Should States Enforce 'Real World' Standards?

In the heat of an election year, the purpose for the very existence of a state department of education may be debated by legislative leaders and those vying for public office.

While our agency's purpose has not wavered in recent years, we now are struggling with how best to implement new legislation that will reshape the agency's overall charge, particularly as it relates to institutional and individual accountability on the local level. The agency's role in establishing performance standards is based on real-world expectations for student learning.

The accountability system in Texas already carries high-stakes consequences for students. Those who fail the state exit exam do not receive a high school diploma. Recent Legislation places more significant accountability at the district and building levels, where disaggregated data will link the evaluation of superintendents and principals to the performance of students at the district or campus.

Given the consequences of poor performance, critics raise some tough questions about the state's accountability system. They ask whether linkages between the state's curriculum, assessment system, and accountability procedures are adequate. They ask if the state curriculum is aligned with the real-world expectations for student learning.

If real-life skills are important, should assessments measure more than minimum skills and require students demonstrate higher-level thinking skills?

Another question is whether statewide performance standards are even appropriate for a student population as diverse as ours. High and undifferentiated performance standards for all students are essential in any accountability system. However, if not phased in carefully, they may do more harm than good if they erode public confidence in schools, given a situation where reality may fall far short of the state's ideal.

Consider some mitigating circumstances. How do we construct an effective delivery system to serve migrant students whose cumulative (not consecutive) days in a stable school setting may be, at best, 130 days? Where schools must rapidly accommodate thousands of immigrant students annually, many of whom enter with varying levels of formal education and many with a primary language other than English?

Obviously, the state's accountability system must strike a balance between the expectations of an increasing number of citizens concerned with their tax dollars who want immediate solutions and the actual conditions at the community and school levels.

The state's accountability system must be realistic and sensitive to practitioners who face serious challenges. It must recognize that poor student outcomes are often attributable partly to the long-term results of economic inequities and ineffective delivery systems for each student.

High standards for student performance must be incrementally established. Each year, the low-performance cut-off point on the state's subject-area skill assessments will rise gradually for all student populations. While we reward both high-performing and high-gain campuses, we simultaneously direct state and regional resources to assist campuses with unacceptably low performance.

Just as important is the issue of how to systematically coordinate three types of annual performance measurements: a school's performance in relation to statewide standards; the level of improvement in overall performance from one year to the next for the same group of students; and comparative performance among campuses and districts that share similar demographic characteristics. To build in these three measures, the system must attain the appropriate levels of definition and stability.

A state's accountability system also must evaluate the effectiveness of programs serving specific student populations in alternative settings. Whenever necessary, we must develop and use alternative performance measures to determine the impact of these programs.

Ultimately, to ensure success, we must identify programs that demonstrate strong and persistent gains for our most challenging student populations and support the replication of practices that are endemic to these successful programs.