Reclaiming Accountability: From Labels to Learning

Moving from measurement and reporting to school improvement

Accountability is easy to criticize. It is too punitive. It is too focused on test scores. It does not provide enough support for improvement. Most of us working in education have said some version of these things.

In a recent paper, Reclaiming Accountability: From Measurement and Labeling to Learning and Improvement, Laura Pinsonneault and I argue that these critiques do not stem only from technical flaws or political baggage. They stem from something deeper: the limited way we have imagined accountability itself.

The Problem: Measurement Alone Isn’t Enough 

For too long, accountability systems have been built to identify, label, and report. They do those things reasonably well. Strong statewide accountability systems can elevate inequities, create comparability, and signal where support is needed. But they have been much less successful at helping educators, schools, districts and states understand the problem and what to do next.

A check-engine light offers a useful analogy. When it comes on, you probably shouldn’t ignore it. But the light itself does not tell you whether the problem is a loose gas cap, a faulty sensor, or something more serious under the hood. Turning the light on is not the same as diagnosing the problem or making the repair. To get from warning signal to meaningful repair, you need context, expertise, and a plan.

Many school accountability systems stop at the warning light. They’re good at turning it on, but not so good at helping educators and leaders determine what is wrong, who is responsible for next steps, and what kinds of support are most likely to improve outcomes.

If accountability is going to support improvement, it has to help people answer a few practical questions: What is the problem? Who needs to act? What information do they need? What support is necessary for the various actors to take effective action?

Make Accountability Reciprocal 

Accountability will not work better if we keep treating it as something that applies only to schools. Schools are where many consequences land, but schools do not operate in isolation. States design accountability systems. Districts make decisions about curriculum, staffing, support, professional learning, and resource allocation. Schools act within those conditions. And, more precisely, the individuals within each layer are the ones expected to interpret information and change behavior.

That is why our paper emphasizes the idea of reciprocal responsibility (which our colleague Scott Marion has also written about). If states expect districts and schools to improve outcomes, then states have responsibilities to provide usable information, coherent expectations, and equitable support. If districts are expected to support schools, they need the tools to interpret accountability findings and connect them to action. And if schools are expected to respond to results, they need support that matches the problem they are being asked to solve.

All of this has practical implications. If a school is identified because of low math performance and high chronic absenteeism, the school cannot be the only actor expected to respond. Teachers may need better information about where student understanding is breaking down. School leaders may need support conducting root cause analysis. District leaders may need to examine curriculum alignment, staffing stability, transportation, or attendance interventions. State leaders may need to ask whether reporting and support structures help districts and schools make sense of the signals.

A reciprocal accountability system does not let anyone off the hook. It clarifies what each part of the system is responsible for doing.

Clarifying Everyone’s Roles in School Improvement

One of the biggest weaknesses in current accountability systems is that they often assign responsibility without clarifying agency. A school may be labeled as underperforming, but that label does not tell teachers, principals, district leaders, or state leaders what to do differently.

Teachers need information that helps them adjust instruction and monitor learning in the short term. Principals need information that helps them identify schoolwide patterns and organize improvement efforts. District leaders need information that helps them align curriculum, professional learning, staffing, and resources across schools. State leaders need information that helps them monitor system-level patterns, identify inequities, and provide differentiated supports.

Those are different decisions. They require different information and different supports. A clear label is not the same thing as a clear role.

Treat Accountability as Capacity-Building

If accountability is supposed to support improvement, then identification should trigger more than compliance activity. Ratings may still be necessary, but they are not sufficient. If a school is identified for support, the next step should not be limited to submitting a plan, checking a box, or waiting for the next annual report. The next step should involve understanding the problem more deeply and building the capacity to respond.

That capacity may include diagnostic tools, coaching or professional learning aligned to specific needs, networks of schools working on similar problems, or resource allocation decisions that reflect need and readiness for change.

For example, schools may struggle with absenteeism for different reasons. One school may face transportation barriers. Another may have a school climate issue. A third may have attendance problems concentrated among students with caregiving or health-related needs. A single accountability indicator can point to a problem, but it cannot explain the cause. Treating accountability as capacity-building means designing the system so the signal leads to better questions, better supports, and better action.

Put Communication at the Core

Many accountability systems still assume reporting is enough. Publish a dashboard. Release school ratings. Make subgroup results available. Then expect educators and communities to know what to do next.

That is not realistic.

Communication has to be treated as a core design feature of accountability, not an afterthought. That means using plain language, building interpretation supports, and creating two-way communication processes that allow users to ask questions, make sense of data, and connect findings to action.

This is also where we need to be clearer about the language we use. Performance, growth, improvement, and learning are related, but they are not the same thing. Performance is often a snapshot. Growth tells us how students or groups of students change over time. Improvement is about changes in practice, systems, and conditions. Learning is the process we are ultimately trying to support.

Those distinctions matter because accountability systems often report performance and sometimes growth, but improvement depends on changing adult actions and system conditions. If we blur these ideas together, we risk misreading what the results actually say and what should happen next.

Consider two systems. One releases a report card with ratings, indicators, and subgroup breakdowns. Another provides those same results, but also offers guidance on what the signals mean, examples of how similar schools have responded, and structures for root cause analysis. Both systems report, but only one is really designed for use.

Reclaiming Accountability

We are not arguing that we should abandon accountability. Strong statewide accountability systems still matter. They can elevate inequities, create comparability, and signal where support is needed. The issue is that accountability systems are too often asked to do improvement work they were never fully designed to do.

If we want accountability to contribute to real improvement, we need to reclaim it from a narrow focus on measurement and labeling. Measurement still matters. Reporting still matters. But neither is enough on its own.