Redefining What’s Meant by Quality

Executive Perspective

There is much hope among the education community that the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act will reduce the testing mania that has consumed our schools for several decades. The emphasis on accountability measured solely by the scores on standardized tests has led to a culture that emphasizes teaching to the test and quality education defined by a number. A number judges the school as failing and a number equally defines a teacher’s evaluation.

ESSA still requires states to administer an exam to measure performance in language arts, math and science, but it also grants states and school districts the opportunity to include other metrics that would measure other student outcomes as well as social-emotional factors. This is the time to redefine what we consider to be a quality education. This is the time to redefine what we mean by college and career ready.

Accountability by test score did accurately uncover the achievement gap that exists between middle class white students and minority students living in poverty. But even with overall increases in test scores, the achievement gap persists. Millions of dollars have been spent in attempts to close the gap, yet it remains.

Negative Correlations

Is it conceivable to assume that, for as long as we define success in educating our students by a score on a test, the achievement gap will never close? We accept the fact that poverty has an adverse effect on achievement. We know that students who come to school hungry or sick or both are not ready to learn. We know that students who lack health insurance and who do not receive medical care when they are sick will be absent from school and missing their lessons. We know that thousands of children are homeless and that many more come from single-parent or no-parent homes. We know there is almost a perfect negative correlation between academic achievement and the existence of the above conditions. Yet when schools attempt to provide the comprehensive wraparound services that support the needs of these students, when schools attempt to care for students so they come to school ready to learn, they get no credit for it unless they are closing the achievement gap.

Successes in improved attendance, reduced dropout rates, increased graduation rates and reduced discipline issues are factors that should count in determining accountability. Research should come up with metrics that identify when a student is ready to learn so that, as part of an accountability system, superintendents will be able to justify the reallocation of resources to provide the student support services needed for students who otherwise may be mentally or physically absent.

We want all students to receive the best education possible, but we continue to ignore the effects of poverty and the impoverished living conditions that many of those students experience. We want to hold those students to the same standards that we hold our wealthy suburban school systems. This amounts to equality in accountability but not equity of resources.

A Pervasive Condition

AASA is attempting to redefine readiness for college and career through metrics that transcend a score on a test. The inclusion of social-emotional factors will make a difference not just in determining whether students are ready for college or career, but also in evaluating the impact that those factors have in helping to improve the quality of life of those students.

On a recent trip to Alaska, I heard from superintendents about the high suicide rate among tribal students, about alcoholism and drug abuse and an insidious absentee rate. Not surprisingly, Alaska ranks 49th in student achievement. Is it even permissible in our current test-oriented society to consider that the lives of students may be more important than the results on a test? Can we consider dealing with these life-and-death issues and substance abuse problems and give them a higher priority than academic achievement?

Alaska does not hold a monopoly on those issues. These are problems that play out throughout our country among our Native American populations and in urban, suburban and rural communities.

An education is absolutely important, but we need to recognize that schools have to deal with the needs of children that stand in the way of getting that education. Perhaps we may see that once these children are ready to learn, the all-too-pervasive achievement gap will start to disappear. We can begin by redefining that a quality education is more than just a score on a test.