Many states are threatening to get tough by adopting policies that reward success and punish failure in education. But, so far, there may be more bluster than action, according to Quality Counts ‘99: Rewarding Results, Punishing Failure.
The third annual edition of Education Week‘s 50-state report card on public education focuses on state efforts to promote accountability in schools to ensure that children are getting a good education and tax dollars aren’t being wasted. The 206-page report will be released at a press conference in Washington on January 7.
It includes results from an exhaustive, 50-state survey on how states will hold schools, students, and educators responsible in 1999. It also examines how states: measure student performance, report results to the public, rate the quality of schools, motivate good performers and assist bad ones, and intervene in failing schools.
Quality Counts ‘99 includes the findings from a special project on school report cards that compares the information states now provide to the public with what parents and other taxpayers actually want to know.
‘Reality Check’
And, in connection with this year’s special theme, the New York-based opinion-research firm Public Agenda has asked a nationally representative sampling of parents, educators, employers, and professors what they think about some of the accountability proposals that are now on the table. Public Agenda’s second “Reality Check” survey, published in conjunction with Quality Counts, continues to chronicle how reform is playing out across America.
Finally, Quality Counts continues to chronicle the progress toward education reform in the states. Report cards on each state summarize how they are doing in several key performance areas.
Quality Counts is produced in collaboration with The Pew Charitable Trusts. Education Week subscribers will receive their copy in the mail, dated Jan. 11, 1999.
