Test-based accountability systems have demonstrated little or no effect on learning and weak safeguards against “gaming” the system, concludes a National Academies of Science report.
A committee of education experts analyzed 15 test-based incentive programs, notes Education Week. These included No Child Left Behind, test-based teacher incentive-pay systems in Texas, Chicago, Nashville and elsewhere, high school exit exams in various states, pay-for-scores programs for students in New York City and Coshocton, Ohio and experiments in teacher incentive-pay in India and student and teacher test incentives in Israel and Kenya.
On the whole, the panel found the accountability programs often used assessments too narrow to accurately measure progress on program goals and used rewards or sanctions not directly tied to the people whose behavior the programs wanted to change. Moreover, the programs often had insufficient safeguards and monitoring to prevent students or staff from simply gaming the system to produce high test scores disconnected from the learning the tests were meant to inspire.
Test-based accountability often encourages teaching test-taking strategies or drilling students who are closest to meeting the proficiency cut-score, the report found.
Accountability based on graduation rates encourages schools to push out unsuccessful students, so they can be counted as transfers rather than drop-outs.
High school exit exams have decreased graduation rates by 2 percentage points, the report estimated.
While school test scores have risen under NCLB, student achievement gains have been tiny on NAEP, which schools have no motivation to game.
-->Filed Under: Education, Testing Tagged With: accountability, No Child Left Behind, teaching to the test, Testing
About JoanneComments
David B. Cohen says: May 29, 2011 at 9:06 amDoes this suggest to any other readers that the approach to school improvement is not raising the accountability bar but rather… a). addressing the underlying social conditions of poverty and poor health care plaguing many of our students (at nearly third-world levels in some locations), and b). shifting accountability on the government and voters to do more to support the schools, rather than simply raising the pressure and the stakes?
tim-10-ber says: May 29, 2011 at 11:26 amMy opinion…NCLB has lowered the quality of education in many schools across this country. My experience is the urban school systems plus the academic magnets. NCLB forced the districts to focus on the lower/lowest achieving students. This hurt those at the middle and the top…in fact we saw the scores drop of the highest achieving students.
For some hair brained reason NCLB forced districts away from NRT to CRT using weaker standards, cut scores and testing…if anything education in my district was and continues to be dumbed down. The caliber of students in the academic magnets was higher when the NRT were used vs the weaker curriculum, weaker standards and extremely low cut scores on the CRT based exams for kids in grades 3 -8.
So…my district/state adopted higher standards (supposedly 2nd only to MA), requires four years of high school math and 1/2 billion of RTTT funds and…
Continues to have extremely low cut scores on TCAP and the EOC algebra exams, allows students to receive high school credit even when the flunk the second semester but had a high enough grade in the first semester to average a passing grade, continues to game the system to improve graduation scores, made weak EOC exams count for 20% of the grade (remember low cut scores can mean a child PASSES when they should have FLUNKED) and continues to demoralize teachers that care…
As stated on the CNN education special by former governor Bredesen Tennessee has been lying to students and parents about how well the kids are doing in school. Sadly Tennessee continues to lie to parents and students about the quality (or lack thereof) of education being received in its government schools.
The system of government education in Tennessee and my district is broken and needs to be busted up. No joke. Colleges want to see kids take four years of high school math. Many, but not all prefer to see high school calculus. However, with it all but impossible to take a quality algebra I class in 8th grade it means it is next to impossible to take high school calculus. Remember, the algebra I EOC exam is very very weak and cut scores are extremely low. The grade received on the EOC does NOT match the grade received in class. Use to be the EOC cover the first 6 – 8 chapters of the Algebra I book…no clue how many it covers now.
I truly believe our education system is worse, much worse than before integration. Something has happened since the early 1980s.
Any reason why most posts can seem angry. I do not want another dime to go to government education from any source until this is fixed. Education spending has increased every year at every level and what do we have to show for it? Nothing…
The broken system in place today, in my urban district, is not designed to truly educate the 80% +/- FARM kids that attend the government schools. The kids are not widgets to move down the assembly line yet that is what the district does year after year after year. Just how many generations of kids have been lost due to an incredibly bad government education system.
No, I am not in favor of privatizing government schools. Those of us who can will (and did) flee to the better private schools. We have a three tier education system. This needs to end…now.
Now to read the whole report. I know what is happening in my district. Even the academic magnets are weak — some of the teachers are horrible and the leadership is weak, too.
Again…time to take off the blinders and truly fix the system…watch us make AYP this year…on the back of yet more lies…ugh!
Roger Sweeny says: May 29, 2011 at 11:42 amNo, it doesn’t. If you took my worst students and doubled their family income, it wouldn’t increase their learning or their test scores one bit (the two are, of course, not the same, though there is a strong positive correlation). In fact, to the extent that it taught them that they can get money simply by existing, it might bring down both. The primary incentive to do well in school is that it will increase your future income.
Access to medical care for most poor people is not that much worse than for middle class people and American poverty is pretty amazing by historical standards. Television, cell phones, air conditioning for many people.
