Cloaking Inequity

As good as advertised?: Tracking urban student progress through high school in an environment of accountability

1–2 minutes

July 29, 2012

Accountability, African Americans, High-Stakes Testing, Latina/os

Vasquez Heilig, J. (2011). As good as advertised?: Tracking urban student progress through high school in an environment of accountability. American Secondary Education, 39(3), 17-41.

No Child Left Behind’s mandated high-stakes testing and accountability policies have pervaded districts and schools nationwide. To examine student progress and graduation in the midst of first generation Texas-style accountability, this study tracked individuals in a longitudinal dataset of over 45,000 high school students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD). Using descriptive cohort and inferential competing risk analyses, the study found evidence that student leavers were severely under-reported and graduation rates exaggerated. The majority of high school students in Houston actually failed to advance to graduation, and minority, LEP and economically disadvantaged students were disproportionately affected. An important question for the field, and the impending reauthorization of NCLB, is whether accountability policies are as good as advertised for urban schools.

Vasquez Heilig, J. (2011). As good as advertised?: Tracking urban student progress through high school in an environment of accountability. American Secondary Education, 39(3), 17-41. No Child Left Behind’s mandated high-stakes testing and accountability policies have pervaded districts and schools nationwide. To examine student progress and graduation in the midst of first generation Texas-style accountability, this study tracked individuals…

2 responses to “As good as advertised?: Tracking urban student progress through high school in an environment of accountability”

Social Impact Bonds: Bankers Get Paid Only If Education Works? – Cloaking Inequity

December 31, 2017 at 7:19 am

[…] implemented. Considering the statistical lies told during the 1990s Texas education miracle (See As good as advertised?: Tracking urban student progress through high school in an environment of ac…, and the political and arbitrary nature of accountability (See “Oh, crap”: Accountability is […]

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Bad Apples?: Accountability, AYP, and Cheating | Cloaking Inequity

August 10, 2012 at 2:48 pm

[…] What is the scale of the manipulation of data? After 2005, when the state began to use the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) dropout definition for leaver reporting, the statewide dropout count tripled for Latina/os and quadrupled for African Americans. Clearly, El Paso and Atlanta are recent, but not isolated examples. The real issue is that accountability incentivizes “push out” secondary students who score poorly on high-stakes exams such as the STAAR. I blame our policymakers for a poorly designed educational policy— accountability is not as good as advertised. […]

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