Overall three major themes emerged from my research: 1) determining school success is complex and should incorporate multiple variables 2) including relationships is an important part of assessing schools 3) incorporating student voice in the process was empowering for the students.
Measuring Schools is Complex
Overall most students reported that all the elements we asked them about were important to effectively measuring school. Our survey asked students to rank elements students mentioned in their original interviews including relationships, enjoying school, how teachers teach, fair rules, voice for students, doing work that is important, and being ready for college on a scale from “Really important” to “Sort of important” to “No, not important”. We expected that at least one of those elements would be rated as unimportant by the students we surveyed. Our results (see Figure 2), however, showed that students found all those elements important to school. The lowest ranking for middle school was 69% of students rating “how teachers teach,” the rest of the items were rated “really important” at a rate of over 80%. In fact, of the 58 middle school students who were surveyed, only 15 (26%) students rate two or more elements as less than really important and only one student rated on element as not important. Most middle school students we surveyed thought the items we listed were all important to determining the quality of a school.
Figure 2
Middle School Students Quantitative Response: How Important Is Each Thing to Making a Great School?
Similarly, for high school students the lowest ranking for a given element was 74% of students scoring fair rules and how teachers teach as “really important” (see Figure 3). That means that of the 39 high school students we surveyed, most students believed each element was important. There were no students who chose “not important” for any category and like middle school, most, 27 students or 69%, reported that at least 5 of the 7 elements noted on the survey were “really important” to evaluating a school. In both high school and middle school student survey data demonstrates that students do not think any particular element is alone important to determining the quality of a school; instead a variety of factors are all important.
Figure 3
High School Students Quantitative Response: How Important Is Each Thing to Making a Great School?
This data suggests that school evaluation should not be based on a single measure. If we are to trust students’ thinking about what makes an effective school, it is clear that there should be a variety of metrics involved in this determination. These findings align with California’s current framework which is moving away from a single metric to a richer system that includes a variety of indicators.
Relationships and People Matter
Despite the fact that students noted a variety of factors were important to measuring schools, a few themes emerged that are important to consider. First, in surveys and in focus groups, students consistently noted the importance of relationships - both relationships between teachers and students and relationships between students and students. For example, on the YouthTruth survey, a third-party survey given to all students at our school, the most selected response to the question of “What do you like most about your school?” was “Friendly Staff & Students.” Thirty-two percent of students choose this answer compared to nineteen percent who chose “Teachers and Classes” and eighteen percent who choose “Activities” (the other two most popular answers). In addition, the theme of relationship was present in student responses to the question “What one change would you make to your school?” For this question, nine percent of students selected “Friendlier Staff and Students.” Though nine-percent of students may not appear to be noteworthy, this was still sufficient to make this choice the third-most selected (behind “More/Better Activities” with twenty-nine percent and “More Sensible Rules” with twenty-one percent). The fact that friendly students and staff shows up in both student responses about what they like and would change about their school indicates that relationship both between students and students and students and staff is important to students.
The data from student-survey the student co-researchers developed and their interpretation of that data bolsters this conclusion. In these surveys “Relationships” were more often ranked “Really Important” to a good school than any other element for middle school students (see Figure 2). Though students thought many factors were important to creating a good school, this quantitative data shows that more than any other factors students valued relationships between students and students and between students and teachers. As shown in Figure 2, Relationships is only slightly more likely to rated as “Very Important” than College-Readiness or Enjoying School. Not only does this reinforce the theme of the complexity of measuring schools and highlight the importance of relationships to students, this data is significant given the fact that currently there are limited accountability frameworks that take relationships into consideration.
This data is mirrored in the qualitative data from both the surveys themselves and from student focus groups who interpreted the data from the surveys. The surveys asked students “What are the most important things for a good school?” and I categorized the responses (see Table 1). The most responses were related to “good teachers” and the second most responses were related to “relationships.” Though these categories are separate in many ways, the category of “good teachers” related to the category of relationships. For example when students wrote phrases such as “nice staff,” “kind teachers,” or “helpful teachers” I categorized these as relating to good teachers, but since they are more about how teachers treat students they also could be categorized as relating to relationships. Again the theme of positive-interpersonal relationships is a clear front-runner in what students value and think should be measured about their school experience.
