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David
Blount, Editor
Policy briefings in the Standards/Assessment/Accountability
section discuss accountability in terms of school and student
consequences (rewards and sanctions) and the public (school
performance report cards). With this examination of efforts
addressing yearly progress, we find legislative and regulatory
activity on several fronts at the federal level and state
levels.
In Virginia, oversight of school and student yearly progress
in meeting the Standards of Learning (SOL) has been a primary
charge of the Board of Education (BOE). However, on the
legislative front, in 1997, the General Assembly first
expressed concern for the time lapse between course content
being taught and being tested in some high school courses, and
indicated, through
HJR 599 its support for testing students at the completion
of such coursework.
HB 431, recommended by the Commission on the Future of
Public Education and approved in1998, directed the Department
of Education (DOE) to assist schools accredited with warning,
to include an analysis of relevant school data and development
and implementation of improvement plans to assist the schools
in improving their accreditation status.
In 1999, the legislature begin to look at the impending
deadline for the revised student graduation and school
accreditation requirements put in place during the mid-1990's.
The notion of using other indicators to measure student
progress was proposed in the unsuccessful
HB 2570 and
SB 1162, whose goal was to require that the results of any
SOL tests not be the sole basis for the promotion or retention
of students. Similar bills addressing multiple criteria for
both student promotion and retention and school performance
and progress were considered the next several years. The House
of Delegates approved a measure in 2001 establishing multiple
criteria for both student and school performance, but
HB 2163 was shot down in the Senate in deference to
ongoing work by the BOE.
The only legislative action concerning report cards occurred
in 1999, when the General Assembly approved
HB 2077, which directed the BOE to consider special school
division accomplishments, such as dual enrollments and
Advanced Placement courses, in recognizing school division
performance.
SJR 498 establishing the Commission on Educational
Accountability was approved in 1999. The panel was established
to monitor implementation of the SOL and its assessments, and
while its work and deliberations were informative for members
and the public, no recommendations and subsequent legislative
action have come from the group. In addition,
HJ 302 passed in 2000, established a task force within the
Commission to examine the need for alternative SOL tests for
special education students.
The Board of Education made review and refinement of the
Standards of Accreditation (SOA) requirements an ongoing
priority beginning in the late 1990's. Among the actions it
has taken include the following:
a) have the SOL test serve as one component of measuring
content mastery required for earning a diploma, to also
include student projects, student papers and classroom tests;
b) allow 80 tests other than SOL end-of-course assessments to
count toward a verified unit of credit;
c) allow expedited and unlimited retesting on SOL tests;
d) allow selection of other SOL tests (with the exception of
English) for meeting standard diploma requirements;
e) establish accreditation tolerances (scores used if benefit
the school) for schools with high numbers of Limited English
Proficient (LEP) and transfer students; and
f) recognize schools' progress toward meeting full
accreditation status, by establishing two "provisionally
accredited" monikers.
In the 2001-2002 school year, nearly two-thirds of the state's
1,830 schools were fully accredited as having met or exceeded
SOL test goals in English, mathematics, history/social studies
and science (up from 40% the previous year). Another 14% were
rated as provisionally accredited by showing progress on
annual achievement benchmarks toward meeting full
accreditation. Only 17% were cited as needing improvement, but
still provisionally accredited, while 85 schools (down from
130 the previous year) were accredited with warning. Further,
the Partnership for Achieving Successful Schools (PASS)
program established by the governor in 2002, has targeted more
than 100 academically warned schools that, due to their
struggles with the SOL tests, are to receive enhanced services
from visiting academic review teams. Thirty-four of these
schools also have been designated PASS Priority Schools,
meaning they will receive additional intervention and
follow-up to track the progress made by students, teachers and
administrators.
The Board of Education will continue to bear responsibility
for fine-tuning the standards and accountability system, with
possible direction from the General Assembly from time to
time. An Accountability Advisory Committee, established in
1999 by the Board of Education and composed of education,
parent, business and government representatives, continues to
advise the BOE on SOL implementation, the SOL testing program,
and the SOA. Any future legislative changes to the testing
program likely would be based on recommendations or findings
of this group.
1996 - HJR 165 (study of school incentive reward
program), HJR 168 (Commission on Accountability for
Educational Excellence), HJR 196 (Commission on the Future of
Public Education)
1997 - HJR 433 and HJR 516 (rolls work of HJR 165 and HJR
168 from 1996 into the Commission on the Future of Public
Education), HJR 599
1998 - HB 431, HB 710 (evaluative studies unit in DOE), SB
165 (excellence in public education)
1999 - HB 1512 (ESL student scores), HB 2570 and SB 1162,
HJR 588 (ESL study), SJR 498
2000 - HB 409, HB 632 and HB 1402 (multiple criteria for
students), HB 1483 and SB 623 (multiple criteria for students
and schools), HJ 302
2001 - HB 2391 and HB 2727 (multiple criteria for
schools), HB 2163, SB 1265 (multiple criteria for students and
schools), HB 2392 (multiple criteria for special education and
ESL students), HJR 570 (JLARC study of SOL assessments)
2002 - HB 48 (multiple criteria for schools), HB 1262
(report cards to include SOL test error margins)
Conformance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act is the
subject of new laws in New York and Connecticut. Connecticut
required its Commissioner or Education to prepare a statewide
education accountability plan in conformance with the Act, and
provided for a transition from the state's program identifying
schools in need of improvement to a program consistent with
the federal law and regulations.
West Virginia now calls for a standards-based system to hold
schools accountable for students' academic performance and
improvement, creating the Council to Monitor Student
Performance (composed of legislators and the governor) to
track students' academic performance and progress. The bill
also clarifies the Regional Education Service Agencies' role
of assisting low-performing schools and providing high-quality
professional development. A North Carolina bill requires the
Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee to study the
state testing program and to determine which tests comply with
federal assessment and accountability provisions.
Kentucky required the Department of Education to provide each
school with disaggregated data on its students' performance
and an analysis of the achievement gaps between groups of
students. Each school council will review the data and revise
the school's comprehensive plan to address the gaps. In
authorizing charter schools, Tennessee allowed charters that
provide alternatives for students in schools that fail to make
adequate yearly progress in the state's accountability system.
At the federal level, the No Child Left Behind Act approved
by Congress and signed into law early in 2002, makes adequate
yearly progress a crux of its provisions. The Act requires
states to have accountability systems containing statewide
proficiency goals (based on assessments from the 2001-2002
school year) that progressively increase to reflect 100%
proficiency in reading and math by the 2013-2014 school year.
Each state must establish a definition of "adequate yearly
progress" to use in determining the achievement of each school
and school division. All students must be included in this
accountability system and schools are identified for
improvement if no adequate yearly progress is made for two
consecutive years. Such schools then, in the first year, would
receive technical assistance to include analysis of assessment
data, professional development opportunities and improved
resource allocation. The school would be required to develop
or revise a two-year school improvement plan to include the
likes of research-based strategies and extended learning time.
Students in such schools must be offered the choice to attend
another public school in the school division. For additional
information on NCLB, please see the U.S. Department of
Education's NCLB
website and the Virginia Department of Education's
NCLB page
Virginia Department of
Education
U.S. Department of Education
http://www.ecs.org/ecsmain.asp?page=/html/issues.asp?am=1
www.sreb.org/main/LegAction/legrept/legreptindex.asp
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