School Accountability in California: An Early Evaluation

Over the last decade, virtually every state has launched a school accountability program in response to public concern over failing schools. A state accountability program ideally consists of at least three components: a content standard or framework that stipulates what students should know and when they should know it, an assessment system that tracks student progress against the content standards, and a menu of responses by the state. These responses are typically directed both at schools that excel and at those that lag behind, but sometimes rewards are given to students who excel and extra educational resources are provided for students who are struggling.

Assessments and accountability are not new. As Robert L. Linn notes, they have been included in many education reform programs over the last fifty years. He also points out that what is new in the current reform effort is the emphasis on content standards, setting challenging content standards while including all students, and the element of high-stakes accountability. ¹

Proponents of school accountability argue that standards can energize school systems, by putting pressure on schools to help all students. The public release of test scores can bring attention to bear upon schools that lag behind. A carefully designed system of consequences related to state assessments can in turn focus additional resources and oversight on those schools that are struggling the most. After almost a decade of accountability reforms, content standards and testing remain very popular in opinion polls.

At the same time, detractors of the standards movement point to a number of failings of typical accountability programs. First, opponents charge, the system of incentives and consequences can be unfair if it does not take into account the predominant role of family socioeconomic status (SES) in determining student achievement. A system that channeled all the financial rewards to schools in the suburbs, while imposing financial sanctions on inner-city schools, could be an example. The opportunity-to-learn movement claims that holding all schools accountable to the same content standards makes sense only if schools serving disadvantaged students first receive an infusion of resources. Second, the assessment system must be closely aligned with the content standards. Otherwise, teachers and students receive mixed messages about what students are expected to learn during the course of a year. Third, many critics worry that states' accountability systems will lead to significant changes in both school resources and the curriculum that may not benefit all students. For instance, Julian R. Betts and Robert M. Costrell note that in some states the most vociferous complaints about standards and testing have come from well-to-do suburbs, apparently on the grounds that state accountability systems interfere with schools that were already meeting affluent parents' goals for their children. ² Inner-city parents in the same cities often strongly support standards and testing.

We address these issues in the context of California public schools. California has recently implemented an accountability system that encompasses the three fundamental components: content standards, student assessments, and a system of responses for schools at both ends of the achievement spectrum. We pay particular attention to trends in overall student achievement and school resources and the distribution of student achievement and school resources since the introduction of the accountability system. We call our analysis an early evaluation because it is far too soon to know whether the new system will succeed. However, a retrospective of the accountability reforms a decade or more from now, while valuable, is of little use to policymakers who are changing the accountability recipe on a year-by-year basis. It is essential that neutral outside observers monitor early trends in achievement and school resources to inform this policy debate.

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