Accountability

Accountability Resources

The Center for Assessment partners with education leaders to design, refine, and evaluate accountability systems that balance equity, transparency, and technical rigor. Grounded in research and best practices, our work ensures these systems address local priorities while meeting high standards for validity and utility. We provide thought leadership on reimagining accountability frameworks to better support educational equity, improve outcomes, and enhance stakeholder trust. Whether building new systems or optimizing existing ones, we collaborate to create solutions that drive meaningful, sustainable improvements in schools and student learning.


Recent Accountability Projects

Accountability Documentation

The New Mexico Public Education Department is developing technical documentation of the state’s accountability system. The goal of this work is to increase transparency and ensure year-to-year consistency in implementation of the accountability business rules.

Setting Accountability Performance Standards

The Arkansas Department of Education is designing a process to establish new standards for the state’s school accountability system. It will consider a school’s performance across multiple prioritized measures and allow grades to be reported for overall school performance and for two or more priority indicators.

Modeling Growth In Delaware

In state accountability systems, it is important that each indicator provide valuable and independent information about schools. A team from the Center—Senior Associates Will Lorié and Damian Betebenner and Executive Director Scott Marion—is working with a Delaware advisory group to investigate ways to model student academic growth.


Recent Accountability Blog Posts

Assessment Dashboards, Reports, and Open Analytics

Supporting State Department of Education Staff with Internal Decision Making The results of educational assessments have never been more visible. […]
May 21, 2019

Don’t Go Changing: The Importance of Stability in State Assessment and Accountability Systems

Frequent Changes to State Assessment Systems Place Educational Improvement on Shaky Ground “We just administered our third assessment in the […]
May 6, 2019

Baby Steps: Moving Forward on Teacher Evaluation

Shifting From an Accountability to an Instructional Mindset for Teacher Evaluation I was recently invited by Future Focused Education to […]
February 20, 2019

What’s Next in State Accountability?

The Lack of Consistency in Accountability Results Across the Country Provokes This Fundamental Question States will soon publish (or have […]
February 6, 2019

How Did “On Track” Get So “Off Track”?

Colloquial Language Is More Familiar, But Can be More Easily Misinterpreted When Reporting Test Results With the proliferation of large-scale […]
January 16, 2019

Rethinking Accountability for Alternative High Schools

The Problems With Applying Traditional Performance Ratings to Alternative Schools Alternative high schools serve a vital role in improving outcomes […]
January 6, 2019

The Center for Assessment – 20 Years and Going Strong

Highlights From 2018 at the Center for Assessment and Setting the Stage for 2019 and Beyond The Center for Assessment […]
December 27, 2018

The Need for Program Evaluation to Support Accountability Implementation

How Summer Grilling Illustrates the Differences Between Formative and Summative Evaluation When I last discussed the need for program evaluation to support […]
December 5, 2018

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Operations and Quality Control in School Accountability Systems

This paper outlines practical guidelines and considerations as states get their accountability systems up and running. The authors describe a […]
November 13, 2018

Establishing Performance Standards for School Accountability Systems

This paper outlines recommended principles to guide the establishment of a standard-setting process for accountability systems and describes a framework […]
November 13, 2018