District of Columbia Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson is backing away from the no-excuses reform of her controversial predecessor, Michelle Rhee. Last week, Henderson described Rhee’s major legacy – her two-year-old IMPACT evaluation system — as “uber-accountability,” stating that focusing on standardized testing “is to the detriment of a full and balanced curriculum.” And so begins the unraveling of the latest attempt to improve DCPS from within. Rhee’s $4 million teacher evaluation tool tied student achievement to teacher’s job evaluations and pay using a combination of standardized test results and in-class observations. Last school year, the IMPACT system identified just 12 percent of DCPS teachers as “highly effective” — meaning their students met or exceeded growth targets on standardized tests, making them eligible for “value-added” performance bonuses.
Less than a year after then-Deputy Superintendent Henderson defended IMPACT, she is promising to scale back the “hard-core testing environment” she helped Rhee put into place. It’s no secret that Mayor Vincent Gray, who nominated Henderson for the top school job without seriously considering any other candidates, and his supporters in the Washington Teachers’ Union would love to ditch IMPACT and go back to the old system that produced the fourth worst urban school district in the nation’s capital, outscoring only Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee on the NAEP.
IMPACT is not perfect by any means, but at least it provides some accountability where there used to be none. DCPS spending increased under Rhee to a staggering $17,715 per student for modest performance gains on the National Assessment of Education Progress, which is the only common metric for all school districts nationwide. But former Superintendent Paul Vance produced higher NAEP scores in math, and Clifford Janey in reading, than Rhee, according to an analysis by Alan Ginsburg, retired director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Policy and Program Studies. The small number of “highly effective” teachers explains why. If Henderson is serious about a legacy of her own, she cannot afford to dull the only tool she has to impose accountability on teachers in exchange for what are now some of the highest salaries in the nation. Mastery of reading and math is not a rival approach to a “full and balanced curriculum,” it is its necessary foundation. And it’s Henderson’s primary job to make sure that District children don’t continue to get shortchanged on either.
