Accountability

On November 8, the Board of Education for the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School System enacted a policy, effective this year, that requires all students in the 8th grade and higher, to pass end-of-course exams in order to pass the course associated with that exam. Although students who do not pass the exam on the first try will be given additional opportunities for remediation and retesting, the fact is that kids who worked hard all year long, were assessed by their teachers to be proficient in the topic, could still find themselves judged to be inadequate based on a single test. These 10 new high stakes exams are in addition to an already full agenda of placement tests, achievement tests, graduation exams, and of course, course exams.

The justification for this new policy is accountability. But accountability for what?

• Holding students accountable for their own performance? Their semester-long record provides that data in a much more timely fashion.
  
• Holding teachers accountable for teaching the standard curriculum? Should students be penalized if their teachers are not aligning their instruction with state standards?
  
• Holding administrators accountable for placing well qualified teachers in each classroom? Again, should students be penalized if the district is not performing up to expected standards?

I believe in accountability, but in this instance, children are being victimized by adults who are misapplying the concept. If we want to make teachers accountable for teaching the standard curriculum, then let's adopt item banks of assessment items within each content area and require teachers to use those items in their course exams throughout the school year. Then if students are not doing well, we can more easily trace the problems back to individual student performance or to teachers who are not following the standard curriculum.

Assessments are intended to provide feedback in a timely fashion. When offered in a timely fashion, this feedback allows students to review materials before progressing on to the next unit or course and lets teachers know when they need to review materials that were inadequately taught the first time. End of course testing is an inspection process that punishes students in an attempt to “make teachers accountable in teaching the N.C. standard course of study.” You cannot inspect quality into a product on the assembly line, and you cannot inspect quality into a student at the end of the year.

When provided throughtout the school year, standard assessments, such as shared item banks of test questions, can ensure that teachers are counseled and/or replaced without punishing students by causing them to retake a course. And if we really believe in accountability, then let's look at data on minority student achievement over the past 20 years. That cumulative data speaks volumes on the LACK of accountability we impose upon the district administration, including the Board of Education.

Teachers and administrators do need to make sure that students are proficient in one course before moving on. But adding new high-stakes tests is misguided at best and at worse it will further erode the confidence of all children who are already stressed by the sheer volume of testing.

Lost Opportunities

I've been overwhelmed by the costs of NOT acting (opportunity cost) lately. Here's a list of lost or potentially lost opportunities in our community:

• If Katrina Ryan is not appointed to fill Mark Chilton's seat on the Carrboro Board of Alderman, will that signify the last possible opportunity for bringing the northern residents into the community or will it be the last straw that makes them fight for years to change the community? Will we lose Carrboro through the disenfranchisement while trying to save it from Katrina's different way of looking at the world?
  
  
• If Chapel Hill doesn't move more quickly on creating a wireless network, will they lose the opportunity to telecommunication lobbists that want to stop municipal networks altogether?
  
  
• Is there any chance that the Chapel Hill Carrboro City Schools can really improve minority student achievement now that they've enacted the requirement for passing end-of-course test in order to pass the course? Or have they further alienated students who already feel marginalized?

Downtown Wifi Update

Yesterday the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership Board of Directors voted to survey downtown business owners about their current provision/costs/use of wireless internet connectivity, their perception on customer demand for the service, the benefits, and the challenges of offering it as a town-supplied service.

I have four concerns with this approach:

1. Business owners are not the only stakeholders in downtown. Such a survey would omit the interests and perspectives of students, residents, and visitors. If we believe the decision to take action on a municipal network (in either direction) should be an inclusive process, then we need to survey everyone simultaneously, ensuring that the surveys are aligned with one another for planning purposes.
   
   
2. What happens if the business owners express their lack of support for the project? Does it get put on hold or is the town's technology committee then forced to move forward in opposition to the business owners?
   
   
3. We've talked this issue to death without providing compelling reasons for moving forward. Here’s my compelling reasons: a) Wireless should be undertaken to ensure regular & reliable access to broadband service, a basic need for participation in the political and economic sectors of our community. b) Wireless has been demonstrated to significantly improve the responsiveness of emergency services such as police and fire. With all the complaints about crime in downtown, how can we possibly consider a municipal network as a business amenity only? I do not support the creation of a municipal network just because it might bring more shoppers into downtown Chapel Hill.
   
   
4. Reliability on surveys requires some degree of common understanding respondents. Demographic questions provide a way of determining how understanding might vary among different categories of respondents. To be fair, the researcher proposing the survey will be adding demographic questions to the draft survey, but I don't believe we know enough about the downtown business owners understanding of wireless to determine what demographic factors may influence their responses. Does business size matter (number of employees, net income, etc.)? Current use of technology (backend system, basis for operation, nice-to-have)? etc. The only thing I know about this group is that, according to the news media, several of them share an assumption that they would be expected to pay for this nework, including deployment into adjacent low-income neighborhoods. That's a pre-conception that could significantly bias this survey. While I support the concept of internet access becoming a public utility (a necessity), there are many payment options that need to be publicly explored. Until we have some ideas for how the network should be designed (address based, mobile, combination), there can be no real understanding of upfront or maintenance cost except in comparison to current charges through Time Warner or one of the other telecomms.

Until we have a real plan for how to move forward, including information on different levels of service and payment options, ie product proposals, I do not believe a survey is the best first step. We need a needs assessment that begins with open-ended data collection methodologies, such as interviews, focus groups, etc. to determine the interests (need) and concerns of each stakeholder group. With that broad data in hand, then we could construct survey(s) that will provide us with more reliable information on how to structure services/products options. That is the data business owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders will need to make an informed decision on whether or not a municipal network is worth undertaking.