Headline

How the current accountability standards broke education

Michael Cardona is part of a growing group of teachers and administrators who are speaking out against the system of accountability that has been forced upon districts and schools for decades. As the Superintendent of Schools for San Marcos CISD in Texas, he is at the forefront of the debate is the use of standardized assessment scores as the sole measuring stick of student progress.

Michael has some progressive thoughts about accountability in schools; he talks about how the current standardized assessment method has “overwhelmed the system” and how it has placed an enormous amount of stress on not only students and their parents, but on the teachers as well. He favors local control with a more holistic approach to accountability — one that considers other learning factors, not just test scores.

Michael believes that giving control back to communities will create a learning organization that encourages people to make mistakes; the community will accept mistakes being made if they know there is a movement away from teachers being on a stage to a more inclusive idea of everyone working together to educate children. He believes that teachers and administrators, by their very nature, wish to be held accountable for what they do in the classroom, but in a meaningful way.

As part of the effort, Michael says, “We’ve made a concerted effort to rebrand ourselves and encourage our teachers to be on social media, to be on Facebook, because the mothers are on Facebook.” Mothers form groups, and they talk about what’s not working inside school systems. An absence of teacher involvement in social media can, unfortunately, perpetuate negative dialogue into looking like the truth. Teacher participation has a way of balancing the narrative.

The future is now in education, and it’s leaders like Michael Cardona who are leading the way.

Interview:

Dr. Berger:  Let’s change our conversational path a little bit and let’s talk about some topics that seem to be on the leading… or even bleeding edge, because some people don’t want to talk about them… but I’m finding more and more superintendents who do.

One of those topics would be around these community-focused accountability systems and the way in which we are talking about influencing our curriculum, the way in which we train our staff, and the way we talk about it with our parents.

Where are you with that, Michael? Are we starting to turn the page on a new era where we start to break down and define what in the world does it mean to be in school, and how we track that?

Micheal Cardona:  All of us superintendents, at least here in Texas, are at a crossroads. We all want to be held accountable for something. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of really making sure that our kids are taken care of and that when they graduate, we know ─ at least we have good robust data ─ that when they walk across that stage, they are prepared and can make real choices to do whatever it is they want to do in life. They can go military. They can go career, or they can go college. We know with reasonable assurance that we’ve done everything we reasonably could to make sure they’re going to be successful in doing that.

But I think there’s been this movement of accountability that’s overwhelmed the system and that’s put this enormous amount of stress on not only students and their parents, but on teachers as well.

Teachers, intuitively, are very self-reflective. They get into this business because they want to help kids and they want kids to do better than they did in life.

We’re built on local control, and I think our communities should know what it is that they’re going to hold us accountable.

And you’re starting to see a move towards that. In Texas, we have the “District of Innovation” which allows districts to look at alternative ways to assess accountability which, I think, is a great thing that we’re doing.

Somebody once said, “I know what’s going on anywhere in the world with just my fingertips on my phone. But I don’t know what’s going on inside my own child’s classroom.”

I think we have the opportunity with technology and with just the great teachers that we have to look at things and showcase them and be held accountable for what’s going on inside the actual classroom during the day.

There’s a lot of good stuff taking place. There are so many digital platforms available that you can use to open the classroom door, and I think that holds us accountable. I think, as leaders, we all recognize that we want our kids to be on grade level. We want them to be able to think. We want them to be able to be leaders in the community. We want them to be collaborative.

None of that is measured by our current system of testing right now ─ not even PSAT, not even ACT. There’s going to come a time, I think when teachers and parents get together and say, “I think we know what’s best for our kids. We want to be held accountable for what happens in our buildings. But let us figure that out within our communities.”

And you’re starting to see a move in that way, and I think even the states are starting to adapt. The federal government even relaxed some things as far as accepting state plans for accountability, trying to encourage that. And I think it’s a good move to allow local control.

And our parents will hold us accountable. They have proven that they will hold us to high standards.

