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Calling for accountability fails because the whole political fairy tale is flawed.
I am not accountable for what my students do. Or for what my district does. I am accountable for what I do. Using what others do to measure MY accountability is a corrupt measure.
We know a great deal about the factors that encourage success, and the factors that put students at risk, and lead to failure.
Many of those factors are completely out of my control, as a classroom teacher, and out of my school site's control, and my district's control.
Holding us accountable when we don't control the determining factors is corrupt. To say the least.
One of the first, and strongest, predictors of student test scores is parent SES. We don't control that. A big federal and state investment in closing the economic class gaps would address that issue more decisively, and more effectively. That has nothing to do with anything any district, school site, or teacher does.
Of course, this very factor makes it easy to skew results for AYP and for the "merit pay" that Obama and Duncan are so enthusiastic about. It's all about placing students in classes and at school sites. Give the weakest teacher on site a classroom full of solid middle-class students, and they are likely to make AYP. Give the strongest teacher a room full of at risk students, and no matter how much growth they make, they are unlikely to make AYP. Same with redrawing school boundaries and creative "choice" plans. It doesn't change the reality, just moves it from one place to another.
Research also tells us that the optimum class size for student achievement is 15 students. Please find me a public school or district in the nation that provides that. As a matter of fact, most school districts count special ed teachers, counselors, music teachers, etc.; certified staff that have no classes of their own, but who serve the population, when they are figuring class size. It makes the average "class size" look better when they add some teachers who don't have a class of their own.
What public school gives the optimum class size, physical plant, or resources to schools and teachers? Not too many. In fact, in many districts trying to squeeze every penny, teachers are not only responsible for their teaching duties, but spend all kinds of time that should be spent on planning for effective instruction in extra duties for the district; committees, meetings, etc., which often require too many subs, and too many sub plans to write, and usually have teachers burning the candle at both ends to make up for lost time.
I had 7 subs in the month of October alone, and they were all for district business. That's about 10 hours spent writing sub plans. An extra 10 - 14 hours on doing the paperwork the sub generated, since they aren't paid to handle that. All of those hours are in addition to the 9 hours or so a day it takes me to do my job with no extra meetings or duties. I also had 8 meetings, 60 minutes each, during the hours outside of school that I usually spend planning, correcting, etc.. That's about 28 hours in October in addition to the 9 hours a day it takes my job, which is already more than the contractual day I'm paid for. I'll be frank: the quality of instruction goes down under that schedule.
There are many reasons why students don't succeed, and only some of them have anything to do with anything a school or teacher does. Social, emotional, and physical health, family stress, cultural valuing or devaluing of intellect, school, and learning, parenting, all of those are factors the school system does not control, and all of those factors affect outcomes.
In the end, it's my job to provide abundant, rich, multiple opportunities for students to learn and succeed. It's THEIR job to make use of those opportunities.
I'm willing to be accountable for staying current in education theory and practice, for offering multiple high-quality opportunities for learning, for differentiating instruction to meet individual needs, and for doing my best to creating an environment conducive to learning within the resources at my disposal.
I'm not accountable for what students choose to do with those opportunities.
I'm not accountable for all the factors that affect my students' progress that are outside of my control.
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