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Raising Our Standards:
Assessment and Equity in
the Oakland Public Schools
Anthony Cody
August, 1997
I. Introduction
Lackluster educational outcomes
have led to a renewed emphasis on standards and assessment nationally.
Those concerned with the future of poor and minority students
must take action in those instances where the schools are truly
failing to educate. To demonstrate this failure requires data,
and the main sources of such data continue to be standardized
test results. However, traditional standardized tests have been
roundly criticized for systematic bias against minorities, and
for encouraging teachers to narrow their curricular aims to suit
the demands of the tests. Performance-based tests are being developed
to correct these problems, providing supposedly more reliable
measures of student abilities, and modeling the type of instruction
desired. It remains unclear, however, if these tests will help
correct inequities, or merely continue to reflect them.
The Oakland Unified School District
(OUSD), where I have taught junior high school science for the
past nine years, is attempting to develop a heightened sense
of accountability on all levels. Educational leaders in Oakland
currently rely on standardized tests for critical performance
data, but they recognize the problematic nature of this, and
are pursuing the development of alternatives. I will look at
the systems Oakland has in place, the administration's plans
for future measures of student performance, and briefly explore
teachers' perspectives on the subject. In particular, I want
to uncover how a renewed emphasis on standards and student outcomes
fits with efforts to reform education in the district. How can
this approach moves us ahead? What are the pitfalls, especially
in district that is composed primarily of students who are non-white?
Background on Oakland Public
Schools
There are approximately 53,000 students
enrolled in Oakland's public schools. They are distributed among
60 elementary, 13 middle, and 6 high schools, as well as a handful
of other, more specialized schools. The District's student population
is 52% African American, 22% Hispanic, 19% Asian, 6% white, .8%
Pacific Islander, and .4% American Indian.21 A sizable proportion
of these students are eligible for free or reduced price lunches,
meaning their families are living at or below the poverty level.
Approximately 24% of these students are Limited English Proficient
(LEP). Within the District there are extreme demographic variations
from site to site. Some schools in West Oakland are 99% African
American, while some schools in the Oakland hills have a majority
of their students that are white. The economic imbalances are
similar. The altitude of a neighborhood correlates with the level
of income earned by the residents there - the higher in the hills
you go, the more expensive the homes, and the wealthier the inhabitants.
This wealth directly affects the schools. A number of hills schools,
such as Joaquin Miller and Chabot, have parent groups that annually
raise in excess of $100,000 to support special programs at these
sites.
Educational achievement, as measured
by CTBS tests, and more recently, the Terra Nova exam, largely
reflects the socio-economic status of the students. Some of the
schools in West Oakland score below the tenth percentile. The
majority of schools in the District score in the twentith through
thirty-fifth percentiles, compared with the rest of the state.
Some of the "hill"schools score in the 60th and 70th
percentile range.
The four-week-long 1996 teacher
strike focused the community's attention on the need for reform
in Oakland's schools. Teachers complained of over-sized classes
and an oversized bureaucracy. District leadership responded with
a variety of initiatives designed to increase accountability
at all levels. Prominent among these were the promulgation of
clear curriculum standards, so that teachers, students and parents
would have a common understanding about what was to be taught.
I led a group of secondary science teachers last summer through
a two-week long process to define new curriculum standards for
middle and high school science. These standards became the District
guidelines, and were distributed in pamphlet form to teachers
and parents. Associate Superintendent Terry Mazany has pushed
the same group of teachers to develop performance-based assessments
to measure how well these standards are being implemented, but
this process has not yet begun. The District also launched a
training effort, led by the Efficacy Institute, designed to give
staff a new way to look at student achievement, putting a priority
of the role of effective effort, and deemphasizing "innate"
ability.
II. Literature Review
Criticisms of Standardized Assessment
Oakland currently uses the Terra
Nova test, a standardized test which has taken the place of the
CTBS test. Terra Nova is more modern and colorful, but does not
represent a real departure from the traditional multiple choice
test. These tests are one of the measures Oakland's central administration
uses to determine if a school is providing an effective, quality
program.