DB:  Michael, to your earlier point ─ that we know more about what’s going on right now in the world at large just by just glancing on our phone than we do in our schools two or three miles away from where our children are spending their days. I’ll have conversations as a parent with other parents, and the question I get is always “I don’t know how to participate. I don’t know what my role is. I don’t know where the impact could be” because they didn’t experience that in their education.

I believe that it helps to engage the child when they know that they have that support system. That they know it’s not this linear thing that they are at home, they go to school, and they go back home; that it’s all-encompassing. It’s an environment. It’s comprehensive in that Mom or Dad or caretaker are there and a part of that ecosystem in a way that is communicative and provides, I think, feedback to the teacher. So isn’t it incumbent upon us to provide parents with an opportunity where not only do they have access to the classroom but it’s access that allows them to participate?

MC:  Yes. I completely agree. I think it’s a move away from the old  “involvement.” The parents show up on a Tuesday night for Open House. They walk their kids’ schedules to, eventually, kids leading the discussion with their teachers and parents about “Hey, Mom, this is where I’m at in my learning process.”

Not only parents but we do have platforms that are being developed that allow others to be involved in a child’s education.

To me, it’s understanding the stories kids come in with from the outside and then it’s how we help them navigate that educational journey. But we also need to allow kids to take ownership and involve those other people like grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters in the learning process to give feedback as well.

Video is a good way to do that, get them involved. We work with a company where we started piloting on videotaping teachers in the classroom and asking them just a series of questions to self-reflect on what it is they’re doing, what the kid is doing, and then how they know that the learning takes place.

We’re getting really positive feedback from teachers about how they like the feedback. And it’s like “Don’t you think parents and kids would also like it?”

But I think you have to have a learning organization that encourages people to make mistakes and a community that will accept the mistakes being made if they know that we’re moving away from the teachers on that stage to “we’re all in this together.”

And, sometimes, parents do know their kids and if we would listen to them and open up and not be in a defensive posture, I think organizations can do great things for kids and we can adapt pretty quickly.

DB:  Michael, I’ve seen some research in the past couple of years that the way in which we’re utilizing technology in education is shifting the paradigm of the type of people who are going into the teaching profession. We are putting demands on educators; they feel that they have to be accessible through technology for what feels like 24/7. There are, of course, different personality types and backgrounds that gravitate towards that, and might retreat.

So how do you, as a leader, look at that and say, “Alright, I want to make sure that, yes, we all know it’s a technology-driven classroom that we’re working in now.” How do you provide support to those veteran teachers or even the brand new, early career teachers that think that this is not exactly what they thought they would be doing? They’re all dependent upon you and your team to provide them the skills, the resources, and the training.

How do we support teachers in this environment where we know access from parents to their children ─ students in the school ─ is increasing, and that’s just the way our society is now? We parents want access. We want it all the time. How do you prepare your teachers in the district for this environment?

MC:  First and foremost, as I’ve mentioned earlier, we want the teachers to understand the stories and the data that kids come into the building with. So we, in central administration, have to actually practice the same thing we expect of our teachers. And so, professional development is not all standards-based. I hated going to the principal’s meeting and just sitting and listening to them talk.

I think if you have professional development that allows the teacher to have the choice in their learning ─ sometimes the learning isn’t based on standards or academics, it’s on addressing teacher self-care and their level of competency ─ I think you’re going to get an organization where teachers will feel encouraged.

Now, it is a media world. When we first came here, we heard in one year a lot of “This isn’t the way we do things in this district!” I said, “That’s great! But there are other systems that are doing things much better and much quicker for kids than we are currently.”

I think once teachers actually started to see us allowing them to do different things that weren’t the same old professional development, we’ve been getting a better response. We’ve gotten more teachers on Twitter, because the reality is that parents find out things and we tell our teachers, “It’s better that you tell your story about what’s going than if somebody else presupposed something and told the story for you.”

