Accountability to encourage quality teaching
If students don’t perform well, the consequences are clear: They get bad grades. But what happens when teachers or schools don’t do a good job? How do you encourage them to do better?
Those questions have shaped much of the dialogue around education issues for the last decade. The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation aimed to bring all U.S. public schools to the same high standards of performance by creating a series of consequences for underperforming schools.
But in the same way that a failing grade can fall short in describing a student’s real potential or motivating better study habits, accountability measures that punish educators or focus too closely on test results often don’t result in better teaching.
We advocate for accountability measures for Ohio schools that encourage the best teaching and accommodate the needs of 21st-century learners.
As education transforms – adapting to a world where online learning supplements bricks-and-mortar classrooms, where parents shop for specialized instruction outside school and where students take a far more active role in their own education – systems that encourage effective education will become even more vital.
We believe accountability measures should:
- allow for the differing needs and talents of individual students.
- establish clear benchmarks against which to measure student achievement.
- measure 21st-century skills in addition to more traditional, objective measures such as test scores and graduation rates.
- use incentives in addition to punitive measures.
- tap into teacher motivation and responsibility to move beyond simple compliance.
- create an effective balance of state/local accountability for results.
What is accountability?
Accountability in education has become something of a buzzword, but basically is an effort to ensure that teachers, administrators, schools and districts do their jobs well. Usually, accountability measures make it easier for the public to learn about results in their local schools, set standards for what are acceptable results and specify what happens when results aren’t acceptable.
Schools are being held accountable for:
1. Improving student performance.
2. Spending money effectively.
Since each state differs in the way that it funds its schools, fiscal accountability must be addressed by each state individually. One critical component of this discussion is finding a balance of local control with the need for statewide accountability.