This article is from Cal-Tax Digest, published
by the California Taxpayers' Association.
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Holding schools and teachers accountable for student performance has become the mantra of parents, the political class and taxpayers across the country as we near the end of the 20th Century. This is not without good reason. The public is concerned that test scores are declining, that American students score lower on standardized tests than their peers in Europe and Asia and that schools are graduating functionally illiterate students even though spending on education has increased substantially in recent years. The public is demanding better results.

At the same time, employers are begging for better-educated workers; workers who are better prepared for a knowledge-based economy requiring skills in computer literacy, information management, critical thinking, problem-solving analysis, in addition to the fundamental skills of reading, math and writing. The California economy, more than most, requires these better-educated workers. The fastest growing sectors of our economy are information-based such as the Internet, biotechnology, high technology and media. California schools are not currently producing enough of these better-educated workers to meet the demand. Business is demanding better results.

Steps are being taken at all levels of education and government to address the lack of accountability. Legislation has been passed, standards and tests have been developed, and carrots and sticks have been deployed. But true accountability and better results cannot be achieved until teachers, administrators and parents have appropriate tools, systems and data to assess student performance adequately and on a timely basis. Grades are still collected in individual teacher's grade books. In many cases, the information cannot be accessed or analyzed in a timely manner. This approach may have been adequate at the end of the 19th Century, in the days of the one room schoolhouse, but it is unconscionable at the start of the 21st Century. In most districts in this state, if teachers want to know how their students did on a standardized test, they have to go to the office, pull a card for each student and manually analyze the data. Students, who had failed core subjects, have been promoted because district staff lack the capability to easily and effectively access and evaluate the very information that they help create. In general, important information necessary to assess student performance is not available and critical decisions that could influence outcomes cannot be made.

Today, businesses find it difficult to succeed without Management Information Systems. Schools do not have anything even remotely resembling these systems. Just as corporate America has made investments in technology to develop Management Information Systems to improve their financial bottom line, education needs to invest in new technologies and develop Learning Information Systems to improve assessment and the academic bottom line.

These investments are beginning to be made. By 2002, there is a very real possibility that every classroom in America will be connected to the Internet. Tools are also being developed to make assessment possible in the digital age by collecting, analyzing and disseminating performance information to teachers, administrators, students and parents on a real time basis via the Internet. These Internet-based solutions promote a culture of school accountability by providing state-of-the-art tools that better manage the learning improvement cycle of assessment, evaluation and intervention. One of these products is called Virtual EDucation and was developed by EDmin.com in San Diego.

Assessing student learning is the first and most important step to hold schools accountable for educational results. Given the correct tools and data, educators can use assessment results to identify strengths and weaknesses of not only students, but also teaching strategies, thereby enabling them to improve instructional practices and programs.

Its been said that the greatest threat to America in the 21st Century will not be from some external enemy, but rather from the internal challenge of properly educating our students to remain competitive in an increasingly global economy. Our goal now is not just establishing accountability but improving learning. This will be achieved through assessment designed for the 21st Century.