Growing Nowhere: A Response to Kevin P. Chavous
By Brock A. Ratcliff, Clinton Public Schools, Clinton, MS
I believe in schools, especially the public schools in Mississippi. Although the Magnolia State has historically lagged behind in educational achievement compared to the rest of the nation, there is excellent teaching and learning happening here. Recent NAEP scores demonstrate Mississippi students’ great strides in catching up to the children of other states in math and reading. Teachers in my state begin and end each lesson with hope, the one indispensable school supply we have.
Mississippi has an accountability model that is similar to the one imagined by Mr. Chavous in his recent article on RealClearEducation.com.[1] His succinct argument is sound and is certainly motivated by a deep concern for the well-being of students. He points out that students of diverse economic backgrounds and learning styles require “individualized evaluation and assistance” to catch up and keep up with their peers. This is certainly true in my context, where the majority of students come from such rural poverty the rest of America has rarely seen.
The crux of Mr. Chavous’ argument is that “individual growth is the gateway to achieving proficiency.” He seems to imagine a school filled with students who do not “start at the same place” and who should be “judged on their own progress, not how they match up with other kids who may have had more advantages.” This is my same perspective, and it is the perspective of every teacher and administrator who values equity in education and who sees children as the sons and daughters of a community rather than as blunt test scores.
Any school accountability model must take into consideration the growth of students. The ESSA provides for such growth calculations, and many states are including year-to-year growth as a part of their school accountability ratings. Mr. Chavous highlights Arizona’s plan, but he could just as easily have mentioned Illinois’, Texas’, or even Mississippi’s system. State education leaders have correctly understood the value of measuring student growth and have included it in the most important measures of their state education systems.
It is possible that Mr. Chavous is unfamiliar with the Mississippi accountability model, but based on his article I think he would be a fan. Our model is made up of scores in eight or eleven categories (depending on the grade configuration of the school): proficiency in ELA and math, growth of all students in ELA and math, growth of the bottom twenty-five percent of students in ELA and math, proficiency in science, proficiency in US History, acceleration (advanced courses), college and career readiness (ACT performance), graduation rate, and the performance of English Language Learners. Notice the emphasis on growth – no less than 59% of the points possible for an elementary school in Mississippi come from this type of measurement. At the high school and district level, 43% of the points come from growth.
This emphasis on the year-to-year improvement is important and virtuous: it concentrates the attention of the schools and districts on the development of students who need the most help and come from, in many cases, the worst situations. I applaud Mr. Chavous for his advocacy for these children. Growing them and paying attention to their diverse needs is good in its own right, and beneficial to our communities.
There is a limit, though, to the growth model. In Mississippi, where so much weight in the state’s accountability model is given to growth, we have reached a tipping point. Whereas the model was intended to boost the performance and development of the lowest-achieving students and to emphasize the importance of student growth, now the best districts in the state are struggling to maintain good ratings.
Here’s how it has worked in my district. In the first few years of the current accountability model my district was struggling to meet proficiency at the rate we expected. However, we were good at growing students, so the majority of our accountability points came from the growth components. We regularly saw growth rates over 100% at the high school level, indicating that our teachers were helping students grow more than one year’s-worth between annual assessments. We were proud of this good work, and still teach all of our students with the rigor that earned those growth points.
As the years have passed, though, we have learned the new academic standards that came with the new accountability model and have gotten better and better at teaching all students and helping all students achieve our high performance expectations. Our proficiency rates are now through the roof because of good teachers in every building. But the consequence of that excellence is the decline of growth.
More students than ever are proficient or advanced in the grade-level and end-of-course assessments in our schools. As these students move from grade to grade, however, there is less and less room for growth. To put this in stark relief, when we identify the lowest performing students in our schools (called the “bottom 25%”), we are identifying STUDENTS WHO HAVE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED PROFICIENCY.
The growth model in Mississippi has reached its limit. It must be changed to re-correct the balance between proficiency and growth. If a high-performing school like mine actually declines in the accountability model even though proficiencies improved in every category, something is wrong.
Mr. Chavous is correct in his call to the development of state-level accountability models that include, and even emphasize, growth. But caution must be exercised in the development of that plan – when the schools in Mississippi learned to do exactly what the model intended, the model failed them for actually helping students reach and maintain passing grades.
May we serve as a cautionary tale for others beginning this journey.
[1]https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2019/09/06/help_kids_learn_by_measuring_their_growth_not_their_proficiency_110352.html
Comments
Post a Comment