In the Face of Uncertainty
Political uncertainty in every era pushes education leaders into one of two directions. The first, and most common, is the path of paralysis: “We can’t respond until we know what to do,” these leaders lament. This strikes us as curious, as the same leaders often express deep resentment of policy hierarchies that have, during the years 2001–2016, issued one directive after another. Most of these policy prescriptions, particularly those associated with accountability systems based on student test scores and Byzantine teacher evaluation systems (no offense intended to the Byzantine Empire), have been counterproductive. Time that could have been profitably devoted to teaching and learning has been diverted to test prep and mind-numbing documentation of teacher evaluation systems.
But now that schools, districts, and states have been liberated from these restrictions, education leaders following the first path remain paralyzed, waiting for one bureaucratic system to be replaced by another, as if toxic micromanagement from a national capital would magically be better displaced by the same policies from a state capital.
There is a better way, and that is the path this book suggests. Schools, districts, and states can pursue a new way—accountability as a learning system. They can focus on known best practices in teaching and learning, with collaborative work among teachers and administrators at every level. We believe that the fundamental purpose of educational accountability is improving student learning through improved teaching and leadership practices. This is in stark contrast to those who believe that the purpose of educational accountability is to rate, rank, evaluate, and humiliate schools and the teachers and administrators who work there.
While we know that schools should not be immune from criticism, we have seen no evidence that criticism, ratings, and rankings have led to improved student achievement. At the heart of the PLC process is a continuous source of feedback that helps students, teachers, and administrators understand how to improve. Just as PLCs are a learning system for collaborative teams of teachers, our vision of accountability is that the PLC framework can help entire districts, states, and ultimately the world.
Education systems have an unprecedented opportunity to redefine in fundamental terms what the phrase educational accountability really means.
We write with a sense of urgency. As the following chapters demonstrate, education systems have an unprecedented opportunity to redefine in fundamental terms what the phrase educational accountability really means. Readers will discover the opportunity to engage in fundamental transformation, from accountability as a means for public humiliation, supported by dubious and opaque statistical systems, to accountability as a learning system, one that helps students, teachers, education leaders, and policymakers use the information from accountability systems to inform professional practice and policymaking in real time.
After considering the history of education oversight in the United States in chapter 1, we then examine ESSA and how states can respond to this legislation in chapters 2 and 3. In chapter 4, we provide an example of how an individual school might respond to ESSA, elevating collaboration over a tradition of competitive private practice. In chapters 5 and 6, we consider how districts and states, respectively, can respond to ESSA. In these chapters, we offer a three-tiered accountability system in which districts and states consider accountability indicators that are common to all schools, such as safety and academic achievement, and illuminate these results with accountability indicators that are unique to the needs of each individual school. Our theme in these chapters is that accountability is more than a litany of test scores. Educational accountability becomes a learning system only when effects—student achievement—are linked to causes—specific actions of teachers, leaders, parents, and policymakers. Finally, in chapter 7, we consider the path ahead for ESSA.
Let us state at the outset that this is not the time for education leaders to wait and see what might happen in terms of state and federal policymaking. Rather, we ask these provocative questions: “Under what conceivable political or economic environment will effective teaching and leadership not be important? Under what set of circumstances will the best professional practices available (teacher collaboration through the PLC at Work process) not be the most effective and professional path for teachers and leaders to follow? What level of uncertainty would justify decision-making paralysis by teachers, administrators, and policymakers?”
In sum, we ask you to consider the evidence and practices in the following pages not because they are a reflection of legislation and regulations but rather because responding to ESSA through the PLC at Work process is the right thing to do under any law, administration, or political environment. The time for action is now. There is no excuse for delay. There is no justification for temporizing. Our students and our communities deserve our best, and they deserve it immediately.
CHAPTER 1
A Brief History of Education Oversight in the United States
In December 2015, Americans witnessed an event even rarer than a lunar eclipse. A deeply divided and fractious U.S. Congress passed a significant piece of legislation with strong bipartisan support. That law, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), is the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act originally passed in 1965. ESSA redefines the role of the federal government in K–12 education and, in many ways, is a dramatic departure from the previous No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2002) and the Race to the Top program (U.S. Department of Education, 2009). The authority of states and districts to oversee their own school-improvement processes is significantly enhanced, while the role of the federal government in school reform and accountability is dramatically reduced. Before examining the details and potential of the new law, let’s briefly review past U.S. education-reform efforts and how the federal government contributed to those efforts.
A Look Back
According to the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (U.S. Const. amend. X). This provision provides the basis of the legal theory that education is a function of the states rather than the federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court and the state courts have consistently ruled that education is one of the powers reserved for the states.
However, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) established that the federal government could limit the authority of the states when it comes to education. The plaintiffs in the case argued that state-sanctioned racially segregated schools should be ruled unconstitutional because they violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s provision that citizens cannot be denied equal protection of the law (U.S. Const. amend. XIV). The defendants argued that the issue had been repeatedly addressed in the courts from the time of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which authorized “separate but equal” schools, and the courts consistently supported racial segregation if the state provided equal facilities to both races.
John Davis, a renowned attorney representing the defendants, argued before the court, “This court has not once but seven times, I think, pronounced in favor of the ‘separate but equal’