Standardized tests offer data, but
this data must be questioned. Neill and Medina (1989) point out
that these tests are often systematically biased against minority
and low-income students. In the past, these tests have been used
to justify tracking and placement of African American students
in special education classes, when such placement was inappropriate.
These tests often lead to a self-fulfilling prophecies on the
part of both students and teachers. Neill suggests that educational
reform can be actually stifled, as teachers resort to rote memorization
and shallow surveys of content to attempt to prepare their students
for multiple choice exams.
Alternatives to Traditional Tests
If standardized tests lead teachers
to "teach to the test," resulting in a narrow, shallow
curriculum, then why not change the tests? Underpinning the drive
for new standards is the assumption that, so long as teachers
are going to teach to a test, let's have them teach to a test
that represents good educational practices. Grant Wiggins (1996)
advocates development of performance-based assessments, focussing
on the purpose of assessment, which he defines as helping the
student learn, and the teacher instruct. John Frederickson (1994)
agrees, suggesting that now that we have national curricular
standards in place, our next task is the creation of effective
authentic assessments.
A Review of High-Stakes Exams
It is not surprising, perhaps, that
when high stakes (significant positive and/or negative consequences)
are applied to outcomes on traditional standardized tests, problems
arise. Lorrie Shepard (1991) sounds a note of warning, writing,
Research evidence on the effects
of traditional standardized tests when used as high-stakes accountability
is strikingly negative. It would not be far fetched to say that
testing in the past decade has actually reduced the quality of
instruction for many students rather than improving education.
If tests are developed in advance of curriculum change, without
teacher training, and imposed externally, with factory-like ideas
of how to create scores, then it is likely that the new tests
will show many of the samepernicious effects as old tests.
What happens when schools are held
accountable for student performance using more advanced, authentic
assessments, as advocated by Wiggins? Sarah Freedman (1994) researched
high-stakes testing in England, and concluded,
The evidence from the British experience
suggests that a system of high-stakes examinations even
well-designed, performance-based examinations presents
a flawed foundation on which to build a national reform movement.
My evidence further suggests that high stakes exams have the
potential to move us away from, rather than towards, the end
point we all want to achieve.
From the San Francisco Chronicle
of July 2, 1997, comes a brief note from England, which seems
to confirm Freedman's fears:
Cheating on last month's national
math and science exams for British 11-year-olds was widespread,
according to allegations in the Guardian. The cheaters were teachers.
In interviews, (unnamed) instructors tell of unsealing questions
in advance and coaching students or of providing answers during
the exams when students looked perplexed. That's the only way
to "protect" socially disadvantaged schools from low
scores that will discourage parents, teachers say. (The tests
are more to measure schools than evaluate students.) A deputy
superintendent in an inner city district estimates that "over
half the schools in our authority have cheated in one way or
another. You can tell the ones that haven't because they're the
ones at the bottom...."
Noble and Smith (1994) point out
that a heavy reliance on test scores for accountability purposes
leads to intense, narrow efforts by schools to boost those scores
-- and those scores may not reflect real learning. In fact, a
recent issue of the journal, Educational Leadership, especially
devoted to assessment, featured two articles touting the advantages
of intensive preparations for standardized tests. Both sets of
authors (Walton and Taylor; Ewy, 1996) attempt to make standardized
tests an occasion for real learning. Perhaps if tests are to
be accorded great meaning, they should be posed as problem-solving
exercises for the students. But we must ask, how accurate will
our measurement of student progress be, when we end up comparing
one set of students who have spent months preparing for a test,
to another group engaged in other, equally legitimate and perhaps
more educationally relevant study? What, after all, are we measuring?
Standards for Whom? Set by Whom?
The standards under consideration
were set at the national level by various professional bodies.
Mathematics standards were created by the National Council of
Teachers of Math (NCTM); science standards by the National Research
Council. English and social studies were set in similar fashions.