We’ve made a concerted effort to rebrand ourselves and encourage our teachers to be on social media, to be on Facebook because mothers are on Facebook. They have little groups, and they talk about what’s bad in the school systems. And absent them seeing anything from the school, they’re going to assume that that’s the truth.

And that’s an unfair thing to put on a teacher, but I think if teachers feel like the administration is not always about academics and regimens and “We have to be here in this place at this time at this given point,” I think they’ll do what it is that they need to do.

We had mindfulness training this past weekend with about 20 teachers on a Saturday and, believe it or not, out of the 20, we had a large veteran group of teachers. Some of them have been in education for 25 to 30 years and they were showing their own mindfulness practices to other teachers.

There was a reporter from this foundation and she said, “Who do you want to talk to?” and I said, “Talk to any of these principals or teachers because if they’re here on a Saturday, they’re invested in us making sure that they’re taken care of. You have some teachers here who have been in the district for 35-plus years and they’re leading mindfulness exercises.”

I think that they’re adapting because we’re giving them a choice. We even had a first-grade teacher who took a selfie with me because we were doing that social game of “Where’s Cardona?” That man has never been on Twitter and that was his first tweet.  

“I’m here at mindfulness training and I have to take a picture with the boss and ‘Where is Cardona?’”

I think that’s learning and that’s going to translate to him walking back into the classroom and saying, “Maybe we won’t do a worksheet today. Let’s go outside and explore the space and let’s do a video diary of what’s going on today instead of just doing the simple spelling worksheet.”

Teachers will adjust if they’re just encouraged to make mistakes.

About Michael Cardona:

Michael A. Cardona was named Superintendent of Schools for San Marcos CISD on May 2, 2016. Prior to this position, Michael served as the Chief School Officer in the Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest school system.

Prior to joining Houston ISD, Michael was a secondary principal and assistant principal in the North East Independent School District in San Antonio and an assistant principal, teacher, and administrative intern in San Antonio ISD. During this period, he earned numerous awards, including being a state semi-finalist in both 2011 and 2012 in the Secondary Principal’s Category for the H.E.B. Excellence in Education Award. In 2014, he was awarded the Paul R. Hensarling Award for Distinguished Scholar from Texas A&M University.

Michael earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas A&M University – College Station in Political Science. He went on to earn a Master of Education from Texas A&M – Kingsville in Mid-Management and is currently working on his Doctor of Education at Texas A&M University-College Station.

Follow Michael Cardona on Twitter.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post

AuthorDr. Berger is one of many industry education correspondents for the Mind Rocket Media Group, An educator and former school administrator. His video interview work and conversational podcasts have been featured in various media outlets. He often hosts education panel discussions and develops strategic content. As an academic Dr. Berger is a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. A former assistant principal, he has been an adjunct undergraduate professor and developer of online college courses. He is a passionate Detroit sports fan who has also adopted Nashville sports teams as his own. 

Contact the Mind Rocket Media Group if you are interested in an industry interview and a placement on EdCircuit.

1. Los Angeles Times – Students’ progress stalls on California’s standardized tests
2. Sooke News Mirror – Technology increasingly being used to track students progress in SD62
3. The Atlanta Journal Constitution – Georgia to search for alternative to standardized state tests

https://vimeo.com/231945453

Teaching skills and tools for the rest of a student’s life

Dr. Kim Alexander started out as a West Texas farmer and rancher. A persistent drought forced him to use his college degree to land a job at the local school, which initiated his career in education. After years of experience as a high school principal, grant writer and English language arts and kinesiology teacher, he is now the superintendent of Roscoe Collegiate Independent School District in Texas.

Roscoe is one of 44 Texas district that are members of the Texas Performance Assessment Consortium (TPAC), a group that is working on creating alternative accountability methods to the standardized testing that permeates education today.

I talked with Kim about his thoughts on standardized testing and what we can do to fix this broken and outdated system. He says the size of Texas and its 5.5 million students makes it difficult to measure student achievement without standardization, but the fact that the state is so diverse makes it hard to do anything meaningful with that standardization.

