Why Do We Hold Schools Accountable for Outcomes That Are Really Inputs?
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses how schools are held accountable for factors they don't control — like student demographics, family stability, and community resources.
Key Takeaways
- Schools don't control their inputs - Student demographics, poverty levels, and family stability are given conditions, not school choices
- Accountability for uncontrollable factors is unfair - Holding schools responsible for outcomes that are mostly driven by inputs creates impossible expectations
- Evaluate what schools actually do - Process-based accountability — what are you doing with the students you have? — is more honest and actionable
Transcript
Something that's strange to me about school accountability is just how much schools are held accountable for that should really be seen as inputs rather than outcomes of schooling.
For example, student attendance is something that schools are often held accountable for, And, of course, it affects student learning.
Of course, it affects the other results we get.
But it's very bizarre to me that schools would be held responsible for something that, you know, literally, like, we have no control over students until they show up.
We can do certain things to improve attendance, but the idea of holding schools accountable for student attendance when attendance is an input is just very strange, and yet it's pretty common.
Another one is standardized test scores.
If we are holding schools accountable for largely pre-existing student characteristics that we're measuring with norm-referenced tests instead of what we should be using for accountability, which is criterion reference tests.
I always have to stop and think.
Criterion reference, norm reference.
Criterion reference tests that actually measure what we teach.
Of course schools should be accountable for actually teaching what we're supposed to teach.
But the tests that are used for accountability are often norm referenced, and they're measuring pre-existing student characteristics that have nothing to do with anything we do at school.
The same is true for discipline.
Discipline is largely an outcome of student behavior, not an outcome of what we do at school.
So it is an input to the school, and holding schools accountable for discipline Inputs rather than what they actually do is just very strange So let me know what you think about this if you can think of other examples of where there are things that are treated as Outcomes of school that we should be held accountable for but that are actually Inputs so again, we've got norm reference test scores.
We've got attendance.
We've got discipline I think all of those are really inputs and not so much outcomes what we should be looking at is are we teaching what we're supposed to be teaching our students learning what we are claiming to teach them and That, to me, is the best indicator of whether we're doing our jobs.
All of that other stuff measures our student population.
And when we measure our student population's pre-existing characteristics, the only way to look good accountability-wise is to manipulate your student population.
So schools try to get rid of the hardest to educate students.
Schools try to attract easier to educate students.
And I think that's just kind of a bad incentive system to have in place.
So let me know what you think.