National Push for Accountability in Schools

The pace of change dictates that schooldayss should provide utmost quality learning standards to students. It requires that the school agreement should improve their learning approaches to enhance academic consummations of students. In this familiarity policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels boast worked to increase right of the school system on the premise that the equal plays a vital role in improving learning standards of students and society as well. This then surface the route to the recognition of military rating of school instruction execution to improve standards of learning and acquirements of students.The system of accountability requires schools to bushel what students should know and be able to do and to measure progress and gaps in students achievement. It facilitates the attainment of the desired pedagogics standards anchored on quality content and high learning standards. Developing appropriate content and student achievement standards are acc ordingly important part of showing policymakers and the public a return on their educational investment. However, accountability of schools for students learning and achievement is impossible without a clear, decocted road map on the achievement standards and what and how well students are to learn from kindergarten through graduation.Many states have developed content and achievement standards without involving stakeholders and teachers. They also have not considered how their standards are to be implemented, measured and tied to accountability. Developing content and student achievement standards without grand contribution and input from a variety of sources is fatal as there is no sense of self-control as well as responsibility from the stakeholders and agencies not represented. The standards set are then viewed as mold and one-sided thereby defeating its purpose and rendering weak implementation of the system.Accountability system utilizes results from standardized tests to evaluate procedure of students and schools, and provide sanctions, rewards or interventions for schools, educators or students. This system involves consistent monitoring and evaluation of the students and schools performance that it requires active conjunction of the educators, parents, stakeholders, and policy makers. The ripple effect of the system requires that these concerned people and stakeholders should be consistently committed to the purpose, implementation, and evaluation in order to keep track of students and schools performance and eventually facilitate desired continuous approach of schools performance standards.According to Kate Nolan (2002), it is not enough to believe that all children can learn. All elements of the system must be held accountable for the success of all children. The effect of the accountability system in school is all comprehend that Kate Nolan march on noted that, the improvement in school performance requires improvement in all stakeholders performance. Thus change in the system should not be an isolated case for the school sector but also on the part of the stakeholders as accountability requires their active participation and commitment for the system to work.It is noted that the accountability system is designinged to be a tool for instituting changes in schools that would positively clear the students, parents, community and the country in general. This system provides opportunities and avenues for joint effort of all people and agencies concerned to airlift the standards of the education system thereby improving school performance and learning of the students. The intention of the program is so noble and reflects an effort to bring education system to respond to the fast changing demands of the learning community, as yet a lot of areas need thorough consideration and re-evaluation.According to Chuch Poochigian, the education system reforms undertaken in the knightly long time have greatly enhanced the abil ity of the parents to monitor the performance of their children as well as of the school where they are enrolled, however, the only way that the drive for accountability in education will be very successful is if parents utilize the new tools offered to them to ensure that their children receive quality education. This statement should give one an supposition that accountability should not be limited to the school sector only.According to Douglas B. Reeves (2002), accountability must be viewed in a different way. It must consider and address the issues in congruence of the objectives and the strategies, specificity, relevance, respect for diversity, continuous improvement, and focus on achievement, not norms. Accountability system is highly complex and involves a range of interconnected issues and design as well as technical issues on the implementation and evaluation aspect that needs further thorough study and reconsideration.Also it must be noted that no matter how enlightened or graceful the assessment devices, if the focus is limited to gathering and reporting data rather than skillful use of those data for learning and achievement enhancement of students, little improvement to school performance will result. Thus, the best way to know whether an accountability system is working is to see whether the school system it accounts for is moving from where it was to where it wants to be. From its first implementation, an accountability system requires not only internal implementation but also external monitoring.Indeed the national tote for accountability dignifies the need to improve standards of school performance and would greatly benefit the students but the approach is inferior and has undesirable side effects. Schools do not per se reject accountability as the same is an inner responsibility, but an authentic approach to accountability must be formulated. A new set of principles must be created to guide the reconstruction of accountability systems t o better meet the needs of education and students, and to avoid the dangers a great deal associated with current accountability systems. Further, collaboration and supportive effort of the school, stakeholders and policymakers must be promoted.Reference ListNolan, K. (2002). Excerpts from using accountability to make up strong schools. EducationCommission of States. Retrieved February 20, 2007 from http//www.ecs.orgPoochigian, C. School accountability reforms. Retrieved February 23, 2007 fromhttp//www.reasons.org/pb34.pdf.Reeves, D. (2002). Accountability based-reforms should lead to a better teaching andlearning-period. Harvard Education System. Retrieved February 20, 2007 fromhttp//www.edletter.org/past/issues2002-ma/reeves.shtml.