Archived: Raising the Stakes: Setting High Standards for Performance

A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

Turning Around Low-Performing Schools: A Guide for State and Local Leaders (May 1998)

Raising the Stakes: Setting High Standards for Performance

Today, the public is increasingly impatient with poor school performance. Indeed, according to some surveys, support for public education itself is at risk.^[4] In response, states and districts across the nation are adopting policies to hold schools accountable for student achievement. In doing so, these jurisdictions are setting standards for school performance, creating assessments aligned with standards to measure performance, identifying their lowest performing schools, and making data on school performance available for use in school improvement.

If we expect all students to learn at high levels, then we must define what we expect schools to teach and what we expect students to learn. These expectations need to be clearly communicated to and understood by students, parents, school professionals and the community.

--Office of Accountability, Chicago Public Schools

Setting high standards for performance is a first step. Almost all states now have content standards in place and are developing challenging student performance standards aligned with state assessments. School districts such as Corpus Christi, Texas, have developed their own high academic standards. Their "Real World Academic Standards" are even more challenging than Texas' state standards and explain what students should and are expected to know in every grade from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation.

Districts can take lessons and use information from organizations such as New Standards, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and the National Science Foundation that have supported the development of high standards for achievement in core subject areas. The State Education Improvement Partnership, a collaboration among state-based organizations including the Council of Chief State School Officers, the Education Commission of the States, the National Governors' Association, and others, offers technical assistance to states to leverage school improvement. Among the services offered, the organization has developed a standards review and benchmarking service. A team of experts analyzes state standards and makes recommendations to states about how standards can be strengthened.

The creation of high standards alone is not enough; districts and schools must have the means to assess school and student performance against standards, hold schools accountable for results, and implement policies to assist schools that do not meet standards. To achieve these objectives, states and districts are employing a continuum of interventions--from providing extra resources and technical assistance, to instituting sanctions and reorganizing, restructuring, or closing schools that fail to improve.

States and districts also are using their standards to hold students more accountable for performance. In an effort to end "social promotion" practices that allow students to pass from grade to grade without having mastered the required skills, a number of states require districts and schools to use state standards and assessments to determine if students can be promoted at key grades. Districts such as Houston and Chicago have developed explicit policies to end social promotion practices. In Chicago, students who perform below minimum standards at key transition grades (3, 6, 8, and 9) must participate in a seven-week summer bridge program and pass a test before moving on to the next grade. In 1997, about 41,000 students were required to attend the summer bridge program, and of those who took the test again at the end of the summer, almost half passed. Ninth graders attending the program showed an average one-and-half-year gain in their reading and math scores. ^[5]

Holding Schools Accountable

No school improvement can succeed without real accountability for results. Turning around low-performing schools requires that state and district leaders take active steps to set high expectations for schools and students, establish the means to measure performance against those expectations, and create policies to identify and provide assistance to those schools and students that fail to meet high standards for performance:

The 1995 Amendatory Act to the Illinois School Code empowered Chicago to work on ensuring academic improvement through the establishment of one of the nation's strongest district accountability systems. The system includes policies to: set standards for learning, end social promotion, institute regular school quality reviews and a system of teacher accountability, pursue intervention policies for low-performing schools, and provide management support for schools.

To lay a firm foundation for school success, a state system of school support must be comprehensive and linked to school improvement plans and other federal programs. The state is uniquely positioned to ...set challenging standards; hold schools and districts accountable; ensure that technical assistance is delivered; and identify the federal, state and local financial resources to get the job done.

--Council of Chief State School Officers

Kentucky's Education Reform Act (KERA) in 1990 addressed all aspects of the state's education system from curriculum, assessment, and professional development, to finances and school governance. Since KERA was enacted, over 90 percent of Kentucky schools have shown improvement.
Since 1984, Texas has been developing an extensive school accountability system based on student performance. Rewards and sanctions are part of the system. The Texas Learning Index shows that in 1996, scores improved across the board in mathematics and reading. The proportion of students passing the state assessment has improved from 55 percent in 1994 to 74 percent in 1997. The greatest improvements have been among African American, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged children.

