational domain, it has profound implications for the entire system.

Step 3: Consider Possible Actions

The following guidance on the systemic implications of responding to accountability requirements was drawn from interviews with school leaders, research, and McREL’s experiences in the field. Another resource used was Hope for Urban Education: A Study of Nine High-Performing, High-Poverty, Urban Elementary Schools (Charles A. Dana Center, 1999), a report of the findings of a U.S. Department of Education-sponsored study to determine how these schools transformed themselves into high-achieving schools.

Technical Domain Implications
Standards • Curriculum • Instruction • Assessment

Q. To what extent is our curriculum aligned with state standards and assessments?

Obviously, students cannot be expected to know what they have not been taught. Yet all too often, classroom instruction is poorly aligned with standards and assessments. Thus, many districts have found it helpful to study the alignment between their standards, curriculum guides, and district or state assessments. In the high-performing schools studied by the Charles A. Dana Center (1999), "principals and teachers did not leave student performance to chance. They meticulously ensured that children were being taught the knowledge, concepts, and skills articulated in state or district standards and measured in annual assessments" (p. 16). In one school in San Antonio, the principal led teachers through an alignment process in which the staff collectively developed a plan to make sure they were covering important content by testing time each spring.

Possible Actions

Determine the extent to which curriculum is aligned with state tests.

Make sure important material is covered prior to high-stakes tests.

Q. To what extent do our instructional methods help us meet accountability demands?

A key component of many accountability systems is that student performance data are disaggregated to determine if all student groups are performing at proficient levels. This emphasis on the performance of all students often means that teachers must alter their current instructional methods to ensure that all students are learning at high levels. For example, teachers may need to learn how students’ cultural differences can translate into different learning styles and the need for different forms of instruction. But teachers must do more than understand or be tolerant of such differences; they must modify their instruction to better meet the needs of diverse students.

For example, in light of research (see, e.g., Gay, 2000) indicating that nonminority students are engaged more often in class than are minority students, teachers may need to rethink how they manage classroom discussions to encourage more students to participate. For more on how to better serve diverse students, see Including Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Standards-Based Reform (McREL, 1999) and Including At-Risk Students in Standards-Based Reform: A Report on McREL’s Diversity Roundtable II (McREL, 2000).

Possible Actions

Disaggregate student performance data to determine if teachers need to alter instruction methods to better serve certain student groups.

Provide teachers with necessary training to help all groups of students meet high standards of learning.

Q. To what extent do teachers’ classroom assessments help students prepare for statewide tests?

Classroom assessments can be valuable tools for assessing students’ readiness for large-scale assessments and preparing students to take these tests. Some schools found that students’ test scores dramatically improved after teachers focused on familiarizing students with the types of items they were likely to encounter on large-scale tests. For example, a high-poverty school in Pueblo, Colorado, dramatically increased students’ scores after school leaders realized that large-scale assessments are a different form of information recall than their students typically were encountering in the classroom. This realization led teachers to make sure that their own tests included the same question formats as those on the state assessment. Helping students become more familiar with the high-stakes test format alleviated their test anxiety, allowing them to better demonstrate their knowledge and skills (Bingham, 1998).

This does not mean, however, simply showing students how to fill in bubbles or guess more accurately. Rather, it means using day-to-day tests and quizzes to help students practice using the kind of answer formats found on the statewide assessment (e.g., complete-sentence and essay-length answers). As one teacher put it, they are now "teaching students to communicate in writing about what they are reading. We never assume that they know. They must prove it to us every day" (Bingham, 1998, p. 6B).

Possible Actions

Use classroom assessments to improve students’ test-taking skills.

Encourage teachers to give classroom assessments, or portions of their assessments, in the same format as large-scale assessments.

Personal Domain Implications
Staff Development • Leadership & Supervision • Internal Communication • Climate & Culture

Q. How can we better use internal communication processes to help us meet accountability requirements?

Leaders of successful schools say that creating a positive environment in which teachers work together to meet a common challenge is essential to improving student performance. This often entails enhancing communication between administrators and teachers. A principal of one high-performing, high-poverty elementary school in Boston used regular meetings with teachers to keep the focus on improving student literacy (Charles A. Dana Center, 1999). Teachers noted that this clear focus on literacy unified the school and helped boost student achievement. The mandatory meetings helped them keep their focus on improving literacy and maintaining consistency in their approaches to reading instruction, which, in turn, benefitted students.

At another high-performing, high-poverty, urban elementary school in Texas, the principal rearranged class schedules so teachers could engage in both horizontal (same grade level) and vertical (different grade levels) planning (see Charles A. Dana Center, 1999). The entire school staff also came together twice a week to share experiences and strategies that positively affected students. School leaders, of course, have to balance the use of these meetings, making them structured enough to be productive, yet flexible enough to encourage open communication among teachers.

Possible Actions

Use well-guided, regular meetings to open communication lines and create and maintain a common focus among teachers.

Use horizontal (same grade level) and vertical (different grade levels) planning meetings to help teachers share effective strategies.

Q. What role can school leadership play in responding to accountability requirements?

Effective school leaders understand the importance of keeping staff members focused on students. At the nine high-poverty, high-performing schools recently studied (see Charles A. Dana Center, 1999), leaders found ways to redirect time and energy spent dealing with conflicts between adults in the school toward the common goal of serving children. School leaders can help create such a staff in part by encouraging everyone to put aside their differences, modeling a willingness to resolve differences quickly and fairly, and keeping the focus on helping students.

