Taxpayers are twice more likely than educators, and more likely than parents, to rely on test scores as the main accountability measure and to agree that teachers and principals in a failing school should be replaced with new staff. However, the public agrees that to base school performance solely on test scores may be misleading. Educators, on the other hand, strongly opposed the use of either labels or letter grades. Most participants in community focus groups agree that the emphasis on school accountability motivates teachers to work harder and improve student performance. Therefore, information on school performance should be made widely available, although the three groups diverge on what the report cards should contain.
Educators generally prefer a focus on inputs, while the parent and taxpayers emphasize outputs.
They want to see how the schools are doing and how students are performing, and enjoy trend data, rather than data on numbers of students and staff, suspensions and expulsions, and parental involvement. They want to see how their schools and students compare with a fixed standard and to other schools and students within the same district and state. While educators are skeptical about the benefits of accountability reports and disagree with the idea that financial rewards should be tied to school performance, parents and taxpayers are concerned that schools are wasting too much money on colorful, long report cards that no one reads. They prefer a short and well-designed report card with no complicated figures or graphics, and printed front to back on a single white sheet of paper, while keeping the option of accessing more detailed information if necessary. Policymakers must deal with important challenges when promoting school reforms.