Source: EdSource
By: John Fensterwald
Date: March 1, 2015
Related Staff: John T. Affeldt
The State Board of Education is seizing the chance to redefine student achievement and reframe how schools are held accountable for performance. It is in the throes of replacing the Academic Performance Index, the three-digit number that has been California’s narrow gauge of school progress for a decade and a half. The question is, what will take its place?
The state board could require lots of them. But board member Sue Burr, the board’s liaison in the evaluations rubrics process, said she views the evaluations rubrics primarily as a tool for districts’ self-assessment. For state accountability purposes, she favors holding districts accountable for perhaps no more than three metrics required in the evaluation rubrics. An accountability system should not resemble a checklist under the No Child Left Behind law, she said. “We want locals to embrace their responsibilities,” she said. John Affeldt, managing attorney of the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates and one of the authors of the civil rights coalition’s analysis, agreed in principle but said the coalition hasn’t yet taken a position on what would trigger intervention. “That’s a separate conversation,” he said.
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Under No Child Left Behind, schools that failed to meet proficiency targets were labeled Program Improvement schools, which was next to impossible to escape from, and the federal government gave them a narrow choice of interventions. Schools resented the process. State board members and legislative leaders say they want a constructive process, starting with county offices of education, which would review the districts’ evaluation rubrics and suggest forms of expertise and assistance. The civil rights coalition suggested a timetable of five to seven years for schools and student subgroups to make performance targets. But the requirement for “opportunity to learn” metrics, like ensuring that students have textbooks and qualified teachers, should be “absolute” and immediate, Affeldt said.
