Accountability Makes No Sense When It Undermines The Larger Goals Of Education

Teachers shape the minds of students to realize what their purpose is in life. Lately, because of certain educational reforms, it has been hard for teachers to say what they need to say. “In 40-plus states, the math and English guidelines determine the knowledge students have to master by the end of each grade, what they’ll be tested on this year, and in many cases, how teachers and principals will be rated at their jobs once those test scores are released” (Strauss). Most educational reforms are adopting standardized testing and should be reconsidered. Statistics even show that since we have taken part in reforms like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Common Core State Standards math and reading are declining. These standards tell teachers what to teach and what the students should know by the end of the school year. The reforms also evaluate teacher performance by how well the students learn the information. Some people believe educational reforms should not be telling teachers how to teach their students, and others believe that the reforms are absolutely fine the way they are. However the truth is educational reforms are yet to be perfected.

During President Bush’s term, government became aware that American schooling needed major improvement. There was a need of a law which would improve the system while using scores to evaluate students as well as their teachers. "The fundamental principle of this bill is that every child can learn, we expect every child to learn, and you must show us whether or not every child is learning," (Secretary, 2002) President George W. Bush said on Jan. 8, 2002, signing ceremony of No Child Left Behind Act. However, this one size fits all approach revealed not be resourceful. "The goals of No Child Left Behind, the predecessor of this law, were the right ones: High standards. Accountability. Closing the achievement gap, but in practice, it often fell short. It didn 't always consider the specific needs of each community. It led to too much testing during classroom time. It often forced schools and school districts into

As of a 2012 report on annual spending for K-12 standardized exams, the states were spending a combined 1.7 billion dollars on the administering of standardized tests (Chingos, 2012). Many, including myself and likely Jefferson, would argue that it is not the place of the national government to make a judgement on the job of state educators from such a vicarious position. Some would even go as far as to label the policy coercive and destructive to public education because of the penalties imposed for schools which failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) goals. These penalties started lightly, but schools which were labeled as “needing improvement” for more than three or four years were mandated to provide additional aid in the form of tutoring programs and remedial classes to students which did not improve. In severe cases, schools could be totally restructured by the government, privatized as a charter school, or have the majority of their faculty replaced (FairTest). Many of these penalties like tutoring programs were branded unfunded mandates, since their cost in addition to that of administering annual testing was not covered by federal grants allocated to the states. The result was a conflict between the states and federal governments which resulted in a

The purpose of this memo is to review and analyze the claims made by Diane Ravitch in her book, The Life and Death of the Great American School System, and to justly state if the authors claims are well-researched and based on facts or if her arguments and claims are biased and opinionated. More specifically, this memo will acknowledge the two central ideas of contemporary education reform today: choice and accountability. Advocates of school choice believe that it provides families with alternative options to choose their children’s education that works best for them while encouraging competition to better schools. However, opponents of school choice believe that it will erode the public school system until it is no more. Some argue that accountability is “the great cure” that will fix schools by testing and placing teachers accountable, this will encourage more effort and in turn promote student achievement. Others believe that too much accountability is the reason why our schools are failing. Ravitch seems to see choice and accountability as the main obstacles standing in the way of a thriving American school system. After much careful research, I have come to two conclusions. First, choice is not remedy to make education better; all that choice does is

In society, today education plays a vital role for many individuals and teachers play an even more influential role for a student’s future. The 21st century is bringing many new and innovated ways for teachers to communicate and educate in more effective ways than ever before. Despite the multitude advancements, there has been an issue still in the spotlight: teacher accountability. In recent years the United States has significantly fallen behind many of its superpower competitors in education bringing the government quick to impend a change by ranking teachers to improve their accountability however ranking teachers will not improve their accountability because teaching is a craft that cannot be summed up into a rank or grade letter with

As a culturally diverse global population continues to expand, educating the students of the 21st century to possess skills necessary to compete is paramount. This becomes even more critical when taking into consideration the widening achievement gap between students form high and low socio-economical (SES) backgrounds. Many factors may contribute to the achievement gap, however “Families with low socio-economic status often lack the financial, social, and educational supports that characterize families with high socio-economic status” (National University, n.d.A). Closing this gap is the challenge for the 21st century educator. There are many educational trends that claim to address this gap, however two programs stand out, International Baccalaureate Programme and the 90/90/90 Schools. Reeves (2005) states that 90/90/90

When it comes to accountability there has been four major influences that recur in developing policy makers, educators, and families as they have sought to improve America’s schools. The four influences are advances in technology by economic competitors, the low achievements scores of U.S. students when compared to those in other nations, the need for well-trained domestic workforce, capable of retaining U.S. economic technological, and military supremacy in the world, and the civil rights movements on behalf of students who are female, and who are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds or who have disabilities (p. 129). These developments have practical consequences for partnerships.

