Behn, Robert D.
Rethinking accountability in education : how should who hold whom accountable for what? - International Public Management Network, 2003
Everyone wants accountability in education. Presidents want to hold the states and school districts accountable. The governors and state legislators want to hold the districts and schools accountable. School superintendents want to hold principals and teachers accountable. Parents want to hold their children`s schools and teachers acountable. Whenever a class or a school or a district fails to live up to someone`s expectations, he or she wants to hold somebody else accountable. Everyone wants to be accountability holder. Few want to be an accountability holdee. For the accountability holders always get to punish the accountability holdees. Our concept of educational aacountability is a vestige of the industrial model of education: at age five, the raw materials (a.k.a., the children) are delivered to the plant door by their parents; after thirteen years, they emerge, at high-school graduation, as finished products. The teachers are the production workers, the principals are the shop foremen, and the superintendents are the plant managers. And if their products aren`t up to our standards, someone in the production process should be held accountable. But why not hold parents accountable? why not hold students accountable? why not hold legislators, civic leaders, citizens, and taxpayers accountable? why not discard as absolete our linear, unidirectional, hierarchical concept of accountability and replace it with a web of mutual and collective responsability, in which each of us accepts that we all have a responsability for improving education?
Rethinking accountability in education : how should who hold whom accountable for what? - International Public Management Network, 2003
Everyone wants accountability in education. Presidents want to hold the states and school districts accountable. The governors and state legislators want to hold the districts and schools accountable. School superintendents want to hold principals and teachers accountable. Parents want to hold their children`s schools and teachers acountable. Whenever a class or a school or a district fails to live up to someone`s expectations, he or she wants to hold somebody else accountable. Everyone wants to be accountability holder. Few want to be an accountability holdee. For the accountability holders always get to punish the accountability holdees. Our concept of educational aacountability is a vestige of the industrial model of education: at age five, the raw materials (a.k.a., the children) are delivered to the plant door by their parents; after thirteen years, they emerge, at high-school graduation, as finished products. The teachers are the production workers, the principals are the shop foremen, and the superintendents are the plant managers. And if their products aren`t up to our standards, someone in the production process should be held accountable. But why not hold parents accountable? why not hold students accountable? why not hold legislators, civic leaders, citizens, and taxpayers accountable? why not discard as absolete our linear, unidirectional, hierarchical concept of accountability and replace it with a web of mutual and collective responsability, in which each of us accepts that we all have a responsability for improving education?
