Accountability: The what and the how

The New York Times recently published a series of essays titled “What is school for?” Each author focused on a different role schools play in society, including promoting economic mobility, providing physical and psychological care, teaching kids to read, and preserving democracy. Many of these purposes are not captured in current accountability systems.

Federal accountability programs under No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) mostly have been about students’ academic performance. Most people would agree that building academic knowledge and skills is one important purpose of schools. But, once we get beyond the basics of reading, writing, and computation, there’s room for disagreement about what academic knowledge is essential. As Chester Finn notes in this issue, clear standards are essential ingredients in any accountability system. The trouble is that establishing those standards quickly can become contentious.

Determining how well students measure up to those standards or what the consequences should be for schools whose students don’t meet standards is perhaps even more challenging. ESSA, like its predecessor NCLB, uses standardized tests to measure achievement. But Finn points out that such tests provide incomplete information on students’ academic prowess. Plus, going back to the question of what schools are for, they leave out many important qualities — such as character and citizenship — that schools also seek to instill. Jack Schneider goes further, explaining that tests not only fail to capture important information about how well students and schools are doing but also confound our understanding by focusing on data strongly correlated with students’ demographic backgrounds. In other words, schools end up being held accountable for what kinds of students attend their schools, instead of for how well they are doing at educating them.