The Challenging Task of Measuring Early Childhood Performance in DC

Last month, the DC Public Charter School Board officially adopted the new early childhood performance management framework with a few good revisions. But there is still a lot of room for improvement.

In late August, Conor Williams and I wrote about the proposed framework, which was controversial among many parents and early childhood advocates. The framework is intended to be a common accountability tool that will be used to evaluate public charter schools serving pre-K through 2^nd grade, beginning this year. The framework, however, will first be used to tier schools in 2015.

One of the major concerns about the proposed framework is the overemphasis on student outcomes, PreK-2^nd grade, in literacy and math. In these early years, teachers are helping children develop a love for learning and inquiry. Children are learning to explore, be creative, problem-solve, and engage in positive interactions with adults and their peers. Because social-emotional development is so important to young children’s education, assessing it should be more than an “option” in the performance management framework. As it stands, however, DC’s PMF does not require charter schools to assess SEL.

The chart below shows changes to the weighting of measures included in the framework:

These changes reflect public comments that the charter board received about the framework. The board adjusted the weight for social-emotional development to make it more balanced with the literacy and math in K-2nd grades. Again, charter schools, however, do not have to incorporate measures of social-emotional development. In the approved framework, it remains optional. To some extent, the CLASS does capture social-emotional learning in the classroom, but it is not a replacement for targeted, intentional assessment of students’ development in that area. Also missing for K-2^nd grade is a measure of teacher interactions. Presumably, CLASS was not added for K-2^nd grade teachers, since charter school leaders are conducting observations using other tools for them. If that is the case, though, perhaps the results of teachers’ ratings on those observation measures should be incorporated into the framework in some way.

The board also chose to add another measure into the framework: a mission specific goal. Each charter school will be required to develop a measurable goal that is focused on early education and is in line with its mission. This goal is weighted at 10 percent in the framework.

Another major area of concern has to do with the assessments approved by the charter board. As we said in our previous post, the list is comprised of assessments the charter schools are already using. This practice makes implementing the new framework simpler and cost effective, but there are more than 30 approved assessments and they vary greatly by what they are intended to measure. Some measure a broader range of knowledge and skills than others do. Some are more comprehensive than others. Some assessments are meant to be used as screening tools or as formative measures. This does not make sense if the framework is intended to be a common accountability measure. Such variation does not allow for commonality or for easy comparisons among schools.

Sam Chaltain raised this issue in his blog post on the approved framework: “One of the biggest problems with the PCSB’s framework is that even though all schools would be held accountable to the same categories, not all schools would be using the same tools to assess their progress.” The NAEYC also points to this as a huge concern in their comments on the proposal: “Individual charter schools will select different assessments of literacy and math, which will inform different information about children’s literacy and math development that likely will not be comparable.”

This is indeed a concern that the DC Public Charter School Board should revisit and address in the coming year, before the framework is used for accountability purposes.”