The current wave of standards-based reforms was launched by President
Bush's 1990 Governor's Education Summit, which adopted a set
of targets called "Goals 2000." Nell Nodding (1996)
argues that if goals are to be meaningful, they must be owned
by those for whom they are set. Writing on behalf of the National
Middle School Association, Gordon Vars (1997) asserts the need
for student involvement in the creation of standards. He writes,
"Middle level students need to participate in all phases
of assessment and evaluation, helping to set individual and group
goals, identifying ways to measure progress, and evaluating their
own accomplishments." He points out, "This approach
would appear to be contrary to the current emphasis on externally
imposed standards and assessment."
Hartenbach (1996) describes an example
of community involvement in the creation of standards, which
begins to address some of the concerns raised by Noddings and
Vars. Staff, parents and community members in Aurora, Colorado,
took several years to develop principles to guide their reform
effort,which they called performance-based education (PBE). He
writes,
The school system adopted five learner
outcomes that require students to be self-directed learners,
collaborative workers, complex thinkers, community contributors,
and quality producers. These learner characteristics focus on
the skills for successful learning both in and out of the classroom.
Integral to our educational vision are content standards that
define what students should know and be able to do at graduation
and at benchmarks along the way.
The authors emphasize the laborious
process involved in making change, but seem to feel real progress
has been made. The process begins with the adoption of standards,
and moves ahead through the design of curriculum and instructional
strategies to meet those standards. Students not performing at
acceptable levels are targeted for special interventions. Standardized
performance tests administered for the first time in the spring
of 1996 showed students performing in 60th to 70th percentile.
The normal range of scores in the district had been previously
been at or below the 40th percentile, using the more traditional
Iowa Test of Basic Skills. These local efforts to define standards
can be harmonized with a national system that sets broad goals.
In a sense, the local standards represent the application of
national goals to local conditions.
Tests and Equity
The Aurora experience shows the
value of local initiative in setting real change in motion. However,
leaders are not always patient with the pace of change at the
local level, as Mary Lee Smith (1997) reveals in her fascinating
history and analysis of the Arizona Student Assessment Program
(ASAP). ASAP, a statewide performance-based testing system, was
developed to encourage teachers to change the way they taught,
by asking their students to demonstrate their skills by performing
authentic tasks. Smith discovered a pattern of problems. One
school which had scored low created special "ASAP classes"
to prepare for the test. Some teachers took integrated units
provided by the state and "dis-integrated" them, teaching
each part separately. Teachers tended to compromise the curricular
and pedagogical aims of the ASAP to bring them into line with
their own, more traditional practices. Smith writes,
In addition to compromise through
misconception, the intentions of the reforms were compromised
in schools and districts that tried to implement ASAP while at
the same time retaining local policies and practices that are
inconsistent with it. In trying to respond to both, teachers
not only compromise the reform agenda, but wear themselves outwith
their good-faith efforts.
One district with high numbers of
minority students felt these students had such deficits that
they could not be expected to do well on a holistic test like
the ASAP. One teacher said, "these kids can't write anything
if they don't have skills. They can't transfer what they don't
know. They don't know because they don't have life experience
and they don't have language." What is interesting is the
kernel of truth in this teacher's rather dire observation. The
children in question clearly do not lack "life experience."
After all, they have been alive, not comatose. However, their
life experiences may not be "normal," as defined by
the expectations of the tests being offered. Even a performance-based
assessment may or may not match the experiences and background
of the students being given it. Furthermore, if the teachers
do not expect the students to be able to think for themselves,
they will not be providing them with a curriculum that provides
preparation to do so. This district primarily emphasized a criterion-referenced
multiple choice test, even after the implementation of ASAP,
since the teachers there lacked confidence that their students
were intellectually capable of performing well on ASAP.