These efforts are supported by federal programs that are designed to help states and districts create the means to hold schools accountable for student achievement. States can use funds from the Goals 2000: Educate America Act to begin or continue systemic, statewide education reform. Under Title I, states must establish standards and assessment systems to measure the progress of all children, as well as identify schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress.

Improving America's Schools Through Title I

Supported by Goals 2000 and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act, states are developing student assessments that will help determine how well all children are meeting challenging state standards. Along with assessments, states are required to develop a definition of "adequate yearly progress" for meeting the expectations of high standards in schools served by Title I.

Title I schools that achieve more than adequate yearly progress for three years are identified as "distinguished" schools and can play a mentoring role to other schools in their district or state. For example, 230 Title I schools in Texas this year received recognition for high performance for having 75 percent of students pass each section of the state assessment, a dropout rate of less than 1 percent, and an attendance rate of at least 94 percent.

Title I schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years are identified as in need of improvement. School districts must provide technical assistance to failing schools to develop a plan for improvement. If the schools continue to fail to make progress, the district must intervene. In the event that the district effort fails, the state must intervene.

Identifying Low-Performing Schools

One central piece in state and district accountability systems, mandated by Title I, is the establishment of procedures and standards for defining and identifying low-performing schools. For example:

Maryland has established a school performance index to determine if a school is meeting state expectations. To meet satisfactory standards schools must maintain a 94 percent attendance rate, have 70 percent of students scoring at the satisfactory level on the state assessment, and have no more than a 3 percent high school dropout rate.
In New York, at least 90 percent of students in each school are expected to score at or above state benchmarks. In addition, no school's dropout rate should exceed 5 percent. Schools that fail to achieve minimum performance standards risk having their registration placed under review.
The Kentucky Instructional Results Information System (KIRIS) establishes a baseline starting point and academic goals for each school in the state. The state has projected goals for student performance through the year 2010. Schools that exceed the goals are eligible for financial awards and schools that fall behind are designated "in decline." The lowest-performing schools, designated as "schools in crisis," are those whose performance declines by more than 5 percent of their baseline for two consecutive assessment cycles.
The Texas Education Agency annually collects data on its more than 1,000 school districts and 3.7 million students. With this information, in conjunction with results from the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), Texas extensively disaggregates student performance data and measures not only a school's progress but also student performance across a range of racial/ethnic and income groups. In order to make adequate yearly progress, Texas schools must obtain an "acceptable" rating from the state's accountability system--a rating that requires at least 40 percent of all students and student groups to pass each section of the TAAS, a dropout rate of no more than 6 percent, and an attendance rate of at least 94 percent. These standards increase each year.
San Francisco Unified School District uses nine performance indicators to identify low-performing schools, including the percentage of students who score below the 25th percentile on the district assessment; the numbers of suspensions, dropouts, and student absences in schools; the percentage of teachers who are long-term substitutes; and the number of students requesting open enrollment transfers out of certain schools.

As part of this emphasis on accountability, data gathered from state and district assessments are informing the public about school performance. Eighteen states including Florida, Oklahoma, Maryland, Texas, and Wisconsin, distribute report cards that display information about student learning in every school in the state. These report cards are helping stakeholders judge how well schools are achieving their long-range goals and how schools measure up to other schools with similar student populations. For example:

The New York State Education Department issues a report card for every school each year. These report cards allow for comparisons of student achievement results across a cohort of similar schools based on the likeness of the age range served by the school, the resource capacity of the district, and the economic need of the school's students.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system distributes easy-to-read student learning goals to parents at the beginning of the school year. The district follows up with school report cards on student attendance and performance that are distributed to parents and every household in the district and are published in the newspaper.

The establishment of state and local systems of accountability has been important for leveraging change in low-performing schools. In many cases, being publicly identified as low-performing has been a necessary impetus for change. But it is only the first step on the road to improvement. Turning around low-performing schools requires tough choices and a focus on strategies that will improve curriculum, teaching, and learning. In addition, real school transformation demands changes in the relationships among adults within schools and between educators and parents, school and community leaders, unions, district officials, and partners at all levels of government. School reform requires a willingness to learn, to alter old practices, and to act in new ways.

⁴ Elam, 1997. [Return to text]

⁵ Chicago Public Schools, 1997. [Return to text]

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