One size does not fit all. That was the school lobby’s message to the Select Committee on Public Education Accountability on May 12.

The committee convened to examine accountability for alternative education institutions, which primarily serve youth who are classified as “at risk” of dropping out, and consequently are held to lower standards than students on regular campuses.

“I think the central policy dilemma,” said Dr. Criss Cloudt, associate commissioner of assessment and accountability at the Texas Education Agency (TEA), “… is how you introduce high academic standards without sacrificing the elements that make alternative education programs effective. I think the overwhelming concern is that those campuses might be disbanded if the campus is held accountable for the same accountability standards as the regular campus.”

The alternative education accountability system is almost as old as the standard education accountability system that originated after the Legislature mandated it in 1993. Since that time the lobby has been pushing to give school accountability as many exceptions to its rules, which in part hinge on passing the TAKS, as English grammar has (not that anyone’s learning it).

Exceptions do abound, and there may be more in the future.

How does the state determine who is “at risk”? The statute lists 13 possible criteria, such as pregnancy, expulsion, limited English proficiency, failure to advance to the next grade level for one or more years, and failure to maintain a grade of 70 or better in grades 7-12 in two or more subjects in the core curriculum.

Rep. Diane Patrick (R-Arlington) suggested adding “economically disadvantaged” to the list. “There is research,” Patrick said, “that would indicate that being economically disadvantaged puts you at great risk for dropping out.”

Economic disadvantage used to be in the statute but was taken out in recent years. Lawmakers including Patrick expressed interest in putting it back in.

How alternative accountability works

Dr. Shannon Housson, director of the performance reporting division at TEA, laid out how the alternative accountability system works.

Instead of the regular accountability system’s ratings of “exemplary,” “recognized,” “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory,” alternative education institutions are rated on a pass-fail basis:  “academically acceptable,” or “academically unacceptable.”

For a school to be eligible for alternative accountability standards, at least 75 percent of the students in a school have to be “at risk.” A school does not meet that criterion in 2008, but did in 2007 is eligible for alternative evaluation.

At least one particular exception is making the alternative education landscape appear somewhat rosier than it may actually be.

In 2007, of 399 alternative campuses, 386 were rated acceptable, nine were unacceptable, and four were not rated (for various reasons). Looks good, right?

Not so fast. Those ratings had a school-leaver provision in place, stating that if an insufficient dropout and/or completion rate is the sole reason that an institution is not acceptable, then it will be rated acceptable, nonetheless, for that school year. The reason, Housson said, was that the definition of a “dropout” changed that year for the first time. (An alternative institution’s annual dropout rate must be 10 percent or lower; the completion rate must be at least 70 percent.)

If the school leaver provision had not been in place, those nine unacceptable campuses would have become 190. Some 181 campuses were “rated acceptable due to the school-leaver provision, because they would not have met the dropout criterion or the completion rate criteria,” Housson said.

Of the state’s 63 charter operators, 61 were rated acceptable and 2 unacceptable. But 32 would have been unacceptable without he school-leaver provision.

Dr. David Splitek, a public member of the select committee, said the alternative system is important because of the circumstances of the at risk youth.

“My impression,” said Splitek, “is … that we ought to approach [the alternative education system] very differently. We’ve got kids who because of the circumstances that they find themselves in … in nine months they’re not going to go through the same experience, so we shouldn’t necessarily expect the same result in the same amount of time.”

The 2008-09 standards

But the standards in this area are tightening somewhat. In 2008-09 alternative campuses for the coming academic year will have to meet the 70 percent completion standard, Housson said. No exceptions there.

Also, the TAKS progress standard will be 45 percent for 2008, and will go up to 50 in 2009.

“Diagnostic” vs. “punitive” testing

Educators renewed the message to the Legislature that standardized tests like the TAKS should be aimed more at ascertaining a student’s strengths and weaknesses than at awarding or penalizing schools.

Tanis Stanfield, superintendent at ComQuest Academy Charter High School, told the committee: “… [A] substantial improvement from September to May by a disadvantaged student with an unimpressive but passing final score represents more accomplishment by his school than smaller gains by advantaged students at stellar schools with outstanding final scores. A school should not be penalized because its mission includes the rescue of lost sheep.”

Splitek seemed to agree: “This [alternative education] really is a different kind of animal, and I think when we try to force the regular system on top of it and put those penalties in there that we do the entire system a real disservice.”

Dr. Wanda Bamberg, superintendent of the Aldine ISD, told the committee: “I think the alternative education system is very … generous. And that’s something that we want to take advantage of because we need to meet the needs of these kids as they continue and we want them to have high school diplomas.”

She said that alternative education has been “a tremendous benefit to these kids.”

The Rev. Kevin Collins, a priest of the Roman Catholic Galveston-Houston Archdiocese and a leader with The Metropolitan Organization (TMO), told the committee: “State-mandated test-taking in any form should be diagnostic, not punitive.”

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