Accountability Era

Myra Suzanne Franco

Accountability in schools refers to systems or programs that provide summary information about school outcome measures to the general public as well as to schools. Each state has a standardized system, with local schools submitting their outcome measures to state data management systems. State departments of education provide the final reports and make them available to anyone interested. Accountability systems are prevalent in American schools as a result of educational reforms mandated through federal legislation. This entry presents a historical perspective of the rise of accountability from the early 1900s to the first 5 years after the No Child Left Behind Act was passed in 2001. The period of increased interest in accountability, sometimes referred to as the “era of accountability,” began in the business world in the late 1980s; by the 1990s the general public began to demand enhanced accountability systems for public schools. Student achievement scores are the ...

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