On the other hand, some schools
with large minority populations were already responding to the
needs of their students effectively. In these cases Smith felt
ASAP actually imposed a drag on their efforts. One teacher summed
up her frustration this way:
You know, there are other schools
that needed the ASAP to make them teach holistic. We didn't need
it. We were already teaching that way. So I look at it now more
as a hindrance because I was already doing the right thing. By
taking up so much instructional time, I end up doing less of
the right thing and doing it less well.
Smith felt that, on the whole, ASAP
only succeeded in locations where conditions were particularly
auspicious. She describes a set of conditions needed for success.
The first of these are the materials, expertise and money needed
to train teachers and build the capacity for change. The second
is an "assumptive world" in harmony with that of ASAP.
Schools with a deficit orientation towards their students, and
teacher-centered curriculum, adapted poorly. Ironically, districts
without high-stakes accountability systems did best, since they
tended to try to use both the traditional measures and ASAP,
and never changed their instruction to support the ASAP approach.
In one school studied, however, a small group of constructivist-oriented
teachers succeeded in using ASAP to justify positive, but previously
unpopular, changes in their school's curriculum.
Smith also raised concern over the
dual intentions of the ASAP. Can a test which is supposed to
be an instructional tool, guiding teachers to a different kind
of teaching, also serve as high-stakes assessment, ensuring accountability?
Smith argues that these aims are at war with each other, and
that ultimately, it was the accountability role which won out
for the test. She closes with this caution:
Differential validity and unequal
opportunities to learn, demonstrated in this study, strongly
suggest that, had decisions such as grade promotion, tracking,
and high school graduation been tied to ASAP results, poor children,
children of color, and children whose first language is not English
would have been harmed by this reform.
Looking at the state of science
education nationally, Ira Weiss (1997) has similar concerns.
He points out:
There was also considerable evidence
that the goal of quality education for all students has not yet
been achieved. While there has been some progress made in increasing
the number of students who take rigorous science and mathematics
courses, classes with large numbers of minority students were
less likely to have access to well-qualified teachers and other
resources.
and concludes,
Finally, it is essential that reform
efforts recognize that while the NCTM (National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics) and NRC (National Research Council -- science)
standards call for high expectations and quality instruction
for all students, schools are not alike in their capacity to
implement these recommendations. Policymakers must take steps
to ensure that adequate resources including well-prepared
teachers, appropriate facilities, and high quality instructional
materials are available to all schools. Otherwise, schools
without the resources to effectively implement new, higher standards
will be left even farther behind.
These are not empty warnings. As
the Arizona experience demonstrated, simply imposing new standards
and means of measuring performance is not enough to overcome
patterns of inequality. Unfortunately, "policymakers"
are not all powerful in providing the resources needed to fulfill
their visions.
Equity and the Efficacy Model
In 1996, after a disastrous and
devisive four-week long teachers' strike, Oakland administrators
announced they were launching a new initiative to address community
concerns about poor student performance. Jeffrey Howard, director
of the Efficacy Institute, delivered a strong message to the
audience at the Oakland Mayor's Education Summit. Howard challenges
the "ability model" of success, which says that students
do better or worse based on innate characteristics. Instead,
Howard emphasizes what he calls "effective effort."
It is a message aimed at counteracting the effects of centuries
of racism. Here is how Howard (1989) summarizes his approach:
Many children of color learn from
an early age that there are doubts concerning their capacity
to develop intellectually. Messages communicated from school
(low ability placements in the primary grades), from peers (pervasive
anti-intellectualism within the peer group), and the media (expectations
of inferiority) all serve to impress upon them that they may
not be up to the task of advanced studies. The lack of confidence
engendered by the internalization of these messages shapes the
meaning of any failure ("I guess this proves I'm not smart")
and undermines the capacity to work ("Why bang my head against
the wall if I'm unable to learn the stuff anyway?"). To
redress these circumstances, Efficacy works to plant an alternative
idea in the child's mind: "If I work hard enough, I can
get smart."