In addition to the categories noted above and in Table 1 below student responses also mentioned food (12 responses), fun/enjoyment (7 responses), clean environment (7 responses), supplies/resources (6 resources), rules and discipline (6 responses), grading system (4 responses), students in general (4 responses), project-based learning (4 responses), student behavior (2 responses), and students’ future (2 responses) as well as several one-off responses such as having physical education or enough money. Surprisingly only one mentioned challenging work in their qualitative responses. I had expected more students to mention this since the idea of rigor is often a topic of conversation among parents about what makes an effective school and it seems reasonable to think students understanding would be heavily influenced by their parents. The data, however, does not suggest that challenging work is not an important factor to students in measuring what makes a good school.
Table 2
Student Qualitative Responses
Category
Sample Student Responses
Good Teachers (27 responses)
nice staff
helpful teachers
way teachers teach
kind teachers
passionate teachers
Relationships (23 responses)
good people
community
friends
nice students
no bullying
trust
Education (21 responses)
learning
understanding what teachers are teaching you
good classtime
up to date
Students noted this trend and explained it in our weekly data analysis focus groups. For example one 6th grade student noted during our second focus group:
Also like what everyone else was saying like before, how teachers treat students and
how students treat teachers that really shows in the statistics - where it shows
relationships everyone said really, and I really do agree with that because it makes so
much sense that you really do need have a good relationships with your teachers.
In the same focus group, an 8th grade student briefly explained why she understood the importance of relationships to students saying:
I noticed a lot of people said nice staff, good teacher which I definitely think is important...If you have a bunch of teachers you don’t particularly like or that you don’t feel like you are learning from then you're not improving your education you’re just there, sitting there out bored out of your mind. And I think that’s kinda what results in the like ...you’re just not interested and a lot of people lose interest as they’re getting older and progressing in the school system. I feel like nice staff is important.
After she completed this statement, there was sporadic applause from the group. This statement seems to imply that relationships are a foundation for learning.
This trend was also apparent, but less pronounced in the high school data. Instead of being the frontrunner in importance, relationships came in second along with student voice with 90% of students reporting these elements were “really important.” Comparatively 93% of middle school students had ranked relationships as “really important.” Readiness for college was the element most frequently ranked “really important” by high school students. Ninety-five percent of students ranked this as “really important” to an effective school. This slight change in the data between high school and middle school could be a result of high schoolers being more focus on their education as preparation for college. College is no more than four years away for high school students and is more distant for middle schoolers. This data reinforces the concept proposed early in this paper that evaluation of middle school is unique given its greater distance from college and career. This data also suggests that the evaluation framework for middle schools should be different from, though similar to, the framework for high schools. Middle school students have different priorities and different elements are more/less important to make school valuable for them. The evaluation system for middle school should undoubtedly emphasize relationships and community.
The idea of relationships, however, was not a frequently written response to the question
of what should we measure in schools. The most common response to this survey question was “grades” with eight responses which was closely followed by “how students learn” with seven responses. I believe this is because the idea of “measuring a school” is a complex idea for most middle school students. In fact, the same middle school student said that the most important elements to making a good school are “having helpful teachers.” when asked what should we measure to determine if a school is good said “the overall grade that kids have.”
This pattern repeats through many different response and is actually especially clear in the high school data. In the high school survey responses the most frequent responses to the question of what’s most important for an effective school were, similar to middle school: community/relationships, good teachers, and a good education. Yet, there were only three mentions of teachers and five mentions of community in reference to the question of what we should measure in schools.
