Washington Administrative Code › Title 180 - Education, State Board of › Chapter 180-17 - Accountability › Section 180-17-100 - Establishment of accountability framework to improve student achievement for all children

Current through Register Vol. 24-14, July 15, 2024
(1) Pursuant to
			 the requirements of
			 RCW
			    28A.657.110 (chapter 159, Laws of 2013), the
			 state board of education adopts the following guiding principles in fulfillment
			 of its responsibility to establish an accountability framework. The framework
			 establishes the guiding principles for a unified system of support for
			 challenged schools that aligns with basic education, increases the level of
			 support based upon the magnitude of need, and uses data for
			 decisions.
(2) The statutory
			 purpose of the accountability framework is to provide guidance to the
			 superintendent of public instruction in the design of a comprehensive system of
			 specific strategies for recognition, provision of differentiated support and
			 targeted assistance and, if necessary, intervention in underperforming schools
			 and school districts, as defined under
			 RCW
			    28A.657.020.
(3) The board finds that the accountability
			 system design and implementation should reflect the following principles and
			 priorities:
(a) Student growth is an
			 essential element in an effective school accountability system. However,
			 inclusion of student growth shall not come at the expense of a commitment to
			 and priority to get all students to academic standard. Washington's
			 accountability system should work toward incorporating metrics of growth
			 adequacy, which measure how much growth is necessary to bring students and
			 schools to academic standard within a specified period of time. An objective
			 standard of career and college-readiness for all students should remain the
			 long-term focus of the system.
(b)
			 The board recognizes that the transition to a new accountability system created
			 practical challenges for shorter term goal-setting, as a new baseline of
			 student performance is established on a series of more rigorous standards and
			 assessments. Normative measures of accountability are a transitional strategy
			 during periods of significant change. Long-term, however, the accountability
			 framework shall establish objective standards for index performance tiers and
			 exit criteria for required action status. The board does not support a
			 permanent system of moving, normative performance targets for our schools and
			 students. The long-term goal remains gradually reduced numbers of schools in
			 the bottom deciles of the Washington school improvement framework.
(c) To the greatest extent allowable by
			 federal regulations, the federal accountability requirements for Title I
			 schools should be treated as an integrated aspect of the overall state system
			 of accountability and improvement applying to all schools. The Washington
			 school improvement framework should be used as the standard measure of school
			 achievement, and should be directly aligned with designations of challenged
			 schools in need of improvement made annually by the superintendent of public
			 instruction, and the lists of persistently low-achieving schools as required
			 under federal regulations.
(d) The
			 integration of state and federal accountability policies should also be
			 reflected in program administration. To the greatest extent allowed by federal
			 regulation, state and federal improvement planning should be streamlined
			 administratively through a centralized planning tool. Improvement and
			 compliance plans required across various state programs and federal title
			 programs should be similarly integrated to the extent allowable. Planning will
			 become less burdensome and more meaningful when the linkages between programs
			 become more apparent in the way they are administered.
(e) In the education accountability
			 framework, goal-setting should be a reciprocal process and responsibility of
			 the legislature, state agencies, and local districts and schools. The state
			 education system should set clearly articulated performance goals for itself in
			 a manner consistent with the planning requirements established for school
			 districts and schools. State goal-setting should be grounded in what is
			 practically achievable in the short-term and aspirational in the long-term, and
			 should reflect realistic assumptions about the level of resources needed, and
			 the time necessary, for implementation of reforms to achieve the desired system
			 outcomes.
(f) Recognition of school
			 success is an important part of an effective accountability framework. The
			 board is committed to an annual process of school recognition, and believes
			 that award-winning schools can make significant contributions to the success of
			 the system by highlighting replicable best practices. All levels of success
			 should be celebrated, including identifying improvement in low-performing
			 schools, and highlighting examples of good schools that later achieve exemplary
			 status.
(g) Fostering quality
			 teaching and learning is the ultimate barometer of success for a system of
			 school accountability and support. The central challenge for the superintendent
			 of public instruction is developing delivery systems to provide the needed
			 resources and technical assistance to schools in need, whether they be rural or
			 urban, homogenous or diverse, affluent or economically challenged. In instances
			 where traditional approaches have failed, the system will need to be prepared
			 to develop innovative ways to secure the right instructional and leadership
			 supports for districts and schools that need them.