Educators have gotten used to poring over spreadsheets filled with test scores to get a sense of their students'鈥攁nd schools'鈥攕trengths and weaknesses.
What they don鈥檛 often see: feedback from other teachers, administrators, and students who can offer a fresh perspective on where a school stands when it comes to instruction, resources, climate, financial efficiency, and more.
A handful of states鈥攊ncluding, recently, Vermont鈥攈ave worked to change that, using a model borrowed from other countries and known in Great Britain as 鈥渟chool inspections,鈥� in which a team of experts or educators visits a school and offers objective feedback on teaching, learning, management and more.
Several states have experimented with the model for their lowest-performing schools, including Kentucky, Massachusetts, and New York, said Craig Jerald, the president of Break the Curve Consulting, who has studied the strategy.
Vermont, by contrast, plans to eventually conduct inspections, which it calls 鈥渋ntegrated field reviews,鈥� in all its schools, whether low-performing or not. The state began piloting the program last school year in about 40 schools and is continuing to test it this year in about 50, with the ultimate goal of reviewing each school every three years.
Refining the Process
Vermont is still figuring out how the reviews could be used to support schools under the new Every Student Succeeds Act, said Josh Souliere, the state鈥檚 assistant director of education quality reviews. The reviews aren鈥檛 expected to be used for federal accountability, but they could be a component of state-level 鈥渢echnical assistance鈥� for low-performing schools, he said.
But the true purpose of the reviews is to help educators and district leaders get a sense of how a range of factors鈥攊ncluding curriculum coordination, instruction, personalized learning, and the social and emotional health of students鈥攁ffect the overall success of a school and its 鈥渟upervisory union鈥� (Vermont鈥檚 term for local education agencies).
鈥淭hese reviews are intended to measure the things that we can鈥檛 measure quantitatively, making sure students are experiencing an equitable education, both across the district and within a school,鈥� said Lori Dolezal, an education quality manager at the Vermont education department, who took part in some of the reviews conducted last school year. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not punitive, it鈥檚 exploratory. It鈥檚 OK to find problems of practice. That鈥檚 the whole point.鈥�
Personalized Look
Under Vermont鈥檚 pilot, a team of 15 to 20 reviewers鈥攁mong them teachers, specialists, central-office staff, officials from the state education agency, and even students鈥攙isit a particular supervisory union. Then they break up into teams of about three or four people and head out to individual schools.
Those teams will spend about half a day at a school collecting 鈥渆vidence.鈥� That can mean conducting interviews with teachers, students, and parents, and observing classes. Teams also consider supporting documents that get at how well the school is implementing the state鈥檚 education quality standards, including local tests, curriculum materials, budgets, and policies and procedures. A second team will visit the school for the second half of the day and perform a similar review.
A school can rebut anything in the formal report that leaders think is unfair or inaccurate.
At least for now, it鈥檚 up to local administrators and educators to decide what to do with the information.
School officials who took part in last year鈥檚 process generally say the feedback was illuminating and felt supportive鈥攅ven if the prospect of reviewers coming in and judging a school made some educators nervous at first.
鈥淚t felt very personalized,鈥� said Emilie Knisley, the superintendent of the 450-student Blue Mountain district in northeast Vermont. 鈥淚t felt like you could take the recommendations and take action on them in a way that you can鈥檛 when you鈥檙e just getting a set of test scores.鈥�
Knisley also served as a reviewer herself, visiting schools in other parts of the state. That was eye-opening, too.
鈥淚t ended up resulting in a lot of people being able to share experiences across schools鈥� and get ideas they could take back to their own systems, she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 rare that you get to talk to people in other districts.鈥�
Already, in some cases, the reports have helped nudge school boards, which often oversee supervisory-union budgets, to provide funding for resources reviewers felt were lacking.
For instance, the team visiting Knisley鈥檚 district noted that some students didn鈥檛 have access to the same classroom technology as others in the same school. That gave local leaders ammunition to ask the school board for money to install new interactive white boards in elementary classrooms.
ESSA Connections
Experts see plenty of potential for the reviews in the ESSA era. The new law requires states to consider multiple measures of performance, not just test scores, in evaluating school performance.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an elegant way to handle a lot of things that people now want out of an accountability system,鈥� including gauging school culture and support for teaching, said Jerald, who has examined school inspections in Great Britain and elsewhere, but not specifically Vermont鈥檚 system.
And the reports are most valuable when reviewers are blunt and don鈥檛 seek to spare a school leader鈥檚 feelings, Jerald added. 鈥淚mprovement begins with honesty,鈥� he said.
Inspections can 鈥済ive you a real diagnosis of what鈥檚 going on in a school鈥� in a way that test scores alone can鈥檛, said Linda Darling-Hammond, the president of the Learning Policy Institute, a research organization in Palo Alto, Calif., and in Washington. But they are not enough on their own as a turnaround tool, she cautioned.
鈥淔or this to work, you need to have a good improvement strategy to follow up the review,鈥� she said.
