Resource: From Accountability to Opportunity
Transforming High School Measurement
With increased federal flexibility comes the opportunity for innovation and change, but also increased responsibility to ensure that we don’t lower expectations for our students or schools. In the past two decades there has been significant work done to ensure schools and districts are regularly measuring student progress and using that information to drive improvement and accountability. While the methods and measuring sticks can and should be improved, it is paramount that states maintain their previous efforts of holding schools to high standards of performance.
In a time of increased federal flexibility, state leadership is paramount. States have the opportunity — and duty — to build more sophisticated and innovative approaches to high school measurement. Each state should work to improve their systems; however, the steps to take will differ based on the state’s starting point. This brief outlines four ideas — in order of increasing sophistication — that states can implement immediately to better align high school measurement and accountability with the goal of supporting each student succeed on their path to long-term economic success:
- Include leading indicators of student success.
- Value long-term outcomes.
- Incorporate high school “value add.”
- Measure skills and competencies.
