The goal is to create incentives to motivate schools toward continuous improvement. Clear standards and a robust measurement system can work together to provide good data about each school's strengths and weaknesses. Improvement targets help establish expectations. Once those pieces are in place, clear, predictable rewards and consequences are needed - both for meeting expectations and for chronic poor performance. Clear lines of authority are also integral to effective accountability.
Accountability requires a clear understanding of who is responsible for what.
It requires that authority be consummate with responsibility. At the state level, the lack of clear roles and responsibilities creates an ongoing blame-game, rather than a focused plan of action. Accountability must be clear at all levels of the system - including the state. As business leaders, we know that management systems must provide consistent and focused information about the goals of an organization. In education, a robust assessment system should be the central focus of an effective management system.