{"id":17036,"date":"2023-05-08T12:11:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-08T16:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/?p=17036"},"modified":"2023-05-08T12:15:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T16:15:03","slug":"innovating-towards-next-generation-accountability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aurora-institute.org\/blog\/innovating-towards-next-generation-accountability\/","title":{"rendered":"Innovating Towards Next Generation Accountability"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was inspired to read the National Center for Assessment\u2019s recent article calling for new accountability pilots, <\/span>Why It\u2019s Time for a New Accountability Pilot<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The time is overdue to architect short-term policy changes toward long-term goals to advance education systems change for human thriving. We need to fundamentally rethink and redesign toward next generation accountability in the United States. The federal government needs to change the frame.<\/span><\/p>\n

America\u2019s current school accountability policy is designed to rank and sort students and schools. Though it was intended to drive continuous educational improvement, it has fallen far from that goal. Policy makers across the country have been engaging in conversations about next generation accountability. In fact, the US Department of Education recently submitted a Request for Information on the Innovative Assessment and Accountability Demonstration Authority in Section 1204 of ESSA. You can see Aurora\u2019s letter in response to that request here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Aurora Institute believes that the time is now for the federal government to rethink and innovate its approach to accountability and assessment policy to ensure that every learner has access to meaningful assessments and accountability systems that are designed to improve teaching and learning. These new systems could provide better information to students, families, and communities about what matters most.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Problem\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

The authors of No Child Left Behind acknowledge that the current accountability system is not producing the results they had hoped for. And it is resulting in unintended consequences, such as narrowing of the curriculum and the focus of schools. The data models conceived in 2001 and formalized through No Child Left Behind have not matured to provide real-time data for every student, every day. The time has come to stop doing the same thing year after year and make room for piloting innovations in next generation accountability.<\/span><\/p>\n

The current accountability models are not resulting in continuous improvement for schools and students because they are focused on comparability, compliance-based, based on data that comes too late, and top-down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Old Data Models\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The current accountability models are entrenched in the factory model approach to education and are time-based, rather than learning-based. They are more interested in assessing students on a single path based on age, rather than interest, ability, or growth. As a result, the current accountability and assessment frame prioritizes comparability of students and schools over cumulative validity of the evidence of outcomes. By over-relying on standardized tests, these systems favor comparability over validity and fly in the face of the science of learning. These tests rely on an overly narrow view of what students know and are able to do, prioritizing test item sameness over a comprehensive and multi-faceted framework of balanced assessments, evidence, and student outcomes that matter for well-rounded students. By prioritizing comparability and replicability, the metrics systems are held accountable for are not meaningful to students, families, or communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Overly Narrow Focus\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Compliance-based accountability entails narrow, time-based metrics of student achievement, cohorts of students with groups and sub-groups, and a one-size-fits-all approach. They measure whether students are \u201cproficient\u201d against arbitrary cut scores on a standardized test. These accountability systems have been designed to sort and identify the lowest performing 5% of schools in each state. Compliance-based accountability is about collecting data and reporting on that data disaggregated by subgroups to highlight the current inequities in the system. But now that those inequities are clear, accountability systems have been repeating that pattern over the last 21 years, rather than shifting to drive continuous improvement in teaching and learning or even create a better data model through personalized, competency-based education systems. These changes would collect better information on where students are in their learning progression and could be used to support more powerful student learning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Too Late<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The standardized assessments that drive accountability provide only a snapshot of student ability at one moment in time as an autopsy at the end of the school year. They emphasize test taking skills rather than lifelong learning skills. They provide data far too late for educators to improve instruction or better support those students. As a result, the current system doesn\u2019t focus on the continuous improvement and quality assurance that it purports to support. By the time educators have access to information on student progress, those students have moved on to new grade levels, schools, or systems. Systems must invest in building capacity for assessment literacy and continuous improvement for balanced systems of assessment that provide information on student mastery each and every day. Monitoring student progress effectively can be done with reliability in real-time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Top-down<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Finally, the current accountability system is top-down. It misses the necessary input of community and local control by placing all power in the hands of the federal and state governments. Lawmakers need to create room for innovating and sharing power with local communities with reciprocity in accountability. To design these reciprocal accountability systems, we need to ask questions such as, \u201cWhat does the federal government need to know?\u201d \u201cWhat do states need to know?\u201d and \u201cWhat do local communities want in an accountability system that is responsive to local needs?\u201d States have the power to define standards, set cut scores, and define how they intervene with struggling schools. But local communities should have a role in creating performance metrics to hold schools directly accountable to their students, families, employers, and communities, not just the lawmakers at the state and federal level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Policy Recommendations<\/b><\/p>\n

