Create a clear and focused accountability system.

A clear and focused accountability system needs to be created in order for decentralized, high-involvement management to work - to educate all students to high educational standards. Four elements are critical for such an accuntability system:

1. A clear and measurable set of educational goals for all schools in the system. The goals should center on student achievement in core curriculum content areas: language arts, mathematics, science, history, and social studies. These areas also could include foreign language and the visual and performing arts. The goals should specify that the system expects all students to perform at high levels in these content areas.

2. A set of measures that indicate the current status of student performance with respect to goals and changes over time. Without clear and specific measures, goals are relatively useless for an accountability system. The types of new student assessment in California, Kentucky, and Connecticut and those being developed by the New Standards Project represent the kinds of student achievement measures that are needed. They indicate both what a student knows and what a student can do with that knowledge to solve problems, analyze issues, or communicate effectively.

3. A reporting system that periodically informs the public, the school system, parents, and students of school performance. Student academic achievement and changes in that achievement, disaggregated by income, gender, and student ability, should be the cornerstone of the reporting system. Other information also should be reported, including the results of periodic surveys of parent and community satisfaction with the local school.

4. A set of both rewards and sanctions - i.e., consequences tied to results. A results-driven system can succeed only if consequences are tied to changes in system performance over time. Rewards and sanctions should be based on changes in schoolwide performance over time; the goal is to improve the system, not to reward or sanction it for either high or low starting conditions. Group-based performance rewards could be part of teacher compensation; they also could be outside of compensation per se - e.g., providing additional opportunities for teachers to engage in professional development activities (including travel and expenses for attending professional conferences) and grants for school improvement activities. Sanctions could include phasing in technical assistance and - as a last resort - takeover.