Last night I was watching the news and saw some excerpts from Barrak Obama’s nomination speech. He said he wanted more people to go to college. I think that is great. He said he wants to hire more teachers. That’s good. And give teachers more pay. That’s fine, too, assuming he has a plan to pay for all of it. He also said he wants more accountability from teachers. That made me stop and think. Hmmm.

I bet most Americans would echo the cheers of Obama’s crowd and be in favor of increased accountability for our educators. After all it is our money, a huge chunk of our money, that goes to education. Half of the California State Budget goes to education. Over $50 billion each year, that’s billion with a “B”, in a State that would be the 7th largest country in the world if it stood alone. Education is a huge business in California with many dollars at stake. So with numbers like that, why wouldn’t we as taxpayers want more accountability?

In my efforts to serve our children and community as a prospective School Board member, I have been talking to a lot of people, many of which are educators. And I’ve heard rumblings and grumblings over current accountability issues, with some going so far as to say that the “emphasis on accountability and testing has taken the joy out of teaching.” Is that true? Perhaps we should hang on just a second when suggesting increased accountability.

Briefly, and without going into too much history, here’s my understanding of the looming accountability crisis. Yes, crisis, because it’s that big a deal. Prior to 1998, teachers in California schools had, within reason, free reign to teach however they wanted. A school district would adopt certain curriculum via published text book materials and teachers would follow those materials as they saw fit. Other than some inconsistent school and district-level efforts, there wasn’t any state-wide testing coordinated with universal academic standards to insure consistent student proficiency.

In 1998 California started moving towards state-wide testing and measuring of academic performance. Then in 2002 came No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a Federal education initiative with bi-partisan support who’s goal was to provide education accountability and proficiency by tying performance standards to Federal funding. Individual states were free to adopt standards, even define these standards for their own schools. But they had to put in measured accountability if they wanted to continue to receive the significant Federal money. Like other states, California set their own standards and participated in NCLB, which included certain penalties if a school or District did not meet State standards of student proficiency.

Today, academic proficiency of California schools is measured two ways: the API (Academic Performance Index) is the state measure, and the AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) is the Federal NCLB measure. Both rely on input from the California Standards Tests that our children take each year. Perhaps you have noticed increased emphasis on these annual tests, and for good reason. The AYP has significant consequences for failure to make established targets.

It is important to understand that the “corrective action” required for low-performing schools can have significant impact on that school’s students, educators, and District. Corrective action redirects funds and resources in an already strained District budget. In moderate cases, districts can be forced to pay for extra tutoring and to bus students to other schools. In extreme and extended cases, whole schools can be dismantled. I’ve heard from those who have been associated with a low-performing school on probation (termed “Program Improvement”) that “you don’t want to go there.”

It is also important to know that this required student proficiency level, as defined by the State of California, increases each year. By about 11%. And that’s where the crisis comes in. Right now for 2008, required proficiency levels are around 35%. That may sound low, but that figure is a complex issue in itself and includes English Language Learners and Special Ed students, which can have a significant impact on test scores. Many schools now struggle with proficiency, and even more will next year when the required level goes up to about 47%. By 2014, 100% of all students are expected to be proficient in Math and English no matter who they are, where they are, or where they came from.

It is interesting to note that while our Bear Valley Schools overall continue to perform very well based on our Valley’s demographics, the current method of measuring proficiency is catching up to us. Two of our District schools may have failed to reach the required proficiency growth targets this year. If they miss the same targets 2 years in a row, they will go into Program Improvement.

So what’s a District to do? In my opinion (and more importantly in the opinion of experts who’s careers center around this very issue) you do everything possible to stay off of probation and out of Program Improvement. You do that by insuring the necessary level of student learning that in turn produces the necessary test results. But you also rely on your skilled educators to creatively keep the joy in teaching and learning while moving students towards required proficiency. And you encourage those responsible for setting education policy at the State and Federal level to revamp the current system of accountability as soon as possible.

Increasing teacher accountability may sound good to Senator Obama on the campaign trail, but we already suffer from an unrealistic accountability system. Different accountability could be good, but I don’t think we need more of the same. Thoughts? Please let me know below.