At Roscoe, they’ve been working on a multiple-measure local accountability system for over ten years while advocating an associate degree as their local measure of college readiness. As he puts it, “we figured if you’re halfway finished, you might be college ready.”

The problems with standardized testing and with teachers teaching to the test are complex and will require thoughtful solutions for any significant positive change to occur. It’s good to hear smart leaders like Kim are working on a better educational future for our students.

Interview Transcript:

Dr. Berger:  Kim, I’ve been looking forward to this conversation. I had the privilege of meeting you at the last TPAC meeting in Texas a couple of weeks ago. I was struck by a number of things, being a privileged fly on the wall to the discussions, about accountability systems and the way in which we think about documenting the learning that’s going on and tracking that progress so that we can all be better support the students and their families.

How did we get to the point where we’ve had to say, “We need to draw a line in the sand; our accountability systems are outdated or they’re not reflective of the students and the educators that we have in our schools and our systems not only in Texas but around the U.S.”

Dr. Kim Alexander:  It took us a while to get there. It started several years ago ─ back in the eighties with Ronald Reagan ─ and it really put a lot of emphasis on accountability and transparency in the schools.

One thing about Texas is that it’s such a large state with 5.2 million students ─ the fastest-growing state ─ that it is difficult to measure folks without standardizing the thing. But the problem is that Texas is very diverse within its borders, so it’s hard to do anything meaningful that is standardized.

But one thing about a standardized assessment is that everyone can give it and get some result to report politically ─ the progress of your students compared to the rest of the state. Unfortunately, as you listen of John Tanner, improving education is not quite what a standardized test is really designed to do. It’s designed to see which 49% are on the left out of the bell curve and which 49% are on the right side.

We’re really abusing that instrument, the standardized test, in the name of accountability. Teachers are driven by the pressure to produce, to teach to a standardized multiple-choice test that doesn’t test really deep and meaningful learning.

And so, back in 2006 TASA formed the School Transformation Network to really start looking at what would be a meaningful structure for meaningful outcomes of students; and that evolved in 2011 with the establishment of the High-Performance Schools Consortium trying to get relief from the current accountability system to develop a new one. Of course, that bill passed unanimously through the Texas House and the Senate only to be vetoed by the governor of Texas. But we’ll keep on pursuing that. Meanwhile, here at Roscoe Collegiate Independent School District, we’ve been working on a multiple measure local accountability system for over ten years now. For our local measures of college readiness or associate degrees, we figured if you’re halfway finished, you might be college ready.

We’re also developing meaningful STEM endorsements and certifications in bio-medical science and engineering for workforce readiness to address critical workforce shortage areas here in Texas; and then we have a third measure, our student research as a result of the school-wide 4-H program. The fact that we’re agricultural magnet schools, we framed that research around agriculture that’s relevant to this area and the AgriLife Extension program with Texas A&M has been an integral part of helping us design and evaluate the program. We’re aiming for that place where the students realize that the work they’re doing is not just an assignment for a grade but it is a contribution to a larger body of work that’s consistent with the Land Grant mission that is to feed and clothe ten million people by the end of the century. That brings the relevance.

DB:  It does. And it brings it to the community level which, I think, is really important.

I sit here from afar and think to myself, if we did a better job or if we were more intentional about educating parents and community members on the role in which accountability could play in effect of educating, it might help us to support all of the efforts that you talked about from 2006 on where you’re marching up the chain only to be basically unravelled by one pen at the level of the governor.

Do you think that we’ve done a good job in educating the general public within our districts and communities on the role of testing and accountability?

KA:  Obviously, we have not done a good job of communicating this to the public. As Jon Horn with the Schlakey group would say, “Our legislators are not leaders; they’re followers.” And whoever hollers the loudest, you know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

No, we haven’t done a good job of educating our constituents of the misuse of standardized testing and on what we need to be doing instead.

