Accrediting Schools Based on Educational Performance
Policy Rationale and Goals: Prior to 1988, Indiana, like most states, accredited its schools based on a series of legal standards or "inputs" to educational programs. Educational inputs, such as the availability of textbooks, curriculum offerings, and the certification of professional staff, created minimum standards for schools and districts, taking precedence over analyzing student performance or encouraging school personnel to take the lead in the school improvement process. As stated in the Overview of PBA:
While it is important that basic resources, personnel, programs, and safety standards exist to support a quality education program, simply having the resources available is not enough. An effective accreditation system must also consider how well available resources are used to reach the ultimate goal of the educational system--the development of well-educated, knowledgeable, thinking students.
In
1987, the Indiana General Assembly enacted legislation creating a
performance-based accreditation system that focused attention on the results,
or performance, of the educational system. Based on this legislation, the State
Board of Education established rules governing the implementation of the Performance-Based Accreditation (PBA) system.
According to Mary Mickelson, PBA Director for the Indiana Department of Education, "PBA went on-line in the 1988-89 school year." PBA is the only accreditation system authorized by the Indiana General Assembly and all public schools must participate. There are approximately 2,200 schools accredited through the system, including all of the state's public elementary, middle, and high schools; area vocational centers; and about 400 non-public schools that voluntarily participate in the accreditation system.
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Recommendations for accreditation are based on the following:
- compliance with legal standards;
- satisfactory development of a school improvement plan; and
- meeting expected (predicted) performance levels of student achievement.
The State Department of Education makes recommendations to the State Board of Education for an accreditation period of up to five years. If a school receives probationary accreditation, there are usually "major problems with the school program," according to Mickelson. Schools can remain on probationary accreditation for up to three years. Then the school district is placed on probationary accreditation. At the end of a total of four years, the department may provide to the General Assembly recommendations regarding the operation and administration of the school; however, this scenario would be extreme and has almost occurred only once, at which point the district made the decision to close the school.
Implementation Strategy: The Indiana Department of Education implements PBA through a twelve-person professional staff, each of whom are responsible for approximately 40-45 schools participating in the accreditation process. Schools are on a five-year accreditation cycle, so roughly 20% of schools are participating at any one time. As stated in the Overview of PBA, staff in the department support the following mission statement:
Performance-Based Accreditation (PBA) assists school communities in their efforts to be accountable for continuous improvement of learning environments in which all students develop their potentials for a lifetime of intellectual, social, and vocational achievements.
PBA has three basic purposes:
- To provide a mechanism to verify compliance with education laws and rules.
- To integrate a procedure for examining student achievement and school success in educating students in the accreditation process.
- To provide a planning, improvement, and program evaluation model for schools that emphasizes the self-study process.
The measure of student progress used for PBA is the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP+), an assessment system that has been in place since 1987. Indiana students are required to take English and math assessments based on broad state-defined "proficiencies" which measure more specific "essential skills." While the testing system has remained largely unchanged since it was first instituted, and the state maintains a contract with the same provider, an "applied math area" and "process writing" were added to the system in 1996. In addition, items are added that reflect revisions to state proficiencies and essential skills.
Because PBA incorporates a regulatory compliance mechanism with analysis of student performance and a site-based planning and improvement process, department staff have come to realize that it is the school improvement process that "drives change at schools," according to Mickelson. From the state's perspective, incorporating the self-study process into the accreditation system is the "major change" that has resulted from this system in Indiana.
To ensure that the PBA Division provides the kind of support needed at the site level, some state department staff members are now geographically dispersed and are assigned to work with schools in a region. Department staff spend most of their time in schools and through this close contact with school personnel, regional differences can be taken into consideration and incorporated in the self-study process.
Evolution of Strategy: According to Mickelson, the self-study process has changed how the department works with local educators and administrators. PBA now has an 11-year track record, and the department has learned from the past: "Four years ago, the department had gotten very prescriptive, even to the point of telling school sites to `use these words.'" After protest at the local level, the State Board of Education amended the rules related to school improvement planning. This change had the effect of lessening the regulatory and compliance aspect of accreditation resulting in "some schools [doing] as little as required." However, "others are excited about trying new things," and the staff at the department has "re-tooled" to think of PBA as a means to encourage schools to embrace the self-study process as valuable in and of itself in addition to the accreditation function. Eleven years ago, they began with "here's the model, follow it, and get it in on time." Now they guide schools to ask "How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?"
In addition, the department allows the school to choose "the driver" of change. North Central Association has a self-study process that blends well with the state's requirements. Some schools use models like High Schools That Work, the Coalition of Essential Skills, or the Baldridge Self-Study Processes.
Results/Lessons Learned: For more than one hundred years, schools in Indiana have been accredited. "For schools that do empower themselves, [PBA] has become a significant school process because the local level" buys into the process. In addition, Mickelson asserts, PBA is "multi-faceted and not legalistic" and evolves to meet changes in the educational system that occur at the state level. For instance, new licensing standards are currently being piloted and will be required by the year 2001. As these changes are implemented, they will be incorporated in the process. In addition, the public has recently raised concerns over the "expected performance standard," that is integral to PBA. Some Indiana residents would like to see an "absolute performance standard" and it is possible that how schools are ranked and evaluated against a standard of "expected" performance may change in the future.
Overview of PBA. Available on-line: <http://www.doe.state.in.us/pba/descrip.html>.
