This article will discuss a potential conflict between the performances indices of the School Report Card and the traditionally strong programs of a school. This will apply to all schools rated and ranked by mandated educational outcomes.
It’s the American Way. Our culture loves to keep score. Scores allow us to point to winners and point at losers. (The prepositions “to” and “at” are significant!) We score sports, movies, cars, pizza and toilet paper. Everything has a score and ranking. Knowing the score allows consumers to make wiser choices, we are told. Scoring also holds athletes, producers, manufacturers, bakers and the paper industry accountable for what they do.
Accountability also is tied to financial efficiency. The more accountably efficient will produce quality indicators a lower cost; the less accountably efficient will produce less quality at a higher cost. All Wisconsin schools now are rated based upon quality indicators of school performance. (The DPI points the public to the School Report Card and then to the DPI’s larger web site where per pupil expenses and school-to-school financials can be found. A future iteration of the School Report Card will include a cost/benefit rating.) Once a score is assigned to a school, the public immediately can identify a school’s success or lack of success by its state assigned number. Winners and Losers. Accountability. However, a love affair with legislated scores may not make for happiness in the home.
My local schools now have numbers that score and rank their performances as effective schools. The scores are: elementary = 79.1, middle school = 73.9; and, high school = 81.8. (http://reportcards.dpi.wi.gov/rc_gibraltar) The scoring key indicates that these are very good, above average scores but not yet the best. As a point of reference, no school has earned a score in the 90s and 100 is hypothetical. Each school meets and exceeds the mandated state standards but there always is room for improvement. But, at what cost will an improved score be achieved?
According to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, “The School Report Card will help parents understand how their child’s school is doing and where it can improve. The new report cards will help all Wisconsin public schools get a better picture of how well they help children learn, advance to the next grade, and graduate ready for college and career. Our goal is to help every student in a Wisconsin school succeed, graduate, and be ready to pursue further education and a career.” (http://reportcards.dpi.wi.gov/files/oea/pdf/parentrptguide.pdf)
Interestingly, the local high school earned “Best High School in America” honors from Newsweek and US News and World Report for each of the past four academic years. Daily attendance, promotion and graduation rates, and technical school and college preparation have been solid, and academic performance on state assessments and ACT have been well above the state average. A good high school performance usually follows good elementary and middle school performances by students during their K-12 enrollment and that is true of our local schools.
So, what is the concern about legislated accountability, especially an accountability that equates success with an indexed score? Our local schools emphasize a “Four A” education for all students. A “Four A” education is a balance of academics, activities, arts and athletics. Besides creating a history of solid academic profiles, our local schools have even stronger traditions in the arts and activities. Each school has full-time music and art teachers. Seven full-time art and music teachers are employed for a K-12 enrollment of 550. All K-12 students have access to the art and music classrooms and the theater. High school students “go to state” every year with One Act theatrical performances. The high school musical has won multiple state awards for student on-stage performances. 80% of the high school students play in the bands or sing in the choirs. Middle and high school students take their forensics skills “to state” every year. Door County (WI) is known nationally for its artists and middle and high school student art work is highly supported by community artists and galleries throughout northern Wisconsin. Students in each school win awards in local, regional and state competitions with their creative writing, especially poetry. Rounding out the final “A”, more than 75% of the middle and high school enrollment is a student-athlete.
This description is not unique to our local schools. It is an accurate description of many small, rural school districts throughout Wisconsin where strong traditions and local support are attached to specific academic, arts, activity or athletic programs. In these small schools the two major complaints about public education do not typically apply. Politicians especially complain that public education does not provide an equal educational opportunity for all students and that school district bureaucracies are stacked too deeply to allow reforms to be enacted. Hence, the wide sweeping reform for accountability through mandates.
So, what should our local schools do? The effective schools research from the University of Michigan shows that with “enough time and resources we can cause all students to succeed with our learning objectives.” However, time and resources, especially time, are finite commodities in rural schools where almost all students are bussed to and from school and bus times can be an hour or more each way. Time is the school day. In order to increase student learning time and teacher time for preparation and instruction of the Common Core Standards, more time will need to be allocated to instruction of the Standards.
Here’s the dilemma. The mandates demand that schools meet increasingly more stringent performance indicators. Meet the mandates or be identified locally and statewide as a non-compliant school. Improvement on the mandated indicators will require a reallocation of resources – time and staff. In the finite world of school resources, reallocating to one area of programs typically results in a loss of resources in another area of programs.
What is the price of keeping score?