| Washington State has embarked on an extensive educational reform process that includes high standards linked with increased accountability for students and schools. A new test, the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), has been developed as the primary tool for measuring student attainment of the new standards. The planned student and school accountability measures will be linked to performance on that test.; The proposed school accountability measures include improvement and current achievement criteria on the WASL and Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The purpose of this policy study is to evaluate whether school demographic factors unfairly influence the selection of schools for state intervention. Multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the relationship between elementary school demographic factors and selection for focused assistance by the proposed accountability criteria.; The results of the study seem to indicate that the proposed system would unfairly select schools based on poverty, ethnic, and special needs populations. In contrast to that result, it was found that five different WASL improvement measures were unbiased in relation to the same demographic factors. Recommended changes to the accountability system include: (1) greater reliance on improvement; (2) less reliance on current achievement; (3) an improvement focus for all schools; and (4) greater alignment between school and student accountability. |
