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Guess who’s souring on test-based accountability?
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Education Trust is an influential education reform organization. In its thirty years of operation, they have championed data-driven decision making for educational equity, but also the charter schools and test-based accountability era that was ushered in with No Child Left Behind. It is significant then that their former national policy director penned a mea culpa opinion piece citing the problems of a school grading system based primarily on standardized test scores.
Author Ross Wiener cites that the narrow focus on reading and math has robbed attention from other factors that predict and produce better student outcomes than a test: a sense of belonging, social well-being, critical thinking, and character. These factors are notoriously hard to measure yet are the very foundations of good public education. But for 25 years, every school child in the country has been boxed in by these outdated measures. Weiner writes:
You cannot accountability-pressure your way to better educational outcomes when chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed, misbehavior is common, students are disengaged and skeptical that school prepares them for the lives they want to lead, and teachers feel not just tired but stripped of the professional trust that makes the work meaningful.
The legislature came close to passing meaningful accountability reform last session that would have included several of the measures mentioned in this piece, but instead we got a watered-down testing package in the form of House Bill 8 (89(2)). If the goal is to restore faith in the accountability system and have it measure what is important to communities and to the workforce, then a significant overhaul is long overdue.
The House Public Education committee has yet to announce the interim hearing where HB 8 will get a spotlight. Texas AFT will continue to follow these developments closely and provide important updates in future editions.
