Fighting NCLB's 'failure' label: how to take charge of communicating before the media define your schools as failing

School Administrator, March, 2004 by Adam Kernan-Schloss

The newspaper headlines front around the country in recent months document what might be a superintendent's worst communications nightmare: "131 Stay on Md. List of Failing Schools" (The Sun, Baltimore, Md.); "Parents Opt Not to Move Children: Failing Schools Keep Numbers" (The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.); "Most Schools Face Failing Grade" (The Greenville News, Greenville, S.C.); and "Students Leave Failing Schools" (Chronicle-Tribune, Marion, Ind.).

Especially troublesome is when the "F" word is applied to schools that traditionally have served the majority of its students very well. Consider Tuckahoe Elementary School outside Richmond, Va., which was a 1996 Blue Ribbon School of Excellence with test scores among the best in the state. Last year it was labeled a failure under the federal accountability system because it tested only 94 percent of its students, one point short of the federal requirement. Meanwhile, hundreds of schools in Florida that were praised as A+ schools according to traditional state measures one month were declared weeks later as "needing improvement" by the new modified rating system imposed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

It's easy to sympathize with superintendents like Carlton Lawrence of the Hamburg School District in southeast Arkansas, who says: "No Child Left Behind gives no play to the idea that different districts with different student populations exist in different circumstances. They just identify everybody like we all started at the same place and had the same circumstances to deal with when really the challenges are as different as night and day."

As measured by the number of published articles in U.S. newspapers and wire services in the Nexis database, references to "adequate yearly progress"--the key benchmark for school performance under NCLB--nearly quadrupled between December 2002 and December 2003. State and local news outlets have devoted significant space to their state announcements of schools on the "needs improvement" list and those that have not made adequate yearly progress.

As the news coverage of school progress under NCLB multiplied, so has the prevalence of the "failing" label. Failure is still the predominant term used to describe the schools on NCLB's needs improvement list. In fact, use of the term "failing" to describe schools increased nearly threefold over the previous year. The all-or-nothing label makes it easy to miss distinctions among schools, lumping schools that are serving most students well with schools that are chronically low-performing.

Demonstrate Progress

So faced with the tendency of the news media to oversimplify a complex picture of school performance, what is an overworked superintendent to do?

Based on our work with numerous state education agencies and school districts around the country, we offer 11 recommendations for taking charge of how you educate your communities about the performance of your schools. Many education leaders suggest that the future of public education is at stake.

From our perspective, the best way to preserve and strengthen public education is to make demonstrable, regular progress in providing all students with at least the basics in reading, writing and math--and then be able to communicate that progress to those who actually own your local schools: parents, voters and taxpayers. The increased attention to school performance offers an unprecedented opportunity for school leaders to make your case and to build the community support you will need to achieve your goals. You have the public's attention.

* Be pro-active. Spend as much time as possible playing offense, not just hunkering down into a defensive posture. That means, above all, developing in advance a strategic plan for communicating with key stakeholders in your community about school performance. Address these six questions:

* What do you want people to do (actions, from having your principals communicate with parents or your parents writing to Congress)?

* Who needs to know and be involved (which audiences)?

* What do they need to know (messages)?

* How should they be informed and involved (messengers/mechanisms)?

* When should they know (timetable)?

* Who will do the work (responsibilities)?

* Take advantage of multiple teachable moments. Help parents and community members understand how their schools are doing--and how they can help. For example, when releasing lists of schools that need improvement, put the spotlight on your efforts to provide extra learning opportunities for students.

Conduct several background briefings for parents, community members, business leaders and other interested groups to show how taking a closer look at performance data is now allowing teachers to address learning challenges that may have been obscured before. And create Take-the-Test events to help community members better understand your state's more challenging standards and tests.

Alternative Reports

* Share a complete picture of performance. Develop and distribute as widely as possible your own report cards that give a more thorough look at school performance than the pass/fail ratings under No Child Left Behind. True, districts now must publish and disseminate annual reports on each school that highlight the reading and math scores of each subgroup of students, the qualifications of teachers and a few related indicators such as attendance and graduation rates.