A Comprehensive System for the Evaluation of Schools	William J.Webster Dallas Independent School District

The District Improvement Plan presents targets and corresponding strategic plans of action with a planning horizon of five years.. Since the District has a number of concerned audiences, the plan must meet the accountability objectives and strategic planning requirements of the General Superintendent, the Board of Education, the Texas Education Agency, and the United States District Court. The District Improvement Plan meets the four major requirements of a strategic planning system in that it receives input from all District departments and campuses, it sets accountability targets and minimum standards of performance for the District and each of its schools, it provides systemwide plans of action for meeting the major targets of the District, and, it specifies the methodology required for monitoring its implementation.

The District Improvement Plan contains the strategic plans of each of the District's support divisions relative to their contributions to meeting each of the District's targets. It also contains the desired levels of District outcomes by 2001 and the intermediate steps necessary to get from 1998 levels to those desired outcomes. It is directly related to the School Improvement Plans in that outcome levels that are specified in each of the School Improvement Plans are those levels that will help the District reach its goals. The District Improvement Plan sets the criterion level for desired outcomes. Goals are absolute. All schools could make them or no schools could make them, that is, target accomplishment is not determined by a norm group. However, because individual school goals are established based on the performance of the most effective schools from the previous year, the District would have a very good year if all schools made their goals.

Obviously, a great deal of training must occur if school staffs are to utilize available data and objectively collect and interpret additional data for aid in improving their schools. Training modules for school staffs are currently being developed in keeping and scoring student portfolios of work, designing and scoring performance tests, conducting protocol analysis, developing teacher-made tests, interpreting and using data, and designing and conducting action research.

Accountability without information for diagnosis and improvement is of limited utility. In designing an accountability system, it is important to analyze data needs at each point in the organization. Data needs at the teacher level should be identified and those data aggregated upward and summarized to meet information demands at each successive level of the organization. It is essential that the system provide teachers with the information necessary to improve instruction. Without instructional improvement, accountability alone cannot improve a school system.