This phenomenon might be best explained by a middle school student’s response to the question of “Should we use tests to grade schools?” The student responded, “Yes, because it’s easy.” Similarly a high school student answered the question of what should use to measure schools with this insightful sentence: “It is hard to measure lots of things like happiness and this is where tests come in.” Many of the elements that students noted were important to making an effective school are difficult to measure. Thus when asked what to measure, it may have been challenging for students to connect these abstract ideas with concrete metrics. Measuring might have also automatically made students think about numbers, and grades are numbers students are familiar with for evaluating work. In addition, based on my early conversations with my student co-researchers, I believe when students hear “How should we measure schools” they often translate that idea into “How should student progress be measured?” The idea of measuring a student’s own progress or work is much more concrete and familiar to students than the idea of evaluating a school overall. Without a background understanding school accountability, I believe most students did not understand the question of what should we measure about schools.
When, however, students had the opportunity to develop a background understanding of school accountability, as my student co-researchers did throughout this project, this question became more clear and answerable for students. When my student co-researchers answered the question of how we should measure schools in focus groups where we interpreted the data from student surveys they extrapolated from the data about what was important to students about school to determine relationships should be a key part of evaluating schools. Students expressed this idea in focus group #1 saying that “Teachers should care about kids” and by focus group #3 and #4 they were able to generalize this idea with data from their surveys of peers to say that overall “relationships matter in schools.”
This is not surprising as research suggests that a connection between individuals is an important part of students’ experience at school. Farrington (2012) describes the importance of relationships in her discussion of students’ academic mindset. One of the four mindsets she outlines is that of feeling like “I belong in this academic community” (p. 28). Relationships are intricately tied to students’ ability to learn and grow in schools. As Osterman (2000) explains:
…the experience of belongingness is associated with important psychological processes. Children who experience a sense of relatedness [in school]…perceive themselves to be more competent and autonomous and have higher levels of intrinsic motivation [than students with a low sense of belonging]. They have a stronger sense of identity but are also willing to conform to and adopt established norms and values. These inner resources in turn predict engagement and performance…[Students who experience belongingness] have more positive attitudes toward school, classwork, teachers, and their peers…They invest more of themselves in the learning process (p. 343, from Farrington 2012, p. 28).
In addition, research documents the importance of students feeling that their teachers care for them.
Furthermore, even the relationships that students do not experience can affect them. For example Barth (2006) asserts that relationships between adults have impact schools overall and thus students’ experience. Barth (2006) describes the importance of relationships writing:
The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on
the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything
else (p. 8).
Healthy relationships are an important component to effective schools, especially students’ experience in school. Students in this research project articulated the idea that is supported by research that the quality of relationships between students and student, staff and students and even perhaps staff and staff should be included in how we evaluate schools. This idea is especially important given the fact that this element is not explicitly measured in most current accountability frameworks.
Students Should be Part of the Process
Adults may assume the world of school evaluation policy is out of the reach of middle school students. Yet, this study demonstrates that students have important insights about how to evaluate schools and that involving students in the process can be a step towards our goals for students. This finding resonates with Mitra’s (2012) claim that incorporating student voice in school-level change can lead to positive results in many areas. Not only do students bring a unique and valuable perspective to this work, engaging them in the process also empowers students and creates a sense of ownership of education (Mitra, 2008). Engaging students in deciding how we measure schools not only resulted in a stronger framework for measuring the school in question, but also had a positive impact on the students who participated in the work.
Through interviews, surveys, and focus groups, middle school students highlighted an important element of school effectiveness that is supported by highly respected research. Students pointed out that importance of relationships in creating effective schools. In doing so they aligned with academics such as Barth (2006) and Farrington (2012) whose exhaustive studies point to this same phenomenon. Students also highlighted an element that had been essentially excluded from most traditional evaluative frameworks. Policymakers would be well-served to listen to students’ ideas about how we measure schools.
The trend towards local control of school evaluation, in both California and across the country, demonstrates the idea that how we measure schools should be different in different contexts. There is no effective standardized measurement system because though there are some shared goals, different schools are focusing on different priorities. California’s LCAP system highlights this idea clearly. In this context, student voice becomes even more important as students understanding of school is highly contextualized and enriched with a deep understanding of their own particular school.