There certainly are things that make poor children generally do worse–unstable families that don’t push education on their kids, adults and peers who put little value on “deferring gratification”–but income support isn’t going to change any of that.
When it comes to financial support, governments have consistently increased spending on schools since World War II. However, you are absolutely right that schools could be supported a lot better in other ways: if teachers could get rid of disruptive students, if students were held to explicit standards (i.e., no passing if you can’t do the work), if we stopped putting in the same room students with vastly different preparation and motivation and telling the teacher to teach all of them.
Roger Sweeny says: May 29, 2011 at 11:51 amtim-10-ber,
Are you in Tennessee? Texas? I don’t know what some of your acronyms mean. I’m sure some of that is regional and some of that is my ignorance.
NCLB – No Child Left Behind
NRT – ?
CRT – ?
RTTT – Race To The Top
TCAP – ?
EOC – ?
FARM – ?
Mike in Texas says: May 29, 2011 at 1:18 pmOf course NCLB and testing hasn’t improved education, it wasn’t meant to. The real purpose has always been to make money for the testing/test prep companies, while destroying public education so that the privateers can swoop in and reap huge profits.
momof4 says: May 29, 2011 at 1:59 pmPoverty doesn’t cause the problems; the mix of bad habits, bad decisions and toxic behaviors causes the intergenerational poverty that has proved to be pretty intractable. The last 40 years have clearly shown that throwing more money at the problem only exacerbates the situation. We now have whole cities (and plenty of rural areas) where most people are parasites sucking on the government (taxpayer) tit and have no desire to do otherwise. Medicaid, various SSA money, food stamps, housing, WIC, “disability” , and a host of other handouts are all being gamed for maximum benefits, in addition to the costs of crime and the legal and penal systems. Roger is right; more money hasn’t and won’t compensate for toxic culture and the schools should return to refusing to tolerate or enable it.
Roger Sweeny says: May 29, 2011 at 3:18 pmmomof4,
Thank you for the kind words, but I think that most people who are “sucking on the government tit” don’t want to. The problem is that, if in your first 20 years you’ve picked up some bad habits, and you haven’t picked up many useful skills, it’s hard to find a job that doesn’t lower your material standard of living.
momof4 says: May 29, 2011 at 3:52 pmThe culture often doesn’t value hard work, honesty and academic effort; there’s a feeling of entitlement, particularly in some racial/ethnic groups, because of past/present, real/imagined discrimination.. Victim status is a badge of pride and failure to be given whatever is demanded is a mark of disrespect and discrimination. The mindset explains why new immigrants often succeed in the same schools and communities where URMs fail epically; their culture and their aspirations are different. I’ve seen that entitlement mentality often, and heard even more of it from social workers and people in the medical field.
CarolineSF says: May 29, 2011 at 6:35 pmMomof4, I wonder if your kids will one day rebel by becoming nurses or teachers or social workers who care about and try to help the poor, going against all your teachings and causing you to wonder where you failed.
Of course there are people who make poor choices and engage in self-destructive behavior. And of course low-income people do use more government services, because they need them.
I can’t resist pointing out that the most conservative Republican counties here in California also are the ones that use the MOST government services, while the residents believe themselves to be fiercely independent. I have a feeling that’s not whom you’re thinking of when you refer to places “where most people are parasites sucking on the government (taxpayer) tit” — yes, conservative, anti-tax Republicans are the parasites sucking the most from “the government (taxpayer) tit,” the ones with the “entitlement mentality.”
The liberal coastal counties (like mine, San Francisco) use the least per capita in government services, though we pay the most taxes per capita INTO the system that provides those government services to the greedy, parasitical Republicans.
Anyway. I think it’s probably true that if you just suddenly increased family incomes for the poor, it wouldn’t boost kids’ academic achievement. Being raised in a home that doesn’t support academic achievement is something that isn’t fixed by a sudden infusion of cash. My observation is that there’s a wide spread of home situations that don’t support academic achievement.
I’ve met many working-class parents — good, caring people who want their kids to be successful by the standards they know, and who will contribute food to the potluck and show up to help out at the field trip — but who have no experience with a home life that focuses on reading and academic learning. It would be like dropping me into a culture where I was expected to care deeply about — oh, car races, say (outside my realm; I’ll stay home and read Jane Austen, thank you).
Even Momof4 couldn’t despise these parents and shower them with vituperation; they’re just being expected to adapt to a culture that’s different from what they learned in their homes and communities.
And there are families that really are thoroughly messed up due to drugs and violent lifestyles, or due to homelessness or illness or whatever hardships. My daughter had a classmate in preschool and K-8 who was being raised by GREAT-Grandma, along with two sibs — Mom and Grandma were unavailable. One of the other sibs being raised by Great-Grandma (a retired postal worker) was severely autistic, didn’t speak, and needed, obviously, lots of support. I don’t know in detail how my daughter’s classmate did academically, and we lost track when they went to different high schools. I’m just saying that was one peek at a really challenged family situation, and not an unusual one. You can condemn my daughter’s classmate’s mother and grandmother for being messed-up and unable to raise her, but once you get past that, whom do you blame?
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