Teacher-advocates: DC schools need supports, not STARs
On Wednesday, the DC State Board of Education (SBOE) will vote on recommendations to modify the STAR Rating framework that is currently used for school accountability. Among the recommendations are welcome proposals to eliminate the summative rating in favor of a dashboard that assesses schools on factors like school climate; student growth and proficiency; access to well-rounded education; teachers’ experience, retention and diversity; and more.
As educators and education advocates in the city, we are keenly aware of how the current rating system affects students, schools, and the communities they serve. In so many ways the current framework operates in opposition to our district-wide commitment to equity. Eliminating the summative rating is the first step in our crucial endeavor of eradicating the negative (and highly predictable) effects of racism, classism, sexism, ableism, queerphobia and the like on the outcomes and experiences of our most underserved community members.
We call on all members of the SBOE to support a dashboard model that centers the needs and voices of the stakeholders who are too often ignored — namely, Black and Latinx students, teachers and families. But we also call on both the SBOE and the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to go far beyond that important change and create a system that truly focuses on school support and improvement.
In the wake of repeated scandals in the mayoral control era and a poorly executed return to in-person learning, families do not trust our school system. Teachers are tired of being ignored, silenced and disrespected and are leaving the profession. The current framework is contributing to our current crisis. Families and teachers are tired of being punished by a test-focused accountability system that engenders a culture of distress and disengagement within schools.
The existing framework champions schools for receiving four or five stars, but these ratings play into the dangers of telling a single story. In a five-star school, we may see high test scores, high attendance and impressive reenrollment rates; however, five stars do not tell us if families are satisfied, if the school is safe, if it is a welcoming space (particularly for marginalized groups), or how well the school is retaining well-qualified educators. DC families care more about these metrics than the ones that are currently emphasized. In a recent public engagement survey conducted by EmpowerEd, DC families across all eight wards ranked standardized scores second to last in a list of 26 measures of school quality.
Good dashboard models like this one used in New Hampshire allow schools to highlight important factors like family, teacher and student satisfaction. Furthermore, they have the capacity to prioritize the perspectives of community members who are most often ignored — something that may not be effectively captured by a single score that is largely based on how a school does on one attempt at a standardized test.
We have known for years now that test scores are biased and can be almost completely predicted by students’ race and class. Despite DC education leaders professing that our standardized tests are somehow not biased or racist, OSSE’s own analysis of student testing data — as shared at a recent community outreach meeting — reveals the same predictability and biases. Not only is standardized testing inherently racist, but it is incredibly detrimental to our students and communities. As a city we inflict harm by focusing solely on stars and scores, and by assuming that high test scores can be equated with the best schools.
As educators who seek to develop the whole child in every student we teach, we urge everyone to start seeing students as people, rather than test scores. Removing the STAR rating framework is an active step to counter the bias that the State Board of Education appropriately recognized in a September 2020 resolution and to move our city toward truly equitable education. It’s time to repurpose a tool of oppression into a tool for learning. DC is more than ready to answer this call by rejecting empty promises of accountability and remaking data into a tool for school transformation.
Some have said that the proposed changes are just for optics, but we don’t see optics in wanting to build a school model that equitably centers community voices and uses those perspectives to help create a liberating, welcoming environment. We just see humanity.
The rating system in use since 2018 causes harm to our city, and we are well past the need to change it. We recommend that the SBOE vote to eliminate the single, summative rating and replace it with a dashboard model with at least six key areas. The five we particularly recommend are parent and family satisfaction; teacher and staff retention; school culture and climate; student growth; and well-rounded education. Ultimately, it is essential that we as a city provide support to schools that demonstrate need within any of these key areas.
What would this look like? If a school were to receive a low score on well-rounded education, OSSE could tie that to the use of federal grants to provide the school with additional staff and resource support for social studies, sciences, the arts or world languages. If a school were to rank low on teacher experience and retention, that rating could be directly tied to linked partnerships and resources proven to help improve educator and staff retention. It could also be tied to requirements for school leaders to work with staff collaboratively to create and execute a teacher retention plan.
This model could be deepened if the DC Council were to envision and create a new cross-sector supplemental funding stream targeted at areas the dashboard highlights as challenges. There’s so much we could do if we stop focusing on the score at the top of the page and start focusing on the unique strengths and challenges of each school. Eliminating a summative rating is a prerequisite for doing that well, but it’s just the start.
Leaders who do not listen cultivate communities that stop speaking. As community leaders and practitioners, we urge SBOE members and OSSE officials to listen to our community’s clear message and take the first step toward equity by voting for and implementing a dashboard model to truly support our schools.
Sarah Cole, Raymond Mullings, Maya Baum, Cody Norton and Armand Cuevas are equity fellows of the DC education advocacy organization EmpowerEd and educators in the District. Patricia Sanabria is lead organizer at EmpowerEd, a teacher and a graduate student at Georgetown University.
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