Throughout our focus groups students had rich conversations on topics that were highly relevant to their own school’s context. For example, during the focus group students discussed the merits and challenges of a full inclusion approach to education. One 8th grade student stated:
Also I think an important thing is that I don’t see a lot of at this school is separating kids who need to progress further in their learning. Because there are a lot of kids who finish early b/c they understand it completely and then they end up spending all their time in class just teaching all the other kids in class how to do it which is important and furthers your learning on that particular subject and I feel like it slows down the kids who really want to progress further.
A 6th grade student responded to that stating,
I do agree with [the first student] but I don’t feel like too much about it, because in my old school everyone was in a different class...what you would call smart kids are in one class and what they would call not smart kids in another class, the special ed kids would be in another class...everyone should be together even though some people learn faster than others.
Another student added,
I see your point….not segregate the different like advanced levels...but integrate them.
These students in the focus group were having a sophisticated conversation about tracking in their school in which one students was arguing that some students were not being pushed and another was responding that the alternative, tracked classes, was not a good option. The final student shared the idea of integrating the students and went discuss how learning should be both personalized and inclusive, thus getting at the heart of the goal of her particular school. This conversation both highlights another possible element we could measure in schools, personalization, and speaks to the idea that students are poised to choose and also provide feedback on goals that might be specific to their own schools. Talking with students both in the initial stage of designing that matrix and soliciting their feedback on the criteria would be useful. In short, schools are complex and at any point we could choose any number of metrics to evaluate them. Deciding what choose is a highly contextualized decision that is best made by those closest to the work of the school. Students are key group whose ideas and opinions should be considered in deciding how to measure a particular school.
In addition to the insights adults can gain by asking students for first their ideas in deciding what to measure and then actually moving forward with that measurement, involving students in creating metrics for school accountability has another benefit: empowering students. Throughout this study, the students who have been involved have felt a sense of empowerment and ownership. Students quickly became committed to this work, most of which was done during days when they voluntarily gave up their lunch periods to work on this project. In addition, five students even came to school during their spring break to present this work to other students. They were proud of their efforts to influence something so connected to their lives. In their exit interview, one 7th grade student reflected:
I am really proud of everybody and everything because yesterday we had a meeting and showed it to a whole bunch of directors and teachers and it was really fun and everyone did really great...That was one of the many highlights. I also liked the DL conference. That was a good time too. I met a lot of people thought it was cool what I what I was doing, I and other people...it was really cool.
The same student explained later in this interview:
Kids should measure schools because they live there...pretty much. It gives them a sense of engagement and ownership in their lives...Since they come here 6 hours a day 5 days ...you’d think they’d have a little say in what the school would be like...right? Most schools don’t have that...so yeah that’s what I like about this project.
The sense of pride and empower these students feel could be created among other students by asking them about their opinions on this and other important facets of education policy. In contrast to the idea of students not being able to understand education policy, students offer an important type of expertise on these issues. When we do not include this expertise in our work, policy suffers.
Of course it is not enough to simply ask students for their opinion. This study involved developing a group of co-researchers who grew in their understanding of these issues over time and work together in a trusting community. During each focus group, we began with a check-in circle where students share an update about their week. Just as we found relationships were important to the students we surveyed, building relationships within our group of co-researchers was a key step. In addition, the work was authentic we often discussed the real audience for it, and student-driven. This framework of authenticity for the work while also valuing students ideas, created a sense of commitment among the students. Each week, they gave up their lunch time to participate in this project. When in the closing interview, students were asked why they gave up time to relax with friends in order to engage in research on school evaluation, one 6th grade student said:
I would say because it’s important especially more at the I tried to run down there as fast I could to make it.
This culminated with students sharing their work with other students at the Deeper Learning Pre-Conference Day. On that day the students shared their research and ideas and ended with this statement:
We were given the opportunity to talk about what what we believe about this issue...we are the ones being affected by the board’s decision and what they choose for each school. We believe every student should have the opportunity to speak out about what they believe in.
Student insights and voices matter. Students shouldn’t just be affected by the policy decisions that surround them; they should have the chance to influence those decisions. Students can be part of the process of figuring out how we measure schools and being part of the process could not only lead to better outcomes for school evaluation, but also empowered young people who know that they can make a different. As one 7th grade students shared in her closing interview, she knows now because of this project that “First to make a big change you have to start making small changes.”
