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Accountability is the current buzzword for education reform in the nation and in North Carolina. Many states have developed reforms that hold principals, teachers, and students accountable for academic progress. But in the push for accountability and improvement in student performance, the accountability of the state agency responsible for overseeing public education was left out of any models, consideration, or public debate. If teachers and principals are judged by how well the students in their school perform, shouldn't the agency that licenses teachers, provides resources, and sets instructional priorities be similarly judged? We would argue that the SBE and DPI have failed to protect educational opportunities for all students and that the public should begin to hold them accountable for this failure.
Everyone wants NC's schools to provide students with a quality education and the skills needed for success on the job or in college. National polls show that citizens are increasingly concerned about education.1 After the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk, a treatise about the decline of U.S. education, American citizens have worried that students are not achieving at the levels they should. Amidst public questioning of the quality and cost-effectiveness of school programs, politicians and government officials began to "
get tough"
on schools and demand that administrators and teachers be held accountable for their students' academic progress.
In NC, this trend has resulted in the ABCs of Public Education, a program that emphasizes Accountability, curriculum Basics, and local Control of discretionary funds. Under this program, which began statewide in 1996, state officials determine how much test scores in each school should improve. Every year they recognize high performing schools with special designations and monetary bonuses for staff. They also publicly name low performing schools, send assistance teams to the 15 lowest performing of these schools, and can recommend the dismissal of teachers and administrators. The SBE also recently approved student accountability standards that require students to score at a certain level on the ABCs tests and other exams in order to be promoted to the next grade.
No education reform has generated so much attention in North Carolina as the ABCs of Public Education. Proponents attribute recent gains in standardized test scores to the ABCs program. They credit the program with motivating teachers and students to focus on the basics. On the other hand, critics assail the ABCs as too high stakes and punitive. They charge that the program lowers teacher morale, puts too much pressure on students to perform, and encourages educators to teach to the test rather than teaching critical thinking skills and more diverse subjects.
The ABCs program has also received mixed reviews nationally. Education Week praised North Carolina for having one of only five accountability programs in the country that the authors judged as complete and thorough.2 In contrast to such praise, a report by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing concluded, "
North Carolina's assessment program needs a complete overhaul...
North Carolina tests far too frequently, relies far too heavily on multiple-choice exams, and uses tests for high stakes purposes."
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The mixed reviews that the ABCs have received within the state and across the nation raise questions about whether the state's plan to improve education in North Carolina has been successful. Furthermore, the controversy over the ABCs raises the issue of whether officials have been accountable to the public by evaluating the effects of the program - both intended and unintended - on teachers, students, and instruction generally. State officials and the media have certainly publicized the positive impacts of the ABCs program. We are presenting the other side of the story: the unintended and often undesirable effects of the ABCs reform. We are doing so not to undermine public schools. To the contrary, Common Sense is committed to supporting public schools and a quality public education for children of all races and economic circumstances.
Despite the claims of conservative and business groups, our schools have generally been doing a good job educating our children. Teachers and schools were providing quality instruction to students prior to the ABCs and continue to do so. But our schools cannot be schools of excellence until all children receive the instruction and resources they need to succeed. There are some students who continue to lag behind, and the unintended consequences of the ABCs threaten to push these students farther back, if not out of school completely. It is our concern for the education of such students that necessitates this report.
This report examines the effects of the ABCs program and the accountability of the SBE and DPI. The information in the report comes from a variety of sources including:
interviews with state officials, administrators, teachers, and professors of education
an analysis of ABCs testing data and its relationship to school funding, poverty, and race
a review of documents from the SBE and DPI
a review of newspaper articles from throughout NC
a review of the educational literature.
This report draws on information from these sources to describe and analyze the ABCs reform and its effects on teachers, students, and the quality of instruction. Given these effects, we also offer recommendations to policymakers about how to improve the assessment of students and furthermore, how to make the educational process more equitable.
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