The Efficacy Institute is a Lexington,
Mass., nonprofit organization that provides consulting services
to urban school districts. Judith Brody Saks, (1995) summarizes
the message and impact of the Efficacy Institute. Saks describes
the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, which has been using
the Efficacy model for several years. High school students must
write a comprehensive thesis paper. Grade-level standards have
been set k-12. "The district identified all the objectives
youngsters must master and established a criterion-referenced
test system to evaluate students' progress and to help teachers
adjust instruction to keep youngsters moving forward." The
superintendent in Charlotte-Mecklenburg has done a number of
things to promote success:
- Cut central administration to devote
additional funds to instruction.
- Put in place a strong accountability
system for principals, including annual performance assessments.
Seventy-five of the system's 125 principals are new.
- Paid each principal and certificated
staff member a $1,000 bonus, each support staffer $450, when
they hit their benchmark goals. Goals are generally set 5 to
10% above current performance. In the first year, 15% of the
schools met their goals. The second year, 80% did so.
The Efficacy message places a great
responsibility on teachers, as they are the agents, in the position
to convince youngsters of their ability. It is a message of power,
saying that our students are not hopeless victims of life's circumstances,
but powerful learners. For this power to be more than a slogan,
however, school cultures must change, and the slogans regarding
learning must be borne out with effective curriculum and instructional
methods.
Standards, Expectations and School
Change
The halls of our schools in Oakland
are littered with the corpses of past reform efforts. Each superintendent
has brought in his or her brand of educational elixir, to cure
what ailed us. The literature is full of exhortations to change,
but sober assessments of the difficulties encountered are rarer.
Pogrow (1996) offers a rather scathing critique of would-be reformers
of education. He perceives a research community peddling a constantly
rotating
smorgasborg of half-baked solutions,
and educational leaders who repeatedly fail, but turn to the
experts each time with renewed hope. Each time a fresh approach
is tried, change is justified not on the proven virtue of the
new, but on the proven failure of the old. He suggests that emphasis
on slogans such as "All students can learn" do not
get us any closer to that reality. Further, he proposes that
educational researchers should "...start by being honest
and saying that we do not know what works for the educationally
disadvantaged student, that we do not know how to get students
thinking on a higher level, that we do not know how to increase
their motivation to learn, and that we do not know how to systematically
blend the best of progressive and traditional ideas." He
further suggests that "Significantly improving the learning
of educationally disadvantaged students on a large scale requires
fundamental breakthroughs inthe development of powerful and highly
systematic technologies, and people must be willing to invest
a decade of work in pursuit of that goal. ...(M)ass advocacy
should follow, not precede, the careful development and large-scale
testing of techniques."
Pogrow's emphasis on technique rings
true, to the extent that one cannot simply achieve student success
by proclamation. However, his analysis places the blame for past
failure on the research establishment, and any hope for the future
is likewise tied to the behavior of this elite. He thus de-emphasizes
the role of local practitioners and leaders, resulting in a rather
gloomy outlook.
Summary
The progressive literature related
to standards and assessment emphasizes the need for local definition
of educational goals, including the involvement of students and
teachers. New forms of assessment emphasize authentic expressions
of student learning. The attachment of high stakes to assessment
raises some troubling concerns regarding equity. If traditional
assessment is given high-stakes status, the biases of such tests
are reified. Attaching high stakes to performance-based tests
can also reinforce inequity, and further result in the corruption
of the reform intent embodied in those tests, as has been seen
in Arizona in England. The Efficacy Institute offers a rationale
for the raising of standards, which has apparently helped some
districts to boost expectations for students. Higher standards,
and assessments to measure students as they are faced with these
standards, are only a small part of the fabric needed to sustain
real educational change. To generate forward movement, standards
and assessment must be accompanied by efforts to actively overcome
inequity, and creatively develop effective instructional methods.
III. Research Methods
To discover how the leadership of
the Oakland Unified School District saw balancing these issues,
I arranged an interview with Associate Superintendent Terry Mazany
(see Appendix A). Since much of the
reform process depends on the participation and leadership of
teachers, I also surveyed two groups of teachers, collecting
responses from eleven individuals (see Appendix
B).
