Sticky Issues

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In this section, principals tell how they handled a challenging situation, how some policy that was in place actually worked, and the lessons learned from dealing with these Sticky Issues. Send your stories to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.

March Madness: Proficiency Tests and School Report Cards

Brad Mitchell, Associate Professor, School of Educational Policy and Leadership, Ohio State University

As a rabid college basketball fan, I consider March Madness a joyful time when 64 teams across the nation strive to become the Cinderella story of the hoops world. It is a moment when anything is possible and young dreams are lived out before the eyes of the world. My traditionally blissful feelings for March began to shift last year when I saw my daughter and her classmates slowly and steadily stress out over the upcoming proficiency tests. Earlier this month, March Madness took on a whole new meaning. Recently we received in the mail a “report card” on our daughter’s school district. It was crammed with test scores, bar graphs, unsettling questions and educational jargon. My sight blurred and I sensed the first fearful hint of a migraine.

Why did we receive this stuff? Where do we place our attention? What are we supposed to do with this information? Who or what is served by these report cards? Did we choose the right school district? Are we negligent parents? Is our daughter at academic risk? I quickly surmised these report cards must be very important. After a moment of mild hysteria, I took a deep breath and looked at the section titled: Your District’s Rating. I noticed that our school system was one of only thirty districts in the state to be labeled as EFFECTIVE. My mind frantically searched for familiar and common ground. We Americans supposedly value measures that measure what we value, mainly matters of wealth and health. So are district report cards similar to stock market measures? Should I assume that we have prudently invested our tax dollars and our daughter’s future in a stable district that will maintain a slow and steady performance curve similar to companies like Microsoft, General Electric and Coca Cola? Would an Academic Watch district be comparable to a risky, more volatile dot com stock? Is an Academic Emergency district about to experience a hostile takeover and/or bankruptcy? We’re talking about childrens’ lives here. Comparisons to wealth indicators seem completely inappropriate.

I searched for another analogy. What about medical check-ups? Are report card measures akin to vital indicators of physical health and well-being? Take a pulse. Take a temperature. Take a blood sample. Form a diagnosis. Design and administer a treatment. Get better or get worse. I examine the test results with a renewed zeal. My attention focuses on the percentage of students who passed the fourth grade reading test. How many are healthy? How many have colds? How many have a serious but curable literacy illness? How many are in recovery? How many are terminal? How many can spell the word terminal and know what it means? 81.3% of my daughter’s colleagues passed the reading test. Is this a good sign or a bad sign? I don’t know. The average reading passage rate for “similar” districts is 77.1%. What is a similar district? I thought we were participating in a public education system based on the precept that all children have an equal opportunity to learn. Best in group rate is 89.8%. The state average is 59.2%. So are we to assume our daughter’s district is 18 points healthier than the rest of the state, a little better off than our “similar” neighbors and lagging 8 points behind the fittest in the land? Suddenly, I felt an awkward sense of relief and guilt—similar I suspect to what survivors of plane crashes feel in the immediate aftermath of mass death and destruction.

I started to rationalize. I noticed that over half of the 612 districts in our state were labeled Continuous Improvement. It is the largest category by far with Academic Watch districts coming in second at 131. These numbers reminded me that I live in Ohio, the heartland of America where being typical is considered a public virtue and an economic boon for marketers of new products and services. My false euphoria was short lived. A deeper, more troubling image of Ohio appeared in my mind. I remembered how the famous French critic of democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville described the Ohio river as the great physical and moral dividing line between slavery and freedom. The north bank of the beautiful river offered liberty and opportunity while the south bank served as the last defense for racial servitude and individual debasement. Alexis de Tocqueville noted that in the metaphorical middle of the Ohio river rested a place where a people could be “without the courage to be either completely wicked or entirely just.”

How might a parent feel about a child attending a school in a district designated as Academic Emergency? 69 districts statewide received this rating. How would I respond to a world that told me my daughter’s district met 8 or fewer standards out of a total of 27? The word emergency evokes images of accidents, sirens and street level triage. An emergency also can be associated with the searly identification and effective resolution of a resolvable threat such as our recent experience with the Y2K bug. The room began to spin and something deep inside me recoiled in fear and disgust. I saw myself drowning in the middle of the Ohio river while clutching a yardstick in one hand and a scale in the other hand. Neither apparatus serves as an effective floatation device. Where is the courage to pursue academic excellence and social justice for all children?

A recent study conducted by university researchers claims that the only valid predictor of proficiency test scores is the economic status of the family. Put simply, test scores get healthier as households get wealthier. On the other hand, school accountability efforts have helped to focus attention on where and how to improve student achievement, especially in high poverty communities. As a professor of education, I have seen how the emergent statewide accountability system has helped educators focus and align purpose, practice and performance. There are many wonderful stories of schools making quantum leaps in achievement levels. I realize that there are many good intentions behind a results-oriented school reform initiative. My greatest concern is how people will respond to the school report cards. Will they expand or reduce the digital divide? Will the mass distribution of the report cards support a civic and civil dialogue within and across all sectors of society about our shared responsibility to pursue educational excellence and equity for all children?

So is this March Madness of proficiency tests and school report cards wicked or just? I suspect a little bit of both. As I take one more look at the report card something catches the corner of my eye. Salvation appears on the front page, lower left side. Written in bold lettering are the comforting words—What to do with this information. Eureka! Divine guidance has arrived at the very moment of darkest despair. The instruction is clear. Review the results with your children—so they see how their performance “fits into the big picture”—and then support and encourage them to succeed. I rush down to the family room and interrupt my daughter Sara and her friend Christina. They are on the family computer designing their own website tentatively titled: angelsandclowns.com. I ask them to read their school district’s report card so that we can talk about how their academic performance fits into the “big picture”.

After a few moments, my darling Sara looks me dead in the eye and says: “Can’t help ya, Dad, I don’t see me or Christina in this report card. Where is my art project on Vincent Van Gogh? Where is the magazine Christina and I produced? Where is the picture of the first lay-up I made in basketball this winter? Good luck but Christina and I need to download some data on the number of shootings in schools this year.”

I sigh and give her a quick but necessary hug. Unintentionally and quite brilliantly, she has helped me see the “big picture.” I tuck the report card in my pocket and I join Sara and her friend as they surf the web in search of deeper meaning.

Talking Points

How do school report cards fit in with our general communications and outreach efforts?
How do we respond to inquiries about school report cards?
What conversations, if any, might we have with local state legislators?

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