Possible Actions

Focus staff energy on helping students.

Devote more time to instructional leadership.

Use skilled veteran teachers as instructional leaders.

Q. How can we mitigate the negative effect that accountability requirements may have on school climate?

School leaders can also help by spending more time as instructional leaders. The principal at one of the nine schools studied by the Dana Center reported that she spent 40 percent of her time in teacher’s classrooms observing teachers and helping them improve their instruction. These successful school leaders also found ways to extend instructional leadership to veteran teachers. For example, the principal of one school freed up a highly skilled teacher for an entire year to work with other teachers to help them improve their instructional methods. School leaders need to address the discouragement among teachers, students, and parents that can result from poor test results. They also need to acknowledge that teachers may have negative attitudes about high-stakes assessments. It’s best to get the concerns out in the open.

But it’s also important not to linger too long on misgivings about tests. Rather, teachers should be encouraged to see the tests, flawed though they may be in some cases, as a means for helping students. In particular, test scores can help focus and clarify school improvement goals and create a sense of urgency about improving curricula and instruction. In this way, test results can be an impetus for creating better staff development and teacher study groups, which can help bring about a more positive school culture and foster motivation for improvement. The key, say school leaders, is to discover solutions together and, thus, keep the focus on the future, not the past.

Possible Actions

Use test results as an impetus for school improvement efforts.

Keep the focus on continuous improvement, not past failures.

Organizational Domain Implications
External Environment • Stakeholders • Resource Allocation • Technology • Accountability

Q. How can we involve stakeholders (e.g., parents) in our efforts to respond to accountability demands?

High-performing schools find ways to involve parents in their school improvement efforts. One of the best ways to get parent support is by first improving student achievement. This may seem to go against conventional wisdom, which says that parent involvement leads to improved achievement. However, leaders of the nine schools studied by the Dana Center (1999) say the opposite also seems to be true - increased student achievement leads to increased parent involvement. When parents see their children doing better thanks to the extra efforts of school staff, they tend to become more willing to support the school.

It’s important to follow up on this initial outpouring of support by engaging in a variety of efforts to win the confidence and respect of parents. This means going beyond simply involving parents in token activities and instead giving them tangible ways to contribute to their children’s success. For example, a San Antonio, Texas, school videotaped classrooms to give parents a first-hand look at what their children were learning in school, which in turn, helped parents see how they could extend students’ learning at home. Parents at an East St. Louis, Illinois, school were invited to family math and science nights, where they learned ways to help their students learn more at home.

In designing these efforts, it’s important to find ways to involve the parents of all students. All too often, the parents of language minority students, for example, are reluctant to come to school events because of their lack of English fluency. Yet their children may have the most to gain from a stronger connection between the school and their parents. Thus, schools need to find ways to reach out to these parents, often in creative ways, such as sponsoring community events of interest to parents or bringing other services, such as health care, counseling, and other social services to their campuses (Minicucci et al., 1995).

Possible Actions

Encourage parent support by demonstrating tangible ways teachers and staff are working to improve student success.

Provide meaningful ways for parents to aid student learning.

Q. How can we better use staff resources to help us meet accountability requirements?

A number of schools that have successfully met the challenges of external accountability requirements have found ways to redistribute their staff in order to create smaller class sizes. For example, in one Colorado school, "pull-out" teachers were reassigned to classrooms, thereby reducing the school’s average class size from 25 to 20 students (Bingham, 1998). School leaders say smaller class sizes contributed to a five-fold increase in the number of students testing at proficient levels on the statewide reading and writing assessment.

Given the emphasis statewide accountability systems are placing on reading scores, many schools have also found ways to create even better teacher-student ratios during reading blocks. During these times, all the adults in the school - including administrators, physical education, art, music, and library teachers - work with students to improve their reading skills. In this way, they are able to give struggling students much more individualized attention, including one-on-one tutoring (see Laboratory Network Program, in press).

Possible Actions

Redistribute staff to create smaller class sizes.

Find ways to involve all school staff members in instructional activities.

Q. To what extent does the way we allocate our most valuable resource, time, help us meet accountability demands?

In attempting to improve instructional practices, school leaders often have found it necessary to reallocate their use of time. Several successful elementary schools have created large blocks of time, sometimes as much as two hours, to focus on specific content areas. For example, an elementary school in Cheverly, Maryland, scheduled two hours every day for reading instruction. This block was considered "sacred" - even if inclement weather shortened the school day, leaders made sure students still received two hours of reading instruction.

Some school leaders also have found that traditional class periods are too short to accommodate in-depth, standards-based learning. They have opted for alternatives, such as block scheduling in which students remain in the same classroom for longer periods, typically 90 minutes. Of course, without adequate training, teachers may be resistant to longer class periods or lack the skills to use the extra time productively (e.g., by engaging students in small-group or self-guided learning). As a result, they may turn the 90-minute periods into marathon lectures, which may only serve to enhance students’ doodling skills.

Possible Actions

Create blocks of instructional time devoted to targeted student needs, such as literacy skills.

Create longer blocks of instructional time.

Back to process