Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning explores the leadership demands of transformative change. Thomas Sergiovanni discusses the leader's responsibility to protect the school's core values from bureaucratic requirements. When schools are perceived as underachievers, taxpayers simply want evidence that educators are living up to their responsibilities. Carefully designed assessments show whether the standards are being met. Incentive systems motivate participants by providing meaningful consequences.
Professional development is realigned with the learning needs of teachers.
However, practice often falls short of this ideal framework, and schools may have to comply with poorly designed state systems in which the different pieces of the puzzle don't fit together. For example, state assessments are not always carefully aligned with state standards, leaving schools in the position of building their curriculum around one set of goals and being tested on another set of goals. Summing up the state of the movement, the author notes that accountability has demonstrated its staying power and is likely to continue setting the agenda in the foreseeable future. While early test scores have often been discouraging, schools are taking accountability seriously, and at least some have improved. At the same time, it is far too early to know whether accountability can create deep, enduring change.