Forums Seek Accountability For Schools Some Warn That A ‘One-Size-Fits-All’ Approach To School Reform Will Fail

More than 100 teachers, parents and education officials gathered at Shadle Park High School on Wednesday night to help a state commission with a formidable task: to develop a system to hold schools and districts accountable for student achievement.

State schools Superintendent Terry Bergeson and Patrick Patrick, chairman of the state Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission, led the two-hour forum where teachers and parents voiced concerns over the state’s new high-stakes assessment test, and cautioned against using a “one-sizefits-all” accountability system.

The governor-appointed commission was formed last year to oversee and enforce the state’s education reform law, passed in 1993. The commission is charged with coming up with the final component to the state’s push for higher student achievement. It is deciding how the state will intervene and assist districts and schools that are struggling, and reward those that are making positive gains.

While talk of intervention has “scared everyone,” Patrick told the crowd that the state has no intention of swooping into school districts and taking over.

“We believe that the best place to solve problems is not in the state capital, but right there in the local community,” Patrick said.

Among its draft recommendations, the commission has outlined three levels of assistance for troubled schools.

Districts could seek “general assistance” from the state, whether they needed leadership training, extra planning time for teachers or added learning time for students.

The second level is “voluntary” targeted assistance, which would allow struggling schools to receive an independent assessment to identify problems and develop an improvement plan.

The final intervention - intended for unsuccessful schools that fail to make improvements despite repeated efforts - would bring in state officials who would work with the local district as a team to make changes.

“A one-size-fits-all doesn’t fit,” Spokane elementary teacher Maureen Ramos said. “This cannot be punitive and arbitrary. There are too many vari ables.”

The variable that teachers and students fear most is the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. The test is given in grades 4, 7 and 10 and is intended to measure whether students have mastered the state’s new “essential academic learning requirements,” a set of benchmarks in core subjects.

This year’s fourth-graders - the class of 2008 - will become the first set of students who must pass the 10th-grade WASL to graduate.

“We need to remember that success is not measured solely by WASL scores,” Spokane parent Kathy Heckler said. “Our schools are more than WASL scores.”

Several parents and teachers appealed to the commission to look beyond just WASL scores when evaluating school and student success.

“Not everyone is good at paper and pencil tests,” said Stephanie Molett, a teacher at Spokane’s Rogers High School. “I would just like to encourage you to look at a different model - a projectbased assessment.”

While the WASL is an important tool, Patrick stressed it will be one of many indicators to assess how schools are doing.

“It’s a trigger to taking another look, but it’s not the only trigger,” he said.

The commission has outlined that additional assessments and demographic information be taken into account, such as such as poverty level and the number of special needs students and those who do not speak English as their first language, for example.

As fear of the WASL persists among students, Bergeson said she hopes adults can better communicate to them that it’s just a learning experience.

“We have yet to learn to communicate in a different way so kids don’t feel like they are a failure,” she said. “But I’m seeing kids learning at levels I’ve never seen before in our state.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: WHAT’S NEXT Forums

Wednesday’s forum was the first of about a dozen planned throughout the state this summer.

The eight-person Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission plans to use the public feedback to draft its final set of recommendations that will be given to the Legislature in early September.