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Yesterday, we published our conversation with Christopher Cross about the Broader, Bolder Approach (BBA) Campaign’s new accountability recommendations. Today, we’re releasing an interview with another member of BBA’s Accountability Committee: Diane Ravitch, who followed Cross as Assistant Secretary of OERI during the administration of George H.W. Bush.

Like Cross, Ravitch requires no introduction. A long-time supporter of standards-based reform, she has become one of the nation’s most vocal critics of No Child Left Behind. Here are her thoughts on the BBA recommendations:

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: You have argued that "a few tweaks here and a little tinkering there cannot fix" No Child Left Behind. How do BBA's accountability recommendations depart from the NCLB model?

RAVITCH: NCLB is a punitive approach to school improvement. It mandates that test scores must increase or else! If they don't go higher, schools will be sanctioned, and the sanctions will get more onerous with each year that the schools fail to meet their targets. Each year, the targets get higher, and the number of schools that slip over the precipice increases. As schools fail, they are threatened with closure, restructuring, staff firings, or other consequences that may or may not improve the school.

In contrast, BBA suggests accountability that goes far beyond test scores. Test scores matter, but so does student engagement in a broad range of academic subjects, as well as students' health, well-being and civic behavior. Where NCLB is punitive, BBA seeks constructive ways to measure the condition and progress of schools and students.

NCLB says that test scores are the only metric that matters; BBA says that there are many ways to measure schools and students, not just test scores. As a parent and grandparent, I appreciate the spirit of BBA, which is far better attuned to children and schools than is the narrow metric of NCLB.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: How does BBA propose to alter the federal role in education? Why is it important to change the federal role?

RAVITCH: Unlike NCLB, which uses federal policy to shame schools and educators, BBA proposes to restore the spirit of federalism to education policy. This was the original vision of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, on which NCLB was built.

In the BBA vision, the federal government would collect data from NAEP and the states on a wide variety of academic measures, as well as on a variety of other measures, including student participation in the arts, their civic activities, and their health and fitness. NAEP would remain an important and low-stakes (I would say "no-stakes") assessment, not used for individual assessment. NAEP would serve, as it does now, as a monitor of state academic reports.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: As you know, critics of BBA have characterized the initiative as an attempt by "educrats" to escape accountability for student success. Does BBA let schools off the hook?

RAVITCH: I think that when critics make such a charge, what they really mean is that BBA has enlisted large numbers of people who have worked in schools and have direct experience as teachers, principals, and school leaders. My guess is that critics of the BBA approach are edu-pundits who have little direct experience with schools or children; they seem to think that they can whip schools into shape through tactics of measurement and humiliation. This approach has upped the pressure on teachers and principals to produce higher test scores, but all too often such gains are meaningless, the result of test-prepping and coaching that does not persist and does not prepare students for college or the modern workplace. If a good education could be gauged solely by test scores, the critics might be right. But a good education requires far more than the ability to pass a standardized, multiple-choice test of basic skills. It requires that we educate children in a broad range of knowledge and skills and encourage them to develop as good people of strong character and good habits. The tests measure only a small slice of what really matters for success as a person. As for "letting schools off the hook," I think that such an assumption would flow from a punitive cast of mind. The question is not whether we are "letting schools off the hook," but whether the federal government and states are meeting their responsibility to help schools do a better job.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What role, if any, should state assessments play in an improved accountability system?

RAVITCH: What we have seen to date is vastly inflated results on state tests, so that some states are rapidly approaching the NCLB goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. Of course, none of these claims have been verified or validated by NAEP. In effect, federal policy has encouraged the states to engage in score inflation and to invest heavily in test preparation that actually invalidates their state tests even as it bolsters proficiency rates.

I would hope that the states and Congress would take seriously the BBA proposal to have:
1) better state assessments
2) inspection systems that assure that schools are providing a sound and rich academic curriculum, excellent instruction, and adequate attention to the non-academic needs of their students.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: The BBA document proposes a system of "inspections of districts and schools to ensure their contributions to satisfactory student performance." What do you say to concerns that inspections might be too subjective to provide reliable data on school or district performance?

RAVITCH: Other nations have established successful inspection systems; so could we. I would tend to give credence to an assessment system that combined qualitative reviews and quantitative measures. The objective measures we now have are far too limited to be useful as they measure only a small portion of what really matters in the education of children.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Some will likely point to the cost of the BBA accountability recommendations as a barrier to implementation. How can we justify the higher costs?

RAVITCH: Our current system of accountability is so narrow-minded and so counterproductive to good education that it is money down the drain. Improving accountability by adopting the BBA model would be a good investment in a solid education for our students, and it would help to improve teaching and encourage teachers to remain in the profession by focusing attention on the ingredients that really matter, rather than pretending that children can be measured like widgets.