Measuring Schools is Complex
Overall most students reported that all the elements we asked them about were important to effectively measuring school. Our survey asked students to rank elements students mentioned in their original interviews including relationships, enjoying school, how teachers teach, fair rules, voice for students, doing work that is important, and being ready for college on a scale from “Really important” to “Sort of important” to “No, not important”. We expected that at least one of those elements would be rated as unimportant by the students we surveyed. Our results (see Figure 2), however, showed that students found all those elements important to school. The lowest ranking for middle school was 69% of students rating “how teachers teach,” the rest of the items were rated “really important” at a rate of over 80%. In fact, of the 58 middle school students who were surveyed, only 15 (26%) students rate two or more elements as less than really important and only one student rated on element as not important. Most middle school students we surveyed thought the items we listed were all important to determining the quality of a school.
Figure 2
Middle School Students Quantitative Response: How Important Is Each Thing to Making a Great School?
Similarly, for high school students the lowest ranking for a given element was 74% of students scoring fair rules and how teachers teach as “really important” (see Figure 3). That means that of the 39 high school students we surveyed, most students believed each element was important. There were no students who chose “not important” for any category and like middle school, most, 27 students or 69%, reported that at least 5 of the 7 elements noted on the survey were “really important” to evaluating a school. In both high school and middle school student survey data demonstrates that students do not think any particular element is alone important to determining the quality of a school; instead a variety of factors are all important.
Figure 3
High School Students Quantitative Response: How Important Is Each Thing to Making a Great School?
This data suggests that school evaluation should not be based on a single measure. If we are to trust students’ thinking about what makes an effective school, it is clear that there should be a variety of metrics involved in this determination. These findings align with California’s current framework which is moving away from a single metric to a richer system that includes a variety of indicators.
Relationships and People Matter
Despite the fact that students noted a variety of factors were important to measuring schools, a few themes emerged that are important to consider. First, in surveys and in focus groups, students consistently noted the importance of relationships - both relationships between teachers and students and relationships between students and students. For example, on the YouthTruth survey, a third-party survey given to all students at our school, the most selected response to the question of “What do you like most about your school?” was “Friendly Staff & Students.” Thirty-two percent of students choose this answer compared to nineteen percent who chose “Teachers and Classes” and eighteen percent who choose “Activities” (the other two most popular answers). In addition, the theme of relationship was present in student responses to the question “What one change would you make to your school?” For this question, nine percent of students selected “Friendlier Staff and Students.” Though nine-percent of students may not appear to be noteworthy, this was still sufficient to make this choice the third-most selected (behind “More/Better Activities” with twenty-nine percent and “More Sensible Rules” with twenty-one percent). The fact that friendly students and staff shows up in both student responses about what they like and would change about their school indicates that relationship both between students and students and students and staff is important to students.
The data from student-survey the student co-researchers developed and their interpretation of that data bolsters this conclusion. In these surveys “Relationships” were more often ranked “Really Important” to a good school than any other element for middle school students (see Figure 2). Though students thought many factors were important to creating a good school, this quantitative data shows that more than any other factors students valued relationships between students and students and between students and teachers. As shown in Figure 2, Relationships is only slightly more likely to rated as “Very Important” than College-Readiness or Enjoying School. Not only does this reinforce the theme of the complexity of measuring schools and highlight the importance of relationships to students, this data is significant given the fact that currently there are limited accountability frameworks that take relationships into consideration.
This data is mirrored in the qualitative data from both the surveys themselves and from student focus groups who interpreted the data from the surveys. The surveys asked students “What are the most important things for a good school?” and I categorized the responses (see Table 1). The most responses were related to “good teachers” and the second most responses were related to “relationships.” Though these categories are separate in many ways, the category of “good teachers” related to the category of relationships. For example when students wrote phrases such as “nice staff,” “kind teachers,” or “helpful teachers” I categorized these as relating to good teachers, but since they are more about how teachers treat students they also could be categorized as relating to relationships. Again the theme of positive-interpersonal relationships is a clear front-runner in what students value and think should be measured about their school experience.
