What Is School Accountability? Untangling Definitions, Purposes and Possibilities

Imagining It as Part of a Larger System

In my work helping education leaders build high-quality school accountability systems, I’ve found that the term accountability is often used to mean very different things. As a result, many critiques of accountability systems rest on conflicting assumptions about what the term actually means.

Consider this question: Is a school accountability system expected to function as an intervention that directly drives improvement? Some argue that unless the answer is yes, the system is incomplete. Others see accountability primarily as a monitoring tool that is closely connected to school improvement, but not synonymous with it. Conflating these two views can actually diminish the effectiveness of both.

Whether we imagine accountability as an intervention or as a monitoring tool, it’s essential that we’re clear about its intended purposes and uses when we discuss it. To promote improved student outcomes and equity, we need to show how accountability coherently links to other important functions. 

In this post, I’ll review the purposes of accountability and some related terms. In doing so, I’ll advocate for designing systems that are driven by purpose, grounded in intended use, and implemented with coherence in mind.

Clarifying What We Mean by ‘Accountability’

At its core, school accountability is about collecting and using information to make decisions and improve outcomes for students and schools. Whereas educational assessments address the question, “what?,” accountability addresses the critical follow-up, “now what?” Importantly, accountability is typically viewed as consequential, since results may be used to determine when recognition, support, or intervention are needed.

In the Center’s recent paper, “The Case for Statewide School Accountability Systems,” we identified four key purposes of school accountability:

• Supporting school improvement initiatives
• Building public trust and engagement
• Signaling what’s important to district and school leaders
• Monitoring group, school and district performance

Accountability as Part of a Larger System

But can accountability alone achieve all of these purposes? I’d argue that it’s a necessary but insufficient component of a broader system. Let’s look at some potential pieces of that broader system:

Public reporting involves disseminating school and district performance data to a range of constituents. While reporting is a core component of accountability, it also serves transparency and public-engagement goals that may not be tied to consequences. Still, public reporting is widely regarded as a form of accountability, as any district or school leader can attest!

Accreditation typically focuses on whether a school or district meets professional standards of practice, usually through an external evaluation process. It emphasizes inputs, institutional capacity, and compliance more than student outcomes.

Early-warning systems use data to identify students, groups or schools at risk of falling short of key educational goals. These systems are designed to trigger proactive supports before issues escalate.

Evaluation is the systematic collection and analysis of information to judge the effectiveness of a program, policy or school. Evaluation can inform accountability, but it also serves broader learning and improvement functions.

School improvement includes the strategies and efforts to promote better outcomes for students and schools. While accountability may flag schools in need of improvement, the improvement process itself is rarely driven directly by accountability mechanisms alone. Rather, school improvement is typically characterized by ongoing supportive collaborations among a range of educational leaders and specialists from the states, districts, or other partners who use information to identify strategies to improve teaching and learning.

These initiatives overlap with accountability, but they each play distinct roles. Blurring these distinctions can result in fragmented systems or misplaced expectations.

Purpose Drives Design

Accountability systems should be designed to support specific goals and uses. For instance, statewide accountability systems developed to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) are intended primarily to identify schools most urgently in need of support on a core set of outcomes. This is distinct from other purposes, such as determining the extent to which schools are adequately resourced or providing progress monitoring to inform decisions throughout the year. 

This alignment of purpose and design requires us to determine the extent to which different elements should be integrated into the accountability process. Some systems focus primarily on summative labels based on a narrow set of indicators. Other systems are more intentionally designed to embed ongoing evaluation and support strategies.

The result is a wide spectrum of systems with varying degrees of emphasis on each related component.

Promoting Coherence

True school improvement requires more than identification; it requires action, support and sustained capacity-building. That’s why it is essential to either broaden our definition of accountability to encompass these aspects or link accountability with these related systems. For example, accreditation practices can help ensure schools have the conditions and resources to promote success. Evaluation processes can provide insight into what works. Improvement strategies can drive progress, and public reporting can build trust and transparency. 

Importantly, coherence does not mean uniformity. Different states, districts and schools will require different emphases and tools. But coherence does mean that the various elements should be aligned in purpose and design so that the system does what it’s meant to do: support school improvement. When these elements are treated as siloed functions or competing priorities, we miss opportunities for synergy and ultimately fall short of what schools and students need.

Focusing on Systems, Not Words

Ultimately, I think it’s less important to arrive at a consensus definition of accountability and more useful to emphasize the importance of addressing how systems—whatever we call them—support purpose and use. Whether accountability is seen as an umbrella term for a range of monitoring and support functions, or whether it is seen as a narrow system for identification and reporting, it is important to attend to the broader set of conditions that support student and school success.

This is often accomplished by developing a theory of action to outline the goals of the system, the conditions for success and the mechanisms to effect change among other factors. We’ve written extensively about the importance of a good theory of action underlying a system such as accountability. Today, I’d like to leave you with this:

At its best, accountability should serve not as an endpoint, but as a catalyst. It should illuminate challenges, mobilize resources and promote equity. But it can only do so if it is connected to the other tools we use to help schools and students thrive.