PPT Slide
Interestingly, recent accountability discussions have focused almost entirely on how to turn around schools identified for school improvement and not on the criteria used for identifying such schools. Yet, failing to engage in meaningful discussion about what achievement outcomes we expect in exchange for federal resources could have the effect of making school improvement meaningless. If a state chooses a measure that is so lenient that few, if any, schools ever get identified for school improvement, it is largely irrelevant what happens to schools once they do end up in school improvement.
In light of the current discussions about the school improvement piece of accountability - what happens to a poor-performing school - it is particularly important to examine and understand the results of Congress' previous actions regarding what should trigger a school being labeled “in need of improvement" or "poor-performing." During the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Congress established criteria for state definitions of "adequate yearly progress." Under Title I, schools and districts that fail two years in a row to make adequate yearly progress, as defined by their state, are placed in improvement, and given additional assistance to redesign educational programs that will enable their students to meet state standards. Title I gave states a "transition" period (roughly six years) to develop standards and assessments and to use a "transitional measure of progress" to trigger the school improvement process.