CA Superintendent Responds

Interview with Jack O'Connell

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell spoke at the 3rd Annual “Reaching ‘At-Promise’ Students” National Conference in San Diego, California, to address concerns related to the number of high school dropouts and the results of standardized testing.

Superintendent Jack O'Connell Responds to Questions from RAPSA

O’Connell advocated high quality career technical education, in conjunction with traditional coursework, to ensure that students are prepared to enter the global workforce.  He maintained his commitment to closing the achievement gap, the difference in academic performance among students from all socioeconomic areas.  

RAPSA: What are your thoughts on an individual student growth model for accountability as opposed to the institutional growth model in AYP?  Could you support an alternative assessment model like this to show growth for NCLB?  This is especially important to consider for schools like SIATech that are 100% dropout recovery and have a competency-based program that sees many students over the course of a school year.

O’Connell: A model based on individual student growth holds great promise, particularly in cases such as dropout recovery programs. However, in order to meet professional standards, there are a number of components that must be in place, not the least of which is the capacity to link individual test scores from year to year. Once these components are in place, we could evaluate whether this type of model could supplement, or even supplant a system based on school-level results.

One of my top priorities is establishment of a high quality longitudinal student level data system that allows us to fully understand and document quantitatively what happens to students who come out of the traditional school environment, move into alternative schools and then move back into traditional schools. With longitudinal pupil data, we will be able to determine attendance patterns, skill improvement and other important accountability measures that cannot be adequately assessed at the school level. Being able to track students and identify their individual challenges will enable us to provide all students with the range of services they need to succeed academically, and truly hold schools accountable for improved academic achievement.

RAPSA: What are your thoughts on the "sky rocketing" dropout rate nationally and how Career Tech Education can assist in keeping kids in school and preparing them for college and advanced training?

O’Connell: According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the dropout rate nationally is not skyrocketing, but is in fact leveling off or declining (with the status completion rate at 83.9 percent 1980, 87.6 in 2005, and the event dropout rate trending downward since 1995). Regardless of the number or method used for calculating dropout rates, however, we know that in California and nationwide, the dropout rate is too high. In today’s demanding global economy, low-skilled jobs that provide a living wage are fast disappearing, so it is essential that all students receive at a minimum a high school diploma. Today, all students must be prepared to become lifelong learners, agile and adaptable enough to learn new skills and alter career paths in a time of rapid technological change. High quality career technical education that provides students with rigorous academic context in a real-world career context has been shown to be effective in reducing dropout rates and improving the achievement of students struggling in school.  In programs such as the California partnership academies, where business, labor, government, higher education and k-12 partner to offer career-oriented education linked to rigorous academic standards. This is a most promising way to offer students engaging coursework that is relevant to their lives and futures, and at the same time hold them to the high expectations they’ll need to meet to succeed past high school.

RAPSA: California's students' scores on the NAEP are significantly lower than average scores in the nation and are the lowest scores of the five most populous states.  How have the AYP requirements of No Child Left Behind changed education in California?

O'Connell: It is worth noting that California’s academic content standards are widely regarded as among the highest in the nation, and on tests of our content standards all student groups have made steady, consistent gains. California also includes more students with challenges (such as learning the English language) in the NAEP assessment than does any other state. For example, 34% of the students included in the 2005 fourth grade NAEP reading test in California were identified as either English learners or students with a disability. Just by way of contrast, in the same test for the same time period, 16% of the students assessed in Texas were identified as English learners or students with a disability.

California had an accountability system in place well before No Child Left Behind, with the same goal of holding high standards for all students and ensuring that schools focus on improving the achievement of all student groups. Reporting and accountability for improved academic achievement has led to achievement gains, and by shining a light on the achievement gap it has led to more focus on the academic needs of students with the greatest challenges. I believe California’s system of accountability, which measures and gives credit for growth in achievement at a school from year to year, is a fairer and more accurate portrayal of school performance than the AYP system, which simply shows whether a school has reached a “status bar” – the equivalent of clearing a high jump hurdle. I have pushed the federal government to allow a growth model such as California’s Academic Performance Index to be used for purposes of NCLB reporting. Regardless of the measurement, however, our highest priority must be to close the achievement gaps that threaten the future of too many students.

RAPSA: In a RAND Working Paper titled "Instructional Practices Related to Standards and Assessment" (April, 2006), fewer than half the teachers surveyed agreed that tests were a good measure of the state standards.  How can you ensure that California's tests are aligned with the curriculum and demonstrate a strong mastery of the material?

O’Connell: That research found that the vast majority of California teacher aligned their instruction to the standards, which is a positive finding.  We encourage teachers and school administrators to focus on the content standards rather than on teaching to the test, and this study and other research suggest that teachers and principals in California are committed to doing just that. We have an ongoing process of item development and review to make sure that the test items are fair, accurate, and aligned to the content standards. For example, we regularly convene assessment review panels that include elementary, middle school and high school teachers, along with university specialists, experts working in the field in each discipline tested, and business leaders, among others. Working closely with the assessment developers, they look at each item and its alignment to the content standards. Proposed items are field tested, and results on existing items are reviewed to assess how students actually performed. And in our school visits and other meetings with education professionals, we’ve gotten very positive feedback from teachers.

RAPSA: In order to meet the growing needs of a global workforce, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently encouraged raising the relevance of career and technical education by allowing more courses to meet entrance requirements for the University of California.  How do you see this shift toward blending traditional academics with actual hands-on learning for the workplace addressing the achievement gap with the nation's students?

O’Connell: The move toward more rigorous career technical education is a positive development for students and the future of our nation’s workforce. I’m proud that in California we’ve more than tripled the number of career technical education courses that also qualify for admissions requirements at the University of California.  Research indicates that rigorous career-oriented education options are effective in raising the achievement of students struggling to achieve in more traditional classrooms. Career technical education should prepare students to high academic expectations, so that all students graduating from high school have real choices for their future. High school should equip all students with the knowledge and skills they need to go directly into a career pathway or, if they choose, on to higher education.

RAPSA: The NCLB measure creates a "one size fits all" approach to schools and curriculum.  What ideas do you have for measuring student progress at drop-out recovery schools, which make learning accessible for a more transient student body?

O’Connell: Currently, our approach in California is to recognize the different mission of alternative programs, such as dropout recovery. This is the rationale behind our Alternative Schools Accountability Model (ASAM), which is a more valid approach to dealing with the performance of alternative and continuation schools. We are working to improve this system to both recognize the uniqueness of alternative schools and the challenges they face, but also to hold them accountable for high standards and for moving students toward academic proficiency. The trick is to have the federal government also recognize that these schools are different from comprehensive high schools. The current position in Washington is that all schools are the same and ought to be measured in the same manner.

Another promising approach is to allocate some portion of the accountability for the achievement of the students involved to the comprehensive high schools from which these students came as well as to the local education agencies as a whole. In that way, the comprehensive high schools and the local education agencies have a stake in making sure that these students are enrolled in high quality programs.