Accountability Incentives: Do Schools Practice Educational Triage?

Autor/in	Springer, Matthew G.
Titel	Accountability Incentives: Do Schools Practice Educational Triage?
Quelle	In: Education Next, 8 (2008) 1, S.74-79 (6 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	Weitere Informationen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1539-9664
Schlagwörter	Educational Needs; Equal Education; Minimum Competency Testing; Educational Improvement; Achievement Gains; Accountability; Minimum Competencies; Federal Legislation; Educational Legislation; Educational Quality; Academic Achievement; Scores; Low Achievement; High Risk Students; State Standards + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Educational need; Bildungsbedarf; Teaching improvement; Unterrichtsentwicklung; Achievement gain; Leistungssteigerung; Verantwortung; Fundamentum; Mindestwissen; Bundesrecht; Bildungsrecht; Schulgesetz; Quality of education; Bildungsqualität; Schulleistung; Unterdurchschnittliche Leistung; Problemschüler
Abstract	Increasingly frequent journalistic accounts report that schools are responding to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) by engaging in what has come to be known as "educational triage." Although these accounts rely almost entirely on anecdotal evidence, the prospect is of real concern. The NCLB accountability system divides schools into those in which a sufficient number of students score at the proficient level or above on state tests to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks ("make AYP") and those that fail to make AYP. The system gives no credit to schools for moving students closer to proficiency or for advancing already-proficient students. If schools intent on meeting minimum competency benchmarks practice educational triage, they dedicate a disproportionate amount of their limited resources to "bubble kids," students who might otherwise perform just below the proficiency threshold. While these marginally performing students are likely to benefit from increased attention, reallocation of instructional attention leads to a tradeoff whereby the achievement gains of the marginally performing students come at the expense of both the lowest- and highest-performing students. With congressional proceedings on NCLB's reauthorization under way, the time is opportune to take a hard look at educational triage claims. If the current law's minimum competency standard produces gains among students near the proficiency threshold but disadvantages others, the rules of the accountability system need to be modified, perhaps to reward improvements across the entire achievement distribution. This article describes the result of the author's analysis of three years of test-score and other data on 300,000 students in public schools in a western state. He found no evidence of educational triage and concluded that these schools were not responding to NCLB by trading off achievement among students with different baseline levels. Rather, they were successful at raising the performance of students who were otherwise at risk of failing the state test without sacrificing the performance of lower- and higher-performing students. Even in failing schools, students above the proficiency threshold made gains that were greater than one would expect if schools were concentrating resources on students near the threshold. When academic achievement is measured with test-score performance in this state, the much-politicized argument that NCLB compromises the educational needs and opportunities of high-performing, academically accelerated students holds no water. (Contains 1 figure.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Hoover Institution. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Tel: 800-935-2882; Fax: 650-723-8626; e-mail: educationnext@hoover.stanford.edu; Web site: http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10