IV. Data and Analysis
Assessment and Accountability
The interview with Mr. Mazany revealed
a degree of awareness of a number of the issues of concern. He
described the District's assessment structure in this way:
I see at least three categories
of measurement. One are the Terra Nova test results. The second
are the performance assessments done district-wide at benchmark
grade levels. The third are promotional and graduation projects,
like senior projects for all high school students, an eighth
grade project, fifth grade, if we focused in on science, for
instance, it could be we say "all fifth graders need to
be doing a science fair project, that gets assessed according
to a rubric and standards." So those categories, and then
a fourth area might be in terms of end of course, or end of unit
in-classroom tests, that the teachers would develop, so that
if you're taking 7th grade English, that across the board, in
all 14 middle schools, at the semester break, there would be
a common assessment in order to help to kind of calibrate all
of the courses.
Of the tests he refers to, however,
only the Terra Nova exams are in place. The other, more authentic
assessments, keyed to District standards, have yet to be created.
This raises a concern about equity.
If these standardized tests are not accurate in reflecting the
abilities of LEP and minority students, and don't model the style
of teaching we desire, then why use them at all? Most of the
teachers surveyed evinced great discomfort with these tests,
and the messages which were sent to their students. One teacher
wrote,
I hate them! My students were extremely
nervous, hated the whole thing. I told them the tests were designed
for students whose primary language is English, and not to worry
if it was way too hard, but how could they not worry? We haven't
gotten our results back yet, but I know it does not reflect all
the progress they made this year and what they can do. It also
is in no way helpful for planning instruction.
Mr. Mazany seem to suggest that
he welcomed these objections:
I've personally shifted in my look
at standardized achievement, in terms of, to me, they're not
the measures that I would like, in a kind of a Grant Wiggins
world, and I'd buy into that perspective, but from a whole systems
perspective, and especially with the Terra Nova, it's better
than having nothing. So I'm comfortable there, and what I'm hoping
is, as people utilize this set of measures, then that will actually
give motivation to say, "But Terry, it doesn't test this,
or this or this" -- great, that's exactly where we need
to develop that performance assessment, to get a more balanced
and complete assessment of student performance.
So from Mr. Mazany's point of view,
standardized tests are functioning as a sort of place marker
for accountability; one that schools will be held accountable
for until we come up with something better. In addition, the
central administration is using a host of other tools to measure
the quality of a school. Mr. Mazany described some of these.
One is a series of student outcome
measures; the Terra Nova test scores; attendance; LEP redesignation
rates; GPA's at the upper grades, attendance in Advanced Placement
courses, things like that. Recognition and participation in the
Oratorical [District-sponsored Martin Luther King Oratorical
Contest], Math Olympics, Fit to Achieve, grants that the schools
might get, partnerships recognition awards, teacher of the year
came from our school awards, those sort of things. And then the
operational issues would be things like, have they got a balanced
budget, they've got their instructional minutes correct.
With standards defined, accountability
begins to become operational. The next step, according to Mr.
Mazany, is to let everyone know where they stand. This fall all
schools will receive "Report Cards," which will be
broadly distributed. These report cards will inform the school,
students and parents of where they are strong, and where they
need to improve. Mr. Mazany described one possible way the school
might respond, involving the parents.
Let's take Terra Nova as a crystal
clear example. To improve student performance for next year,
the parents have got to be mobilized this fall. There are things
that parents can begin to do. It basically needs to be a school-wide
inquiry, studying the data. I've asked, for instance, the year-round
schools this summer, for the teachers to begin that process by
debriefing with their students in the classroom; "What was
your experience with the test? What areas were difficult? What
kind of questions did you have to guess at? What were easy?"
Let's get some data directly from the student's point of view.
Let's feed that into our analysis of the scores. We've got to
bring the parents in and look at this. What does this mean for
their children? For our community as a whole? What are the things
the parents can do to reinforce what we need the students to
be mastering?
