How States Can Hold Schools Accountable: The Strong Schools Model of Standards-Based Reform

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June 2000
Sarah R. Brooks

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In the spring of 1999, the Washington State Legislature passed ESSB5418, which created the outline of a statewide accountability system. The state's 1993 Education Reform Act already committed the state to set standards for student learning, create a statewide exam (the WASL) to assess student progress toward these standards, and develop a system to hold schools and districts accountable for student performance. ESSB5418 offered the specific guidelines for the state's accountability system and created the Academic Achievement and Accountability Commission (AAA Commission) to provide "oversight of the state's educational accountability system."

The AAA Commission - nine members appointed by the Governor with nominations from each party - has been charged with making recommendations for student and school performance targets and setting criteria for identifying schools in need of assistance, interventions, or recognition. In addition, the Commission is expected to make recommendations on the types of assistance, interventions, and recognition that the state education department should make available to qualifying schools.

The Commission's charge is an important and potentially daunting task. Washington's Commission does not face its problems alone, however. Nearly half the states nationwide have already designed or are in the process of developing elements of standards-based educational accountability systems.

The Center on Reinventing Public Education recognized that lessons learned from other states' experiences could be of use to Washington's AAA Commission. In addition, other states attempting to build school accountability could also benefit from an analysis of the challenges and successes of implementing effective accountability systems.

Thus, in the fall of 1999, the author initiated a review of efforts across the country, and specifically in five states, to introduce performance accountability into education reform strategies. This paper is the result of that analysis and serves as an extension to the Center's 1997 publication, "Toward a K-12 Education Accountability System in Washington State," which provided a general framework for creating a state accountability system. The current research was undertaken with two primary goals: to identify lessons learned from other states' experiences with designing and implementing accountability systems, and to use these lessons to create a model for an accountability system that a state like Washington could use as a starting point.

To meet these goals, the author conducted a literature review of states' efforts in accountability nationwide. The review included existing academic research and general analysis from Education Week and the Education Commission of the States. It also included a closer look at the lessons learned in five specific states: Texas, North Carolina, Kentucky, New York, and California.

While five states' experiences represent a relatively small sample, this subset includes many of the states that, by reputation, have been most active to date in developing full accountability systems. Nevertheless, the analysis in this paper is not intended to provide an exhaustive description of all states' experiences with accountability. It is designed, however, to offer Washington state planners and others the benefit of lessons learned by others, and to formulate issues that can spark productive discussion.

This paper's proposed accountability model merges elements of different state accountability strategies that seem to be working well and fills in some of the remaining gaps with ideas that hold promise. Because each state and its political community are different, the proposed model cannot be the only plausible approach to accountability. The model does, however, offer a promising approach to accountability—one that promotes school improvement via a unique mixture of assistance, incentives, and school autonomy. It departs from the traditional rewards-penalties focus of accountability systems, incorporating strategies intended to build school capacity while ensuring that no student is left to flounder in a school that cannot improve.