Putting the public back into public accountability 

Educational accountability has been relentlessly criticized for its imperfections over the past 15 years. These criticisms generally take aim at the narrowness of measurement systems, which rely chiefly on standardized test scores, as well as at the punitive sanctions associated with underperformance. Without a doubt, these are serious matters. But relatively little concern has been directed at a related problem: the failure of accountability systems to meaningfully engage the public. 

The problem is not that public outreach is entirely absent. After all, states publish school-performance data and summative ratings of schools and districts for the explicit purpose of informing the public about how well their schools are doing. This, however, is an impoverished way of imagining public accountability. These systems ignore the actual interests and concerns of the public, focusing instead on a limited set of instrumental aims, such as raising student test scores. They sidestep the need for deliberation, instead employing formula-driven ranking and rating methods. And they do little to build capacity for planning and action, focusing instead on sanction and control. In sum, existing state accountability systems are public only in the most superficial sense.