Kansas Music Review

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . ." Charles Dickens' opening lines to A Tale of Two Cities seem strangely prescient in the latest iteration of education reform. The lure of over $4 billion dollars in President Obama's "Race to the Top" (RTTT) federal education funding legislation¹ has caused almost every state to apply for this supplemental relief to assist in increasing student achievement. In order to meet the rigid requirements for such an award, state education departments are revising current practices; these changes include increasing the number and quality of charter schools, improving student data-tracking, turning around thousands of low-performing schools, and—felt most deeply by those in the classroom—improving the means for evaluating teachers' effectiveness.

Teacher Effectiveness

The issue of teacher effectiveness has long been debated among education experts and those outside of the field, even as the education profession has struggled to define it. Parents and non-educators often fixate on the perceived lack of results throughout the American education system when compared with other countries, calling for greater accountability among teachers. Colleges decry the state of entering freshmen in their need for remediation before beginning college coursework, and the business world complains that graduates are not ready for the world of work. These forces have combined to focus on individual teachers' impact on individual student growth and achievement; this coincides with the impetus behind the Common Core Standards² movement to provide "college and career ready" high school graduates who are well-prepared for their individual futures. (At last count, 45 states and three U.S. territories have adopted these standards.) To meet this requirement of RTTT, an evaluation system must include a system for rating its teachers, a goal for individual professional growth (at all levels of proficiency), and an improved mechanism for the dismissal of ineffective teachers. Included in the determination of teacher effectiveness is the use of student growth and achievement data to substantiate individual student (and teacher) success. The National Council on Teacher Quality³ writes of "the best of times" in this model as presented in its "State of the States: Trends and Early Lessons on Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness Policies:"

The move to rethink how to evaluate teachers and explicitly tie assessments of teacher performance to student achievement marks an important shift in thinking about teacher quality. The change is significant because policymaking around improving teacher quality to date has focused almost exclusively on teachers' qualifications rather than on their effectiveness in the classroom and the results they get with students. The landscape is changing. There are a host of policy recommendations focused on increasing the effectiveness of the teacher workforce that turn on the critical need to be able to evaluate and differentiate teacher performance reliably and consistently with clear criteria that include measures of how well teachers move students forward academically.

In order for student achievement data to have integrity in the evaluation process, however, assessments used to measure and compare individual student performance must be common, valid, and reliable. Scorers need to be calibrated for inter-rater reliability, and teachers may not correct their own students' assessments if they stand to benefit from the results. And because our Constitution has relegated education issues and decision-making to its component states, a need to serve two masters has resulted in a "worst of times" scenario for many states: multiple and non-common assessments within school districts and across a state, with "silo-ed" curricula, pedagogical practices, and assessments present within a single educational setting and academic content⁴.

Music's Dilemma

The issue of non-comparability is magnified within school music programs. The National Association for Music Education's⁵ (NAfME) knowledge of school music programs demonstrates multiple differences across its membership:

few statewide music assessments are in use
there is frequent use of effort/participation/attendance to determine student grades
there is a lack of standard opportunity-to-learn scheduling practices, across and within states and/or school districts
a larger student load is more common to music teachers than to all other content areas
successful recruitment, comprehensive programs, and ensembles are often indicators of teacher effectiveness
much large ensemble adjudication and student grading are carried out through festivals, using third-party assessors
there is an inequitable distribution of resources (i.e., equipment, materials, sheet music, rooms, time, schedule support, access to students)

It is because of such diversity and inequity that multiple school districts are finding it expedient to assign school-wide English language arts (ELA) and math test scores to their music teachers for inclusion in their personal effectiveness ratings. It is an all too convenient argument that all educators are teachers of the common core learning standards, and thus partially accountable for student achievement in those areas. But if a major goal of RTTT and improved teacher effectiveness is to impact professional growth positively, one must ask: how can the use and inspection of non-content-specific achievement data assist music teachers in improving their personal practice? The simple answer is that it won't.

Music Teacher Effectiveness

What can music educators do to avoid this "worst of times" scenario? How do we embrace the tenets of increased student achievement that are derived from teachers' deep understanding of each child's capabilities and potential? The need to plan for, monitor and assess individual progress is central to everyone's success, and should be inclusive of ensemble, lesson group, and classroom settings. Aligned with a viable and sequential music curriculum, formative and summative measures of content knowledge should be designed to promote and gauge individual student growth. Multiple and varied measures of music assessment are recommended for an accurate picture of student progress, and should address numerous components of music learning, such as:

authentic individual musical performance (prepared)
sightreading/sightsinging
score reading
error detection
short and/or constructed response test items
composition
improvisation

Rubrics and rating scales should be used for performance, and can include creativity and collaboration capabilities (i.e., 21st Century Skills⁶); of course, scoring protocols need to be developed and implemented for grading these skills to ensure reliable assessment and comparison of the resultant data. Students can demonstrate their musical understanding in other ways, too, such as developing individual practice plans, peer teaching, self-evaluation, and conducting portions of ensemble rehearsals; these prompts develop critical thinking and communication abilities that will be beneficial in any future endeavor. The use of ensemble festival scores as a portion of student achievement data is to be discouraged, however, as they do not attest to the learning and musical independence of individual students in the group. Such ratings are best utilized in a district's program evaluation, along with student enrollment numbers, parent survey responses, and additional perceptual data that administrators may choose to include in other, non-achievement-based measures of music teacher effectiveness.

How to Start

Where to begin? Designing and implementing meaningful music assessment can be daunting to the most experienced of teachers and, when compounded with its implementation in a music classroom with 50+ students, appear impossible. We can find a solution by adhering to RTTT's individual professional growth goal for teachers. The most meaningful development experiences involve collaborating with colleagues in the refinement of professional practice⁷; writing grade-level assessments as district or school teams can provide this, and assists in aligning curriculum and student expectations in the process. In such a setting, teachers understand their roles and are accountable to each other for preparing students for future musical experiences and independence; they build upon these relationships to increase student achievement. Analysis of assessment data yields additional student information for differentiating remedial and enrichment instruction, and acts as a tool for increasing pedagogical skills and effectiveness when shared among colleagues. This collaborative learning practice is a "best of times" environment where achievement in music is supported and documented with representative assessments related to a district's specific "opportunity-to-learn" musical resources. If administrators are to make responsible and respectful evaluative decisions based upon individual student achievement data, music teachers need to work together to design relevant assessments that measure continued musical understanding and independence for every child.

Endnotes