In addition to the categories noted above and in Table 1 below student responses also mentioned food (12 responses), fun/enjoyment (7 responses), clean environment (7 responses), supplies/resources (6 resources), rules and discipline (6 responses), grading system (4 responses), students in general (4 responses), project-based learning (4 responses), student behavior (2 responses), and students’ future (2 responses) as well as several one-off responses such as having physical education or enough money. Surprisingly only one mentioned challenging work in their qualitative responses. I had expected more students to mention this since the idea of rigor is often a topic of conversation among parents about what makes an effective school and it seems reasonable to think students understanding would be heavily influenced by their parents. The data, however, does not suggest that challenging work is not an important factor to students in measuring what makes a good school.
Table 2
Student Qualitative Responses
Category
Sample Student Responses
Good Teachers (27 responses)
nice staff
helpful teachers
way teachers teach
kind teachers
passionate teachers
Relationships (23 responses)
good people
community
friends
nice students
no bullying
trust
Education (21 responses)
learning
understanding what teachers are teaching you
good classtime
up to date
Students noted this trend and explained it in our weekly data analysis focus groups. For example one 6th grade student noted during our second focus group:
Also like what everyone else was saying like before, how teachers treat students and
how students treat teachers that really shows in the statistics - where it shows
relationships everyone said really, and I really do agree with that because it makes so
much sense that you really do need have a good relationships with your teachers.
In the same focus group, an 8th grade student briefly explained why she understood the importance of relationships to students saying:
I noticed a lot of people said nice staff, good teacher which I definitely think is important...If you have a bunch of teachers you don’t particularly like or that you don’t feel like you are learning from then you're not improving your education you’re just there, sitting there out bored out of your mind. And I think that’s kinda what results in the like ...you’re just not interested and a lot of people lose interest as they’re getting older and progressing in the school system. I feel like nice staff is important.
After she completed this statement, there was sporadic applause from the group. This statement seems to imply that relationships are a foundation for learning.
This trend was also apparent, but less pronounced in the high school data. Instead of being the frontrunner in importance, relationships came in second along with student voice with 90% of students reporting these elements were “really important.” Comparatively 93% of middle school students had ranked relationships as “really important.” Readiness for college was the element most frequently ranked “really important” by high school students. Ninety-five percent of students ranked this as “really important” to an effective school. This slight change in the data between high school and middle school could be a result of high schoolers being more focus on their education as preparation for college. College is no more than four years away for high school students and is more distant for middle schoolers. This data reinforces the concept proposed early in this paper that evaluation of middle school is unique given its greater distance from college and career. This data also suggests that the evaluation framework for middle schools should be different from, though similar to, the framework for high schools. Middle school students have different priorities and different elements are more/less important to make school valuable for them. The evaluation system for middle school should undoubtedly emphasize relationships and community.
The idea of relationships, however, was not a frequently written response to the question
of what should we measure in schools. The most common response to this survey question was “grades” with eight responses which was closely followed by “how students learn” with seven responses. I believe this is because the idea of “measuring a school” is a complex idea for most middle school students. In fact, the same middle school student said that the most important elements to making a good school are “having helpful teachers.” when asked what should we measure to determine if a school is good said “the overall grade that kids have.”
This pattern repeats through many different response and is actually especially clear in the high school data. In the high school survey responses the most frequent responses to the question of what’s most important for an effective school were, similar to middle school: community/relationships, good teachers, and a good education. Yet, there were only three mentions of teachers and five mentions of community in reference to the question of what we should measure in schools.
This phenomenon might be best explained by a middle school student’s response to the question of “Should we use tests to grade schools?” The student responded, “Yes, because it’s easy.” Similarly a high school student answered the question of what should use to measure schools with this insightful sentence: “It is hard to measure lots of things like happiness and this is where tests come in.” Many of the elements that students noted were important to making an effective school are difficult to measure. Thus when asked what to measure, it may have been challenging for students to connect these abstract ideas with concrete metrics. Measuring might have also automatically made students think about numbers, and grades are numbers students are familiar with for evaluating work. In addition, based on my early conversations with my student co-researchers, I believe when students hear “How should we measure schools” they often translate that idea into “How should student progress be measured?” The idea of measuring a student’s own progress or work is much more concrete and familiar to students than the idea of evaluating a school overall. Without a background understanding school accountability, I believe most students did not understand the question of what should we measure about schools.