For example, here in Texas, I think the figure is about 800,000 of the 26 million eligible voters decide who is the governor and other elected officials.

So we need to do a better job communicating. We’ve got to get legislative support for community-based multiple major accountability or we’re going to be stuck in this abusive standardized testing system which does not lead to great student applicants beyond education.

In fact, that’s the workforce’s biggest gripe about us educators. We’re sending them folks who know how to color in the correct bubble on the multiple-choice test but can’t do diddly and don’t know squat. They don’t know the application. And so, we’ve got to move education from a theoretical platform to a hands-on learning-by-doing environment.

DB:  I have young children and when they come home, they ask if I saw pictures of what they did ─ their artwork ─ that keeps them engaged and excited. That’s one way that I’m able to stay connected and personally feel more connected to their learning and it gives me something to broker a conversation with the teacher if need be. It helps our relationship with the teacher as well.

Do you think an intentional approach at the classroom level ─ the learn by doing, hands-on and in documenting that experience between teacher and learner ─ could support students and their families so that busy moms, dads, grandparents, and caregivers have more accurate information about what it’s like when their children are away from them from eight to three?

KA:  Exactly! I totally agree. Our local community has been working here with this model for ten years, so they’re probably more informed about community-based multiple major accountability than most communities just because we’ve been at it longer. But, in reality, a lot of schools ─ probably the majority ─ are still basically just teaching to standardized tests. Their community wouldn’t know a lot about community-based accountability because of that.

DB:  Talk to me a little bit about TPAC and what it’s like for you on a professional level to be amongst over 40 superintendents from around Texas who are sharing the sentiment that you have been discussing today.

KA: I’m really excited about TPAC because we know that, ultimately, it’s going to come down to the discussion with the legislature:  If not, standardized testing, then what?

And so we’re developing the “what” in lieu of it. And then how do we measure it? How do we report it through digital student portfolios that folks not just from Roscoe but from Austin, from TEA, from the legislature can go in there and look at student work and draw conclusions about meaningful student work?

All of our students ─ three through twelve ─ carry a research project and they develop the poster. When we get through with them, they’re put in the digital portfolios. And we’re starting even to collect better data on college and career readiness as we are using Lifetrack to track student outcomes beyond Roscoe, beyond higher education within the workforce because, I think, if we could show that the proof is in the pudding then it would be easier to support from a legislative standpoint.

DB:  I think part of the problem with standardized testing is that we lost sight of the awareness that there is a human being behind that number that we are evaluating in a conference room. Thankfully, I’m starting to hear more leaders like you talk about the role of social and emotional learning and the overall development of a young person from kindergarten all the way through until they’re handed off to college or to a career at that point in time.

How do we ensure that a student’s emotional and social development has a seat at the proverbial table when we’re talking about these new systems so that we don’t lose sight of it?

KA: As you look at examples in the workforce, if one is in the workforce and has either social and/or emotional issues typically they’re not very successful. It’s our mission to make sure that we’re turning out a student who just doesn’t have good test scores or good grades and good attendance but has those soft skills that revolve around social and emotional stability and the ability to work effectively with people.

The 21st-century workplace is very collaborative in nature, very much creative problem-solving. It’s every bit as important to have the social skills as the knowledge. How do you take what you know and effectively implement it?

And that takes collaboration, communication, and all those things. So we really are charged with developing the entire student and not just a robot that can plug in the correct bubble on the multiple-choice test.

DB:  Kim, let’s close with this. If you were standing in front of a board meeting or a community event and someone asks, “If not standardized testing, then what?”

From your perspective as Dr. Kim Alexander, a community leader in education, tell us the path we’re going down if we don’t change, if we do not solve this equation.