The current accountability systems fall short on providing timely, relevant information to families and educators, getting the resources to students who need them the most, and driving continuous improvement. To truly support student success, we must shift to accountability for continuous improvement, using evidence-based practices and performance frameworks to improve instruction, personalize learning and monitor progress in real time. In response to ongoing feedback and data, these systems drive change to improve and evolve practice. Continuously improving systems can evolve to ensure that students get the opportunities for learning, as well as the interventions and supports they need in real time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Designing effective, future-focused accountability systems, however, will require making space to pilot and innovate new approaches that are rooted in more meaningful and modern definitions of student success. Local communities across the country and nineteen states are working on creating new graduate profiles. This starts with engaging communities – students, families, employers, and more – in developing Profiles of a Graduate for a more complete vision of what a student should know and be able to do upon graduation. These profiles provide a holistic picture of the knowledge, skills, competencies, and abilities beyond traditional academic outcomes that students need to know and do before graduating.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From those graduate profiles, school systems can develop performance frameworks that encompass the most important aspects of success – this could include a frame using balanced systems of assessments of the following: tests, performance assessments, evidence of student work, and\/or capstones. But it could also involve emphasis on opportunities for learning such as career explorations, access to experiences like paid internships, support services for mental health and social emotional learning, and a balance of inputs and outcomes measures through surveys of school climate and belonging. These new locally-derived frameworks would provide the basis for exploring community goals and rethinking an accountability system that moves beyond single snapshot test scores and towards a more meaningful capture of student learning and well-rounded youth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These local performance frameworks will help define the metrics that schools and systems collect. In competency-based learning systems, educators use a graduate profile to communicate and report on mastery as students build knowledge and skills in real-time. Every student, parent, and educator has access to data on where students are on their learning progressions and evidence of students demonstrating mastery daily. Students and families are more empowered. And through that real-time data collection, systems can focus on continuous improvement around assessments for learning to build true quality assurance systems that allow educators and administrators to reflect on outcomes, improve instructional practice, and be more responsive to their communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Importantly, local communities should inform what those profiles, frameworks, and quality assurance systems prioritize. While many countries have been approaching quality assurance using performance frameworks informed by community and stakeholder engagement in accountability for years, it is an entirely new frame in the United States. As a result, we must open up avenues for piloting and testing innovative assessment and accountability approaches and allow communities to innovate and build capacity in real-time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The key to making this shift is \u201creciprocal accountability.\u201d Reciprocal accountability is the practice of mutual responsibility within a system. It is based on the idea that everyone involved in a given relationship must take responsibility for their roles and actions. This means that all parties must be accountable to each other for outcomes and goals, as well as their individual actions. The goal is to create an environment with transparent information where each party works together to achieve success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Bridging the Gap Between Standards and Achievement<\/span><\/em>, the late Harvard Professor Richard Elmore explains: \u201cAccountability must be a reciprocal process. For every increment of performance I demand from you, I have an equal responsibility to provide you with the capacity to meet that expectation. Likewise, for every investment you make in my skill and knowledge, I have a reciprocal responsibility to demonstrate some new increment in performance. This is the principle of reciprocity of accountability for capacity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To accomplish this goal and enable movement towards next generation accountability systems, states must:<\/span><\/p>\n