When, however, students had the opportunity to develop a background understanding of school accountability, as my student co-researchers did throughout this project, this question became more clear and answerable for students. When my student co-researchers answered the question of how we should measure schools in focus groups where we interpreted the data from student surveys they extrapolated from the data about what was important to students about school to determine relationships should be a key part of evaluating schools. Students expressed this idea in focus group #1 saying that “Teachers should care about kids” and by focus group #3 and #4 they were able to generalize this idea with data from their surveys of peers to say that overall “relationships matter in schools.”
This is not surprising as research suggests that a connection between individuals is an important part of students’ experience at school. Farrington (2012) describes the importance of relationships in her discussion of students’ academic mindset. One of the four mindsets she outlines is that of feeling like “I belong in this academic community” (p. 28). Relationships are intricately tied to students’ ability to learn and grow in schools. As Osterman (2000) explains:
…the experience of belongingness is associated with important psychological processes. Children who experience a sense of relatedness [in school]…perceive themselves to be more competent and autonomous and have higher levels of intrinsic motivation [than students with a low sense of belonging]. They have a stronger sense of identity but are also willing to conform to and adopt established norms and values. These inner resources in turn predict engagement and performance…[Students who experience belongingness] have more positive attitudes toward school, classwork, teachers, and their peers…They invest more of themselves in the learning process (p. 343, from Farrington 2012, p. 28).
In addition, research documents the importance of students feeling that their teachers care for them.
Furthermore, even the relationships that students do not experience can affect them. For example Barth (2006) asserts that relationships between adults have impact schools overall and thus students’ experience. Barth (2006) describes the importance of relationships writing:
The nature of relationships among the adults within a school has a greater influence on
the character and quality of that school and on student accomplishment than anything
else (p. 8).
Healthy relationships are an important component to effective schools, especially students’ experience in school. Students in this research project articulated the idea that is supported by research that the quality of relationships between students and student, staff and students and even perhaps staff and staff should be included in how we evaluate schools. This idea is especially important given the fact that this element is not explicitly measured in most current accountability frameworks.
Students Should be Part of the Process
Adults may assume the world of school evaluation policy is out of the reach of middle school students. Yet, this study demonstrates that students have important insights about how to evaluate schools and that involving students in the process can be a step towards our goals for students. This finding resonates with Mitra’s (2012) claim that incorporating student voice in school-level change can lead to positive results in many areas. Not only do students bring a unique and valuable perspective to this work, engaging them in the process also empowers students and creates a sense of ownership of education (Mitra, 2008). Engaging students in deciding how we measure schools not only resulted in a stronger framework for measuring the school in question, but also had a positive impact on the students who participated in the work.
Through interviews, surveys, and focus groups, middle school students highlighted an important element of school effectiveness that is supported by highly respected research. Students pointed out that importance of relationships in creating effective schools. In doing so they aligned with academics such as Barth (2006) and Farrington (2012) whose exhaustive studies point to this same phenomenon. Students also highlighted an element that had been essentially excluded from most traditional evaluative frameworks. Policymakers would be well-served to listen to students’ ideas about how we measure schools.
The trend towards local control of school evaluation, in both California and across the country, demonstrates the idea that how we measure schools should be different in different contexts. There is no effective standardized measurement system because though there are some shared goals, different schools are focusing on different priorities. California’s LCAP system highlights this idea clearly. In this context, student voice becomes even more important as students understanding of school is highly contextualized and enriched with a deep understanding of their own particular school.
Throughout our focus groups students had rich conversations on topics that were highly relevant to their own school’s context. For example, during the focus group students discussed the merits and challenges of a full inclusion approach to education. One 8th grade student stated:
Also I think an important thing is that I don’t see a lot of at this school is separating kids who need to progress further in their learning. Because there are a lot of kids who finish early b/c they understand it completely and then they end up spending all their time in class just teaching all the other kids in class how to do it which is important and furthers your learning on that particular subject and I feel like it slows down the kids who really want to progress further.
