Jennifer O'Day
University of Wisconsin - Madison

With
Betheny Gross
University of Wisconsin - Madison

In the past decade, the problem of persistently low-performing schools has garnered increasing attention from educators, policy makers, and the general public. In response, over 22 states and several major districts have instituted policies requiring school-level accountability for student performance and sanctions for schools that fail to improve. In 1994, the federal government joined this trend by strengthening the accountability provisions in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and imposing sanctions for Title I schools that fail to demonstrate adequate progress on standards-based measures of student performance.

This report addresses the relationship between the school accountability measures required for Title I schools and those put in place by state and local jurisdictions for all their schools. Our main focus was on the degree of coherence and compatibility among the multiple accountability systems, as well as the level and coordination of support provided to schools in need of improvement. The sample selected for study included two state-administered systems (Kentucky and Maryland), two locally-developed systems (San Francisco and Chicago), and one large urban district responding to the state-based accountability requirements (New York City). Each of these jurisdictions had developed its system-wide accountability policies independent of, and generally prior to, the new Title I provisions.

Five major findings regarding the identification and support of low performing schools in these jurisdictions emerged.

• The majority of the low-performing schools identified by the state or local accountability systems are Title I schools.

• Considerable overlap exists between the schools identified for improvement under Title I and those identified in the jurisdictional systems. This overlap is not absolute, however, and varies considerably among the jurisdictions.

• Where identification of schools by the jurisdictional and Title I systems is not congruent, the discrepancy stems primarily from differences in the criteria used for identification. These differences in criteria, in turn, seem to derive from several inter-related factors: differences in the purposes of the two systems, differences in who (i.e., which unit or level) identifies the schools, and general problems in implementation and administrative coordination.

• Lack of specified consequences for Title I schools that fail to improve seems to contribute to a relatively low saliency for Title I accountability in these jurisdictions.

• Support provided to low-performing schools (identified by either Title I or jurisdictional accountability systems) varies substantially from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and often from school to school.

Based on these findings, we drew several conclusions pertinent to Title I accountability.

Compliance: All of the jurisdictions were attempting to comply with the requirements of Title I accountability and were doing so primarily by trying to fold Title I accountability into jurisdiction-wide systems in some way. Strategies ranged from complete coherence of the systems (Kentucky), to negotiations for state Title I acceptance of the jurisdictional system (San Francisco), to a division of labor between the systems (Chicago).

Coherence: Despite attempts to make the systems coherent, Title I schools often appear to be subject to dual systems of accountability. While not an immediate problem in most jurisdictions, we expect the lack of congruence among the systems to increase in saliency as the more severe sanctions for Title I accountability begin to be implemented.

The urban problem: The problem of low performance, accountability, and assistance for schools is particularly acute in urban areas. Schools in large urban districts are more likely to be identified by state accountability systems, and the problem of low performance is likely to be more pervasive in these districts. Special provisions and attention will be required to address this problem.

Although not a specific charge of this study, several recommendations for reauthorization of ESEA emerged from this study. Briefly, these are:

1. In reauthorizing ESEA, Congress should remove or revise those processes or provisions that foster the development of a dual system of school accountability for Title I schools.

2. The reauthorized ESEA should place greater emphasis on ensuring that schools in need of improvement receive appropriate, consistent, and intensive assistance from districts and states.

3. Several aspects of Title I accountability guidance regarding criteria and consequences should be strengthened, either by incorporating them directly into law or by working closely with states to foster their implementation. These include the use of multiple criteria for accountability decisions, the incorporation of disaggregated student assessment results into accountability criteria, and the implementation of corrective actions appropriate for the specific problems in identified schools.

Complete report PDF version | Word version