Instead of giving children a quality education, “tests are used to make high stakes decisions about whether kids get promoted or graduate, or whether schools lose funding, or teachers lose their jobs, they narrow the focus of what teachers do in classrooms and limit the ability of schools to serve the broader needs of children and their communities” (Karp). The No Child Left Behind Act’s standardized test decides so many factors for teachers and students that it indirectly requires an ample amount of time to prepare for it, which hinders the time spent on giving students a real education. Teachers spend less time on giving students an education and more time on teaching them test-taking strategies in order to meet No Child Left Behind’s standards. The No Child Left Behind Act’s policies only rely “on an annual test, but single tests can be misleading. Every parent knows children have good and bad days” (Rothstein). The No Child Left Behind Act solely bases a school’s performance on a single, annual test. Test scores are not accurate if the results are not retested to ensure its legitimacy. Schools are labeled as a failing school and receive pay cuts for the performance on a single test per year if they are unable to meet proficiency standards. After the school receives punishment for failing to meet NCLB’s standards, it focuses more on the test than the education of its

The current education system is founded on standard based accountability which focuses more on the attainment of common core standards and national assessment than on student learning.. In the report, A Path to the Future: Creating Accountability for Personalized Learning, written by Anne Hyslop and Sara Mead of Bellewether Education Partners for policymakers, Anne Hyslop is a Senior Policy Analyst who produces research, analysis and commentary on educational accountability and improvement, and other issues including the intersection and alignment of state and federal policy, PreK-12. Sara Mead’s background in education is diverse she has served as a researcher, writer, advisor, director, she has worked in the Education Sector, the Progressive

The No Child Left Behind Act was proposed in the mid-1990’s, however; it was not until June 2001 when it got voted on, shortly after President George W. Bush signed in to law in January 2002. The No Child Left Behind Act was popular spite it’s many flaws. NCLB had strong intentions, however, there were many underlying issues that were not recognized until the act was put in to action.

There is work that seeks to describe the theory of action which RTT is based upon. This theory believes that the state is responsible for ensuring that the programs, projection models, and reform are in place in order for the schools to make the change and increase student achievement. The theory provides the logic for reform by focusing on highly effective teachers as the key factor in improved student achievement. Many critics argue that the “theory of action” could lead to a race to the bottom because it is a “profoundly flawed national education reform plan” (Onosko, 2011). The same high-stakes testing and accountability that is built under this theory was used “in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration…and has a track record of failure (Onosko, 2011).

The success of a student is and has been the goal for every educator. Educators try to teach and make learning interesting for these hungry intellectual minds. Yet, there has been a significant number of students that instead of succeeding through their schooling career have been failing. One main reason that people believe is the cause of this increasing failure is “The No Child Left Behind” Act. School teachers are forced to teach based out of standardized tests e.g., ITBS, SAT, ACT, that are issued nationwide. These standardized tests have a “one size fits all” concept. Even if a considerable number of students could not have comprehended the material the way it was presented to them, this method of evaluation has been used for centuries.

One of the biggest reforms in American education history came in 1965 when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed. Told by the this article ESEA initiated Title 1 which is a legislation that provided funds for the quality and betterment for primary and secondary schools and school districts with a high percentage of low–income students (Ayers,Jeremy 2011). Since this regulation was passed there have been many positive changes such as drop-out rates, parental involvement, and providing more qualified teacher’s percentage have all increased significantly (Ayers,Jeremy 2011). Other great reforms were Smith-Hugh, Act of 1917 (SMHA) and School-to-Work Opportunity Act (STWOA) of 1994. Comparatively, all three reforms were federal funded programs to increase the number of qualified teachers. However in an article by Stephens, G. E. (1995), ESEA was a legislation devoted to improving low-income student’s education. SMHA and STOWA were reforms concentrated

Imagine if the medical profession worked like the education profession. Doctors are responsible for curing a patients ills, just like teachers are responsible for raising student performance. For doctors, there are many factors involved in treating the ill such as diagnosis, insurance, family history, medicine, treatment plan, and tests. For educators, there are also many factors involved in increasing student performance, such as identifying learning deficiencies, financial resources, student’s culture and socioeconomic background, curriculum, student effort, and standardized testing. Now imagine that doctors are held accountable for curing the patient although many of the factors are out of their control. If the tests don’t show that the patient is recovering it is entirely the doctors fault and they may lose their job or have sanctions placed against them. This is exactly how it is for teachers. Regardless of the factors that are out of the teacher’s control, if students don’t perform well on standardized tests, teachers are held accountable. Standardized tests are intended to measure student achievement, but they have been broadened to weigh teacher performance. One of the aspects that influences the trouble with standardized testing is how this high stakes teacher evaluation system creates unfair accountability pressure on educators.

Although the reforms undoubtedly well intentioned. That however doesn’t excuse that it is an abysmal failure and the lack of acknowledgement accountability for this has left a bitter taste in concerned parent’s mouths. The people who are being neglected the most by the educational reforms are the students; No Child Left Behind, educational romanticism, and teachers unions all play an equal roll in this blatant disregard for the wellbeing and future success of the students.