What will be the consequence for
schools incapable of responding effectively? Recent newspaper
reports raised the spectre of "reconstitution," the
wholesale dismantling of a school staff. Superintendent Carolyn
Getridge informed the press that such measures would only follow
intensive efforts to rescue the school in question. Mr. Mazany
described several steps the District would take.
We've defined it in terms of intensive
support. So the first step of that intensive support would be
an analysis of the data, all these multiple measures, to see
exactly where is it that the school is falling short of the characteristics
of being an exemplary school, and then identifying -- it could
be as simple as, here's a principal who's new and doesn't understand
the operational routines, to how to get a school functioning.
Or it could be that the school is simply devoid of an instructional
vision. Now there's one school in particular that I'm aware of
from the recent principal interviews that the school is out of
control, and the teachers don't believe that they can institute
good classroom management to bring about an instructional environment.
Then we target resources towards that in terms of teacher training,
in terms of putting one of the grade level directors at that
school site the first week with the principal, to coach the teachers
in the classrooms, to make sure the school starts out with a
healthy environment from day one, and establishes that pattern.
Maybe the only area of downfall is really the test scores, and
so then it becomes making sure there's a staff development expert
attached to the school, taking them through all their minimum
days to focus on improvement strategies.
Immediate attention seems to be
focused on principals. Though many of the criteria for measuring
the quality of a school are not the exclusive responsibility
of the principal, Mr. Mazany made clear there are high expectations
in place.
Principals should have had a better
inkling than they've ever had about whether or not they were
secure in their jobs this year. One thing, that we didn't do
a blanket March 15th letter [layoff notice] for everybody. And
we had clear indicators for principals, so if they were paying
attention, they would know. This next year, we're going to have
even crisper, more refined measures for principal's performance,
so it should be no surprise to any principal when the March 15th
letters come out, of why I got one, and it should be no surprise
in June if I didn't get reassigned a principalship, because the
objective data are going to be there on which those decisions
are made.
Equity Issues
Recent attention in Oakland has
been paid to poor outcomes for African American students. As
was described earlier, the lowest test scores occur in the predominately
African American schools in East and West Oakland. The recent
African American Task Force report showedAfrican American high
school students to have an average GPA of 1.8, while white and
Asian students have averages over 3.0. Mr. Mazany was reluctant
to characterize the problems along ethnic lines, however. He
acknowledged that hills schools had advantages not shared by
flatland schools, however, and suggested that investigation into
inequitable outcomes may reveal inequitable distribution of resources,
and that this would be acted upon, to ensure that schools get
the support they need.
Efficacy: Changing Beliefs
The Efficacy Institute's message
offers a strong challenge to those who would accept massive failure
on the part of students. I asked Mr. Mazany to explain how this
fit into his vision of reform.
Efficacy establishes the belief
system, the principles, and the concrete strategies for all students
achieving at a high level. To my dismay, we have, to me a sizable,
30, 40% of our population [of teachers and staff], and this is
just a guesstimate, that not even are consciously aware of sorting
and selecting students into those who simply will not perform,
because "I've been teaching for 20 years, and I can tell,
the first day of class, this group of students is not going to
succeed." ....And we have to undo that. And when we undo
that, we also have to put in place a set of practices which will
deliver a greater number of students who are successfully mastering
and achieving what we want.
For Efficacy to be efficacious,
it must be embraced by the teachers on whom it places such a
great responsibility. Of the teachers surveyed, only four of
the eleven reported having experienced the Efficacy training.
All four, however, seemed to agree with its objectives and philosophy.
Mr. Mazany provided a broader view, reflecting his experience.
For some teachers it clicks, and
it makes perfect sense, and they get almost zealous....religious.
So at a minimum, I would guess that it has that religious experience
for about 30 to 40% of the teachers, then there's another 20
to 30% who are more practical, pragmatic, "well, I can use
it." And then there's another 20 or 30% that absolutely
hates it.
