Moving Your Numbers: Five Districts Share How They Used Assessment and Accountability to Increase Performance for Students with Disabilities as Part of District-wide Improvement
This article examines how five demographically dissimilar school districts use assessment and accountability as an impetus to implement positive changes in their schools. The article emphasizes that each district refrains from using assessment data as the reason that teachers cannot teach or that children cannot learn beyond a narrow focus on teaching to the test. Each district instead uses the increasing demand for accountability for all students and groups of students to redirect discussion and practice across the school district, with the positive result of improving the district’s numbers for all its students.
This extensive, unbiased, engagingly presented article provides valuable information about how five divergent school districts use assessment and accountability. The article may be useful for educators and other stakeholders.