Accountability That Works

The Four Pillars of a New System

By Randi Weingarten

Teachers understand the importance of accountability and they embrace it. But an accurate and fair school accountability system remains elusive.

All too often so-called “accountability” systems are used to fix blame, rather than to fix schools. Unfortunately, this is the situation in my own district of New York City, where Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein’s administration has instituted a simplistic accountability system that awards a single grade to each school based almost entirely on standardized-test scores.

Test scores are important, of course, but they should be only one part of a broader evaluation that considers the many aspects of the educational experience that make a school a place where educators want to work and parents want to send their children. In addition, a fair accountability system must recognize that responsibility for a school’s success rests not just with teachers and other front-line educators, but also with central district administrators and policymakers in the city,...