Problematically, if the 30% who
reject the message are the same 30 to 40% earlier identified
as having a negative view of student potentials, then the Efficacy
trainings will not have been successful in changing those most
in need of it. Nonetheless, a philosophy capable of galvanizing
a third of the teachers in a school in a positive direction is
a valuable tool for change, even if it does not succeed in reaching
all.
Centralization vs. Autonomy
One problem frequently identified
with reform efforts is their tendency to be top-down affairs.
A group at the national or state level decides on a set of standards,
and then everyone is expected to get on board, in spite of their
lack of involvement in the process. Although the reform effort
under consideration is a local effort, there exists tension between
the school sites and the central District administration. Here
is how Mr. Mazany described the situation.
What I see is going on in the District
right now is a pendulum shift, from a district that actually
had a lot of site autonomy, because there were no guideline structures
and standards in place. The last two years has been a very deliberate
centralizing of decision-making to establish some guidelines,
establishing the features of quality schools. Now we've got all
of these features rolling out and we're now at the point as all
of this comes online this fall, now the pendulum, to me, should
legitimately start to shift back to within these standardized
frameworks, sites have a lot of room to create their own particular
visions, directions and all of that. So the timing is perfect
to move back to a site autonomy focus at this point, because
now we've defined, you know, what are the boundaries of that
playing field, and now within those boundaries, schools have
a lot of luxury to do what they want to do.
He went on later to describe a series
of curriculum academies, organized this summer to promote the
development and sharing of excellent curricula among leading
teachers in the District. Although the Efficacy training is a
centralized effort, it does not take the place of the school
site's role in responding to the particular needs of its community.
Neither does it supplant the role of teachers willing to take
a leading role in developing curriculum within their discipline.
V. Conclusions
The administration in Oakland appears
to be forging a path toward reform, in spite of a rather flawed
set of tools. The underlying call for accountability, accompanied
by the philosophical shift embodied in the message of the Efficacy
Institute, creates a strong impetus for change. The Efficacy
Institute plays an important role in providing a rational basis
on which to raise our expectations. Learning from Aurora, teachers
and instructional leaders need to continue to develop powerful
new curricular approaches to enable students to meet those expectations.
The use of standardized tests as a significant indicator of progress
raises real concerns for many teachers about the nature of reforms
desired, as these tests are not reflective of the strengths or
abilities of many of our students. Alternative forms of assessment
are on the horizon, and it will be up to the administration to
effectively organize their creation and implementation. These
assessments will be a critical step in the reform process. They
will need to be crafted so as to avoid the systematic biases
found in traditional standardized tests, and to model the teaching
and learning we wish to promote.
The presence of better assessments
does little, in and of itself, to create better conditions, as
was seen in Arizona. Where unacceptable outcomes are revealed,
the District needs to have an effective response. Schools that
show a lack of progress in raising the quality of their program
are promised substantial levels of intervention from the central
administration. It remains to be seen how effective this intervention
will be, and if the District has available the human and material
resources to turn these schools around, but the commitment does
represent an accepting of responsibility on the part of the administration.
District personnel, from teachers up to central administrators,
may have to assume the role of community organizers to forge
a true partnership for change.
There remain many unanswered questions
related to these issues. It is unclear the degree to which standardized
tests influence teachers in Oakland, for good or bad. Two teachers
reported very negative effects on their students. How damaging
are these tests themselves to students themselves, and to the
learning process? Though the Efficacy training received a generally
favorable appraisal from the few teachers surveyed that had actually
experienced it, a broader sample would be needed to determine
its true impact. How will school sites respond to the pressure
from the central administration? Will teachers engage in a vigorous
process of innovation and change at the site levels, or will
they become defensive and refuse to accept responsibility?
The most fundamental question left
unanswered is one which only the unfolding of events in Oakland
can reveal. Can an urban school district reverse historically
ingrained patterns of educational inequity, bringing students
of all ethnic, cultural and language groups up to a level of
educational excellence?
Bibliography
Appendix A: Interview
with Associate Superintendent Terry Mazany
Appendix B: Teacher
Survey Results
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