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

Addressing the Accountability Challenge of Missing Data With A Performance Profile

Consider a Different Way to Put The Pieces Together In a previous post I discussed the challenges of rebuilding accountability systems developed […]
October 5, 2021

It’s Déjà vu All Over Again: Revisiting Assessment Recommendations With an Eye on Learning Acceleration

A Need to Support Learning Acceleration in School Year 2021-2022 I was asked recently if the Center was producing assessment […]
July 14, 2021

A Social Justice Critical Framing for Opportunity-to-Learn Indicator Use

Making the Meaning of Opportunity More Socioculturally Sustainable, Inclusive, and Action-Oriented This is the first post by one of our 2021 […]
July 6, 2021

Rebuilding School Accountability One Step at a Time

The Process of Restarting Accountability Systems Will be Incremental, Not Immediate As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to subside in the […]
June 15, 2021

Educating Pablo: A Play About Through Course Assessment Systems

Dissecting the Conundrum of Testing Throughout the Year or Once at the End in a Conversation Between Teacher and Student […]
May 4, 2021

Making Use of Missing Data to Plan Interventions for Recovery

Part 2: The Practical Implications of COVID-19 Learning Loss Studies It has been a year since COVID-19 made it impossible […]
March 28, 2021

Letting Go of Labels in School Accountability Systems

How the Next ESEA Reauthorization Can Improve Federal Accountability Requirements The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which is the current reauthorization of […]
March 15, 2021

Accountability as a Roadblock to Assessment Reform

Advocating for Changes to Federal Accountability Requirements to Enable Innovative Assessment Many of us at the Center for Assessment have […]
January 25, 2021

Oh, What a Year!

Looking Back so We Can Look Forward: Assessment and Accountability Challenges During a Pandemic Most people want to close the […]
December 22, 2020

Using Opportunity-to-Learn Data to Support Educational Equity

This paper describes the importance of collecting opportunity-to-learn (OTL) data and provides a framework to help states begin an OTL […]
October 22, 2020