A Different Look at Accountability: The Edvisions Approach

EdVisions Cooperative, a venture started by eight charter schools in Minnesota, redefines accountability for schools, teachers, and students. According to Mr. Newell, EdVisions' system of project-based learning for students and peer evaluation for teachers ensures high levels of student achievement. THE ROUTINE use of norm-referenced achievement tests has been growing as the demands for accountability on the part of schools have grown. But there are dangers in using such norm-referenced, content-based tests. For students, the tests usually measure only a limited part of a subject area, do not cover a broad range of abilities, rely too heavily on memorized facts and procedures, and fail to emphasize thinking and the application of knowledge. For teachers, too many uncontrollable variables exist for the norm-referenced tests to be sound measures of teacher performance. Teachers have different students, with different backgrounds, every year. To assume a teacher has done an excellent job in one year -- when students score high -- and done a terrible job the next year -- when students do not do well -- is an absurdity. As for the practice of using norm-referenced tests to evaluate schools, the absurdity continues. Score increases may or may not reflect what the school is actually doing. When teachers and schools "teach to the test," scores can go up. But in the process, schools often leave behind the enriched curriculum and student activities that foster student growth in ways other than the acquisition of declarative knowledge. Moreover, psychometricians agree that single test scores should not be used to make major educational decisions about students. Indeed, it is best to look at standardized test scores as being one among many tools for school accountability. Other methods of assessment, such as surveys of student and parent satisfaction, must also play a role. Portfolios of student (and teacher) work can be very useful. Being able to actually see what students can do with their knowledge is more important than knowing what their percentile score is. At schools associated with EdVisions Cooperative -- a teacher-owned cooperative operating in Minnesota -- accountability for schools, teachers, and students is viewed differently. EdVisions Cooperative is made up of eight small charter schools that are student centered and teacher run. EdVisions is a professional practice organization that allows teachers to take control of and responsibility for their own work. The cooperative has developed practices and processes that allow teachers to create learning programs, to develop compensation/program tradeoffs, and to deal with teacher quality and its effect on student accountability. EdVisions Cooperative is the recipient of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that calls for the creation of 15 small, focused, project-based high schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin over the next five years. To date, nine schools have been created using the New Country School model. The Gates-EdVisions Project has developed guidelines for starting charter schools that use a system of teacher- driven professional accountability. The EdVisions accountability system is based on the premise that students can reach clearly defined, integrated standards by using a project-based system; that they can complete a personalized learning plan designed by themselves, their parents, and their teachers; and that they can achieve at the highest level possible. But students in the cooperative do not necessarily improve their achievement by spending a great many hours shackled to a desk or studying a particular textbook. In fact, there are no formal courses, and textbooks are just one of many resources for personalized learning. The member high schools emphasize project-based learning, in which standards are embedded in an integrated curriculum. …