In the News
Appearing today in the Huffington Post, the piece “Holding Accountability Accountable” shows us some of the disastrous costs of accountability in education. MƒA President John Ewing writes that although on the face of it accountability is hard to oppose, it limits our goals by requiring too much focus on performance indicators, metrics, and data:
“Some of the costs of accountability are immediate and direct. Collecting data for No Child Left Behind consumed billions of dollars that could have been used to actually improve education. Colleges and universities continue to add more and more administrators in order to gather information on students and programs, much of it mandated by various accountability schemes.”
When it comes to teachers, Ewing stresses the importance of recognizing them as experts who have been held to unfair accountability standards throughout their career:
“(Today) is the start of teacher appreciation week in the United States. As we are holding our teachers accountable this week, let’s simultaneously appreciate them as experts—experts who have paid more than their share of accountability’s costs.”
Read the full op-ed in The Huffington Post.