To be considered successful in Tacoma, Wash., schools must show that they can deliver a lot more than good test scores.
They should be able to involve many children in extracurricular activities, attract lots of adult volunteers, and reconnect with teenagers who have dropped out.
They need to spark praise from parents and students for providing a safe and engaging place to study. They have to reach into their communities to make sure all eligible children take advantage of district pre-K and full-day kindergarten. They should be able to brag about how many students are taking college-level courses.
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And they have to show strong student performance, and growth, on state tests.
Typically, districts judge their schools鈥� success by state test scores, attendance, and graduation rates, reflecting their states鈥� chosen accountability metrics. But of 30,000 students has pioneered a local accountability system with a different, much broader conception of success.
Now in its second year of full implementation, Tacoma鈥檚 鈥渨hole child鈥� method of appraising schools incorporates more than three dozen indicators鈥攊n addition to mathematics and English/language arts achievement鈥攖hat it considers pivotal to healthy learning and growing.
Spearheading the project to build that system was Josh Garcia, a former principal and high school math teacher who arrived in Tacoma as deputy superintendent in July 2012.
- Defining and Measuring Success: Educators must grapple with subjective questions about how to measure whether students are productive citizens, for example, and what criteria courses must meet to be 鈥渞igorous.鈥�
- Be Upfront: Tacoma had to be frank with the community in acknowledging that it had never collected a lot of student data that could have helped measure progress.
- New Accountability: Just the Beginning Changing familiar ways of doing business is hard, and it鈥檚 something that leaders must constantly work on.
He started by reaching out to parents, teachers, and community groups through emails, surveys, and dozens of meetings. He wanted to know what they considered important in their children鈥檚 schooling.
鈥淚t鈥檚 important to have an honest conversation about what it takes to have a successful school and school system,鈥� he said. 鈥淔or years, we鈥檝e never really been clear. We had to calibrate, to say, 鈥楾his is our community鈥檚 definition of success.鈥� 鈥�
A top priority was to choose indicators of success that were about students, not adults, Mr. Garcia says.
鈥淭he average person on the street doesn鈥檛 care if a principal is 鈥榟ighly qualified,鈥� 鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚, 鈥楢re they passing classes? Are they engaged in extracurricular activities?鈥� 鈥�
Getting Specific
Jennifer Kubista, who has worked in the Tacoma school system for 12 years and is now its director of student life, said Mr. Garcia and Superintendent Carla J. Santorno led the district to do what it hadn鈥檛 done before: translate broad ideas into detailed goals.
鈥淲e had a mission and vision, but we never had a set of benchmarks written down in black and white,鈥� Ms. Kubista said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really important to say that these are the key things we will hold ourselves responsible for.鈥�
She credited Mr. Garcia鈥檚 leadership for keeping district staff members focused on concrete steps to improve school for students. His follow-through on data that showed troubling dropout rates, for instance, led to the establishment of a ReEngagement Center, where re-enrolled students can catch up with online coursework. The requirement to summarize their plans for social-emotional learning makes elementary schools focus on day-to-day activities to give life to those plans, she said.
鈥淗e鈥檚 relentless, but in a good way,鈥� Ms. Kubista said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why you see principals pulling aside kids who are failing classes, asking them, 鈥楬ow can I get you back on track?鈥� It鈥檚 why people [in elementary schools] are thinking hard, 鈥楬ow are we helping kids learn to be self-aware, advocate for themselves, manage their behaviors?鈥� It鈥檚 just constant reminders of what we are responsible for and how to get there, and it鈥檚 all about how to support kids.鈥�
Mr. Garcia, 41, credits the whole-child system鈥檚 focus with improving important outcomes in the district. Enrollment in district pre-K programs rose from 997 to 1,209 in the past two years. Barely one-third of high school students were taking college-level courses two years ago; now 56 percent are doing so. The four-year graduation rate has soared from 55 percent in 2010 to 78 percent in 2014.
A few states and districts have added similar measurements in their accountability systems. Kentucky, for instance, considers the quality of schools鈥� programs in nontested subjects, such as world languages, arts, and humanities. A group of California districts known as the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, includes measures of school climate and students鈥� social-emotional skills.
But expanding accountability metrics is difficult, in large part because it can be tricky to choose the right proxies, said Jennifer Davis Poon, who oversees a group of states within the Council of Chief State School Officers that are working on new ways of judging schools.
鈥淢any of our states are reluctant to include the skills and dispositions鈥攖he 鈥榝uzzier鈥� pieces鈥攗ntil they feel there are valid and reliable measures for them,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat Tacoma is doing is pretty cutting-edge.鈥�
Plans, Not Consequences
Tacoma鈥檚 schools still must meet the performance targets鈥攁nd bear the consequences鈥攐f Washington state鈥檚 federally mandated accountability system. But their own, local accountability system operates very differently; it emphasizes constructive change, not punishment, for schools and teachers. Administrators鈥� evaluations鈥攊ncluding Mr. Garcia鈥檚鈥攔est in part on their performance against the whole-child metrics. But each school鈥檚 data are used to spark discussion and planning; the information is not incorporated into teachers鈥� evaluations or used to grade or rank schools.
鈥淲e go to schools and sit with the leadership team and review the data and talk about next steps,鈥� said Ms. Santorno, the superintendent.
Currently, Tacoma鈥檚 whole-child data are available online, in an interactive format that allows analysis by poverty, race, grade level, and other indicators. School-level data are not available online; district administrators use the data internally to work with schools, Mr. Garcia said.
It鈥檚 important to have an honest conversation about what it takes to have a successful school and school system. For years, we鈥檝e never really been clear. We had to calibrate, to say, 鈥楾his is our community鈥檚 definition of success.鈥�
The metrics are a work in progress. School board Chairman Kurt Miller said the board is considering whether to replace or add any whole-child indicators.
The work of shifting how schools judge success has taught Mr. Garcia some important lessons. The first is that it鈥檚 hard to overstate the difficulty of getting people to agree on indicators that are measurable.
鈥淲e want kids to be productive citizens. Well, OK, how do you measure that?鈥� he said. 鈥淲e want rigorous courses. What does that mean? What are the criteria?鈥� One of the toughest decisions was reaching consensus on what constitutes 鈥渞igorous鈥� coursework for high school students. The decision to accept only college-level work, and not technical-school studies, generated some pushback.
Another lesson was just how difficult it was to offer 鈥渉onest鈥� historical data. 鈥淲e had to admit to our community that we had never kept data on some things,鈥� Mr. Garcia said.
Perhaps the most important takeaway, he said, is that creating the accountability system is only the beginning.
鈥淲hen you have to redo the way you鈥檝e been doing business to improve the results, that鈥檚 when the hard work begins, and it can be paralyzing for some people,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut there are kids behind that data, and you have to keep saying that, making an action plan for them.鈥�
