Blue Ribbon Blues? :: Frederick M. Hess

The U.S Department of education's recently overhauled Blue Ribbon Awards School Recognition Program is a topic of hot debate. Now more in line with the Bush administration's focus on accountability, the new program, renamed the "No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools," makes test scores a key part of the selection process. But is this change the best way to assess all aspects of a district's success with student learning? In our Point/Counterpoint column, education policy experts Frederick Hess and Thomas Sobol debate the Blue Ribbon Schools award change. Hess, executive editor of the education policy journal Education Next, says this is the best way to reward schools on merit. Sobol, New York State's former education commissioner, believes the new program takes a narrow view of education.

Frederick M. Hess

The U.S. Education Department made the right move when it decided to end 20 years of rewarding faddish reforms and to begin awarding schools its prestigious Blue Ribbon Schools award based on academic achievement. Since its inception in 1982, the program had honored schools that embraced "politically correct" pedagogies rather than those that necessarily serve students.

The revamped program will steer the awards to two kinds of schools: high-poverty schools (where at least 40 percent of students are low-income) that make dramatic gains on state tests and schools that score in the top 10 percent on statewide exams. This approach ensures that schools are recognized both for serving disadvantaged populations of students and for fostering high levels of attainment.

Were the changes necessary? Absolutely. In August 2002, researchers found that at least 19 schools awarded Blue Ribbons in the past five years also received failing grades from their states for inadequate student performance.

In the 2000 Brookings Institution study that triggered the push to reform the Blue Ribbon Schools award, researchers compared the reading and math test scores of award-winning schools to those of average schools in several states. After adjusting for student socioeconomic status, they found that a quarter of Blue Ribbon winners scored below average. On further analysis of the data available for California, researchers found that Blue Ribbon schools failed to boost achievement any more rapidly than other schools. Under the old program, schools applied for the award by filling out a lengthy application packet that was developed by bureaucrats and researchers drawn from professional associations, state and federal educational agencies, and foundations.

The time-consuming and fuzzy application process favored better-off schools that had principals savvy at public relations and access to skilled grant writers. A Washington Post article profiled a school that had closed its library for two weeks to permit two employees to work 12 hours a day on the school's chart-filled, 71-page application.

In their applications, schools reported how often they engaged in the "best practices" that the bureaucrats and researchers thought desirable. The "best practices" were classified into eight categories: student focus and support; school organization and culture; challenging standards and curriculum; active teaching and learning; professional community; leadership and educational vitality; school, family, and community partnerships; and indicators of success. Actual data on student learning were requested only for the last category.

While we all agree that school culture and student support matter, it's not clear that we want to reward schools for them if they don't lead to student learning. We might just be rewarding smooth salesmanship. In fact, if these practices are not producing results, a skeptical observer might wonder how confident he or she should be that the "best practices" truly are.

While tests don't measure everything, parents, taxpayers, and voters are going to be justifiably dubious of a merit system that identifies "blue ribbon" schools that have a 25 percent chance of producing below-average results. Such results leave the public skeptical about educators' com-mitment to excellence and discredit the honor itself.

Efforts to judge schools based on practices or inputs mean that we inevitably wind up telling educators how to go about their business. If you believe that we shouldn't micromanage schools from state capitals or from Washington, D.C., this is a poor course. Even more troubling--for those with faith in "best practices"--is when schools honored for using these practices proceed to post unimpressive student achievement.

We don't award blue ribbons to student athletes because we approve of how they train, but to recognize the fruits of their labor. We award blue ribbons to honor the results that are produced by talent, commitment, practice, and hard work. Focusing on results keeps our prejudices from biasing results and ultimately rewards what really matters.

While testing is an imperfect and incomplete measure of student learning, most of us agree that a school where students are not learning math or reading is not a successful school. While there are good reasons to be cautious about placing too much faith in any single test or test score, it's not unreasonable to suggest that schools flagged as national showcases should ensure that their students master core content.

In every field of endeavor, blue ribbons signify excellence rather than good intentions. It is about time we adopted this same standard for our nation's schools.

Thomas Sobol

In 1982, the Reagan administration began awarding Blue Ribbons to outstanding elementary and secondary schools. Like similar awards in corporate business, the awards were made to schools that modeled "best practices" identified by policy makers and education practitioners. Imagine the surprise of the current accountability-minded Bush administration, then, when some of the ribbon winners turned out to have below-average test scores in reading and math, and some were designated in their states as schools most in need of improvement!

Clearly this was a situation that would not stand. The U.S. Department of Education has decided henceforth to make the awards on the basis of academic achievement, as measured essentially by standardized test scores. Some awards will be made for high achievement, regardless of student background; others will be made for significant gains in achievement made by schools with concentrations of low-income students.

One can hardly criticize such a reasonable course correction. Who thinks a school should receive an award for excellence if many of its students are failing academically? Measurable achievement should be a central criterion in such a program. And U.S. Department of Education officials are also right in giving awards to schools that make gains in achievement despite the poverty of their students. So far, so good.

But like the legislation for which it is named--the program is now called "No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools"--the award reflects a narrow conception of education and is likely to have unintended and unhappy consequences along with its putative gains. Consider first the poor fit between the standards and the tests used to measure progress, plus the inherent limitations of the tests themselves. These may not be reasons entirely to reject test scores in making awards, but surely we ought to be cautious before accepting test scores as the sole measure of achievement.

More important, consider the kinds of schools we want. Yes, we want our children to learn to read and write and think mathematically and do well with the content of the academic curriculum. But we also want our schools to be places where children learn other things as well. We want them to learn to use their minds to raise and pursue important questions, to acquire the values and habits of honesty and responsibility, to develop their capacity to work with others, to understand their role as productive citizens in a democratic society. These are not trivial or faddish expectations. They are legitimate, traditional purposes of schooling. They may be harder to measure than test scores, but that doesn't mean that we should disregard them.

Nor does it mean that because we have standards and tests, and prizes for those who do well, that we have discharged our responsibility to nurture the quality of our schools. Standards and tests alone do not guarantee achievement. We need also to provide the conditions essential for effective schooling: well-trained teachers, up-to-date learning materials, a safe and wholesome environment. Unless all our children have an opportunity to learn, our blue ribbons for excellence are tainted by unfairness.

Finally, while accepting federal recognition, we should make clear that we do not accept the federal government as the final arbiter of school quality. Our schools are at least as accountable to their students, their parents, and their local communities as they are to authorities in Washington. Frustrating as it may be for some, the decentralized nature of public-school governance is one of the saving graces of our system. The education of our children is too important to be entrusted to an elite and powerful few.

Those who give awards would do well to recognize the unique and diverse ways in which schools can be effective, rather than impose a one-size-fits-all standard that limits the power of education to transform human life.

Frederick Hess is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and executive editor of Education Next. Thomas Sobol is the Christian A. Johnson Professor of Outstanding Educational Practice at Teachers College, Columbia University.

receive the latest by email: subscribe to frederick m. hess's free mailing list