KA:  It’s going to be pretty bleak. You’re not going to have high-score student applicants if that’s what you’re relying on educationally. And, in Texas, it’s really an emergency. As I’ve mentioned, we’re the fastest-growing state in the nation. We’re projecting to move from 26 to 55 million people by 2055. And at the rate we’re going, 90% of the growth in Texas is economically disadvantaged. With that 55 million, 33 million will be Hispanic and 40 million economically disadvantaged. So now we’ve got a lot of the same dilemmas with those percentages as our neighbor to the south of the Rio Grande River has here.

Poverty is the big issue in Mexico. Fifteen million people can’t effectively feed and clothe themselves. So we can’t just rely on feeding people fish. We’ve got to teach them how to fish, and higher education is the only way to break that generational poverty cycle. So we’ve got to do a better job of getting that vulnerable population engaged that currently is not heavily engaged.

I just got back from a meeting yesterday in Stephenville trying to bring four-year degree opportunities to Roscoe. They were with our higher ed partners at Texas Tech and Texas A&M and Austin etcetera trying to reduce the high cost of higher education.

Both situations are expensive but it’s that cost of living that is really making it unaffordable for a lot of folks who are disadvantaged.

DB:  You used a strong term in saying that your forecast would be bleak. And it seems to me that we either want to position education in very lofty terms or we slide all the way over to the other side and it’s strictly about reform.

To your point about Texas jumping up to 55 million population in the coming years, it has real implications on how those who live in Texas go about their day, the way they experience their neighbors, the opportunities, etc. Why can’t we have realistic conversations about this where we talk about the implications on our communities? Do you think that we’re afraid to have these real conversations?

KA:  The thing that makes this so complex and so difficult is that change is difficult and it’s just a lot easier to operate in the here and now. This is the way we’ve always been in trying to justify feeling good about what we’re doing.

But as we truly drill down and look in depth at what we’re doing in Texas, we can’t be very proud in terms of the opportunities that we’re creating for students beyond K-12. That’s part of the problem here; so many people are still looking at the old way of having the K-12 system over here and the higher-ed system over there and then the workforce system separately as having served us well for a hundred years with no big correlation and connection between them all, and that’s what is still going to create opportunities for students in the future because it did in the past.

DB: A lot of times, people don’t fully understand and appreciate the role of a superintendent but it is a very active one. It’s gone far beyond purely management. You have to be a thought leader. I really appreciate your transparency; it’s something that I think is sorely needed in this space. I know the audience appreciates it and that the community of Roscoe is lucky to have you.

Thanks so much, Kim.

KA:  You’re certainly welcome.

About Dr. Kim Alexander

Dr. Kim Alexander of Roscoe is superintendent of Roscoe Collegiate Independent School District. Prior to that, he served in a variety of roles within the school district as high school principal, grant writer and English language arts and kinesiology teacher.

Previously, he served as a teacher in Sweetwater Independent School District and Highland Independent School District. In addition to his career in education, Alexander is a self-employed production agriculturalist that manages crops and livestock production. He is a member of Texas Association of School Administrators, Texas Association of Professional Educators, American Association of School Administrators, American Cotton Growers Association, Red Angus Association of America and Realtors’ Land Institute.

Alexander earned his bachelor’s degree in education from Angelo State University, master’s degree in educational administration from Abilene Christian University and doctorate degree in agricultural education through a joint program with Texas Tech University and Texas A&M University.

This article was originally published in the Huffington Post

AuthorDr. Berger is one of many industry education correspondents for the Mind Rocket Media Group, An educator and former school administrator. His video interview work and conversational podcasts have been featured in various media outlets. He often hosts education panel discussions and develops strategic content. As an academic Dr. Berger is a guest lecturer at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. A former assistant principal, he has been an adjunct undergraduate professor and developer of online college courses. He is a passionate Detroit sports fan who has also adopted Nashville sports teams as his own. 

Contact the Mind Rocket Media Group if you are interested in an industry interview and a placement on EdCircuit.

1. Missoulian – Tester again seeks to reduce the number of federal standardized tests in schools
2. Language Magazine – Teaching Tools
3. Education Week – Digital Communication Tools Target ESSA Parent-Engagement Mandate