A 6th grade student responded to that stating,
I do agree with [the first student] but I don’t feel like too much about it, because in my old school everyone was in a different class...what you would call smart kids are in one class and what they would call not smart kids in another class, the special ed kids would be in another class...everyone should be together even though some people learn faster than others.
Another student added,
I see your point….not segregate the different like advanced levels...but integrate them.
These students in the focus group were having a sophisticated conversation about tracking in their school in which one students was arguing that some students were not being pushed and another was responding that the alternative, tracked classes, was not a good option. The final student shared the idea of integrating the students and went discuss how learning should be both personalized and inclusive, thus getting at the heart of the goal of her particular school. This conversation both highlights another possible element we could measure in schools, personalization, and speaks to the idea that students are poised to choose and also provide feedback on goals that might be specific to their own schools. Talking with students both in the initial stage of designing that matrix and soliciting their feedback on the criteria would be useful. In short, schools are complex and at any point we could choose any number of metrics to evaluate them. Deciding what choose is a highly contextualized decision that is best made by those closest to the work of the school. Students are key group whose ideas and opinions should be considered in deciding how to measure a particular school.
In addition to the insights adults can gain by asking students for first their ideas in deciding what to measure and then actually moving forward with that measurement, involving students in creating metrics for school accountability has another benefit: empowering students. Throughout this study, the students who have been involved have felt a sense of empowerment and ownership. Students quickly became committed to this work, most of which was done during days when they voluntarily gave up their lunch periods to work on this project. In addition, five students even came to school during their spring break to present this work to other students. They were proud of their efforts to influence something so connected to their lives. In their exit interview, one 7th grade student reflected:
I am really proud of everybody and everything because yesterday we had a meeting and showed it to a whole bunch of directors and teachers and it was really fun and everyone did really great...That was one of the many highlights. I also liked the DL conference. That was a good time too. I met a lot of people thought it was cool what I what I was doing, I and other people...it was really cool.
The same student explained later in this interview:
Kids should measure schools because they live there...pretty much. It gives them a sense of engagement and ownership in their lives...Since they come here 6 hours a day 5 days ...you’d think they’d have a little say in what the school would be like...right? Most schools don’t have that...so yeah that’s what I like about this project.
The sense of pride and empower these students feel could be created among other students by asking them about their opinions on this and other important facets of education policy. In contrast to the idea of students not being able to understand education policy, students offer an important type of expertise on these issues. When we do not include this expertise in our work, policy suffers.
Of course it is not enough to simply ask students for their opinion. This study involved developing a group of co-researchers who grew in their understanding of these issues over time and work together in a trusting community. During each focus group, we began with a check-in circle where students share an update about their week. Just as we found relationships were important to the students we surveyed, building relationships within our group of co-researchers was a key step. In addition, the work was authentic we often discussed the real audience for it, and student-driven. This framework of authenticity for the work while also valuing students ideas, created a sense of commitment among the students. Each week, they gave up their lunch time to participate in this project. When in the closing interview, students were asked why they gave up time to relax with friends in order to engage in research on school evaluation, one 6th grade student said:
I would say because it’s important especially more at the I tried to run down there as fast I could to make it.
This culminated with students sharing their work with other students at the Deeper Learning Pre-Conference Day. On that day the students shared their research and ideas and ended with this statement:
We were given the opportunity to talk about what what we believe about this issue...we are the ones being affected by the board’s decision and what they choose for each school. We believe every student should have the opportunity to speak out about what they believe in.
Student insights and voices matter. Students shouldn’t just be affected by the policy decisions that surround them; they should have the chance to influence those decisions. Students can be part of the process of figuring out how we measure schools and being part of the process could not only lead to better outcomes for school evaluation, but also empowered young people who know that they can make a different. As one 7th grade students shared in her closing interview, she knows now because of this project that “First to make a big change you have to start making small changes.”