Demanding Accountability for Better Schools:
What Parents, Teachers and Taxpayers Want to Know
A Forum — March 12, 1999
Education has been at the center of the political debate in America. The President and most state governors, Democrats and Republicans alike have presented themselves as champions of school accountability and reform. As Congress prepares to reconsider federal aid to public schools, it may soon become more directly involved in this discussion. The problem, says Andy Plattner, Chairman of A-Plus Communications, and a former political writer for the U.S. News & World Report and Congressional Quarterly, is that when an issue becomes too popular, it risks becoming too partisan. Decisions are made on political grounds, rather than on a clear evaluation of the problem and its solutions. Pushed by this political climate, schools are being requested to provide an unprecedented amount of information to the public, without knowing whom its primary audience is and how the information will be used.
A-Plus Communications, in collaboration with Education Week, and two public opinion firms (Belden, Russonello & Stewart and Research/Strategy/Management), conducted a study to understand what the public thinks about school accountability. The research included reports provided by the states and school districts, and seven focus groups with a total of 260 participants. Four small focus groups, with no more than 10 participants each, were held in Austin (TX) and Baltimore (MD). Each city held two groups, one composed of parents, and another of taxpayers who did not have school-aged children. The groups discussed two basic questions: What information does the public want to know? How do they want the information presented? The community focus groups were held in Charlotte (NC), Colorado Springs (CO) and Worcester (MA). Each group had from 79 to 97 participants and included parents, taxpayers, and educators (teachers, school counselors and principals). Participants used electronic dial pads to rate 21 indicators of school performance including: school safety, teacher qualifications, class size, graduation rates, dropout rates and others. The research findings were published in Reporting Results: What the Public Wants to Know, a companion report to Education Week’s Quality Counts '99.
Parents, taxpayers and educators agree that school safety is the most important school indicator, but diverge in many other areas. For instance, parents and taxpayers consider it more important to know how a child is doing against a set standard, while educators prefer to evaluate the child relative to other children. However, all three groups would rather use both methods to evaluate a child’s school performance. Educators also agree with parents and taxpayers that students must be held to high standards, but disagree on what to do if students do not meet these standards. They are less likely than parents and taxpayers to accept the suggestion that students should not be promoted or graduate, or be forced to attend summer school, or Saturday classes until they meet the standards. Educators also disagree with parents and taxpayers on how to respond to school concerns, particularly the suggestion that parents should complain to the school board or form grassroots organizations to force change in schools.
Another area of disagreement is related to test scores and school ratings. Taxpayers are twice more likely than educators, and more likely than parents, to rely on test scores as the main accountability measure and to agree that teachers and principals in a failing school should be replaced with new staff. However, the public agrees that to base school performance solely on test scores may be misleading. In Virginia, for instance, 97 percent of the students did not meet the new test standards and the public questions whether they should doubt the schools, the children, or the test. Georgia’s policy of offering scholarships for students who receive "A" and "B" grades is also questioned, because the public does not trust the consistency of these grades. They believe that an "A" in one school or district can reflect a different reality from an "A" elsewhere. Assigning labels to schools, based on academic performance is another policy that does not find support from parents and taxpayers, who prefer that, if schools must be scored, letter grades from "A" to "F" would be a better alternative. Educators, on the other hand, strongly opposed the use of either labels or letter grades.
Most participants in community focus groups agree that the emphasis on school accountability motivates teachers to work harder and improve student performance. Therefore, information on school performance should be made widely available, although the three groups diverge on what the report cards should contain. Educators generally prefer a focus on inputs, while the parent and taxpayers emphasize outputs. They want to see how the schools are doing and how students are performing, and enjoy trend data, rather than data on numbers of students and staff, suspensions and expulsions, and parental involvement. They want to see how their schools and students compare with a fixed standard and to other schools and students within the same district and state. However, they are concerned that schools may be spending too much time "teaching to the test," and agree that accountability must include more than test scores and promotion rates. The public is also divided on how much information on demographics they need, and fear that schools are using issues of racial/ethnic diversity as an excuse not to do better. On the other hand, states like Texas are successfully using demographics to show that students’ test scores are improving for all races/ethnicity. While educators are skeptical about the benefits of accountability reports and disagree with the idea that financial rewards should be tied to school performance, parents and taxpayers are concerned that schools are wasting too much money on colorful, long report cards that no one reads. They prefer a short and well-designed report card with no complicated figures or graphics, and printed front to back on a single white sheet of paper, while keeping the option of accessing more detailed information if necessary.
Policymakers must deal with important challenges when promoting school reforms. First, they must remember that teachers are the ones who actually implement, or do not implement, their policy decisions. Second, they must realize that teachers have more credibility with the public, particularly parents, than do policymakers regarding school issues. In the focus groups, nine out of ten parents stated that they trust teachers most.
Plattner is not sure whether the public will use accountability reports to force schools to improve. In the small focus groups, parents felt powerless to insist upon changes, even if they had good information. However, participants in large community groups agreed that the information would empower them to push for changes. Plattner suggests that educators and policymakers establish conversations in their communities to learn what the public wants to know about school accountability and how to use this information to improve schools.
This information is from an American Youth Policy Forum held on March 12, 1999 on Capitol Hill.
The events of the Forum are made possible by the support of a consortium of philanthropic foundations: The Pew Charitable Trusts, Charles S. Mott Foundation, Ford Foundation, and an anonymous doner.