The Design of School Accountability Systems

Accountability became fashionable in the 1960s. In the 1970s, there was a heated discussion about the pros and cons of accountability. We discussed the need for accountability (Lennon, 1971; Lessinger 1970; Lessinger & Tyler, 1971; McDonald & Forehand, 1973). We also discussed problems and limitations (Bacon, 1978; Barro, 1970; Browdy, 1977; Duncan, 1971; Guthrie, 1979; Olmsted, 1972; Ornstein & Talmage, 1973; Spencer & Wiley, 1981). During the 1960s and 1970s state accountability systems began to emerge. For example, Michigan, Florida, and New York instituted statewide accountability systems. These varied in philosophy, emphasis, and effectiveness. What is new today is a widespread recognition that increased state funding of public education will inevitably trigger new calls for state accountability. Faced with demands for improvements in the schools, legislatures are increasingly attempting to affect policy and outcomes by instituting statewide controls on the schools. Current trends are to rely on testing, more specifically on standardized truefalse testing. There are many reasons for this tendency. Standardized tests are available and useful. They have increasingly been used to point to the successes and failures of American education. In the last decades they have become the best known and the most documented tool to evaluate the state of American schools. Because the tests are not directly linked to the curriculum, they can be used across the board to evaluate many different students or many different schools. They provide an egalitarian tool for centralized control without obliging the state to intervene in the daily affairs of the schools. Or, at least, they seem to. Centralized control, however, inevitably results in some form of intervention. The current call for statewide accountability systems linked with economic incentives means that standardized testing is to take new importance in the schools. For example, in California, most if not all the proposed new school-based accountability systems under discussion in the legislature use the schoolwide scores of the California Assessment Program (CAP) to provide school comparisons that would be used in a statewide incentive scheme whereby schools achieving high scores would be rewarded financially. It is difficult to imagine that tests that are useful to diagnose students' educational needs and potentialities could be used to evaluate schools without distorting what happens in the schools. The fact that the tests are not linked to the curriculum makes them uniquely useful instruments to assess students or even schools. But the moment financial incentives are linked with the tests they are bound to yield goal I have been helped by several close colleagues and students: Charles Benson, James Guthrie, Bernard Gifford, Michael Kirst, David Losk, Karen Nelson, Rick Pratt, Ama Torrance, and David Stern. Dayna Davis, Jean Thompson, and Judy Snow have handled the script. The research was conducted with a grant from PACE (Policy Analysis for California Education, a joint project at Berkeley and Stanford, financed by the Hewlett Foundation). Authors are always guilty for all omissions, errors, and lack of judgment. This is the case once again.