The New Push to Rate Schools Will Make Adults Perform and Help Kids Learn

Jay Greene:

Accountability is a constructive and increasingly powerful force in the education of New York City schoolchildren. It starts with report cards and runs far deeper.

Third-graders have to pass a basic skills test to be promoted to fourth grade. High school seniors cannot earn a Regents diploma without passing a series of exams. And, of course, students hoping to attend college need to take, and perform moderately well, on the SAT or ACT.

B ut while young people have been held increasingly accountable for results, adults who work in the schools have been largely shielded from such judgments. Whether students succeed or not has little or no effect on whether teachers or administrators continue to be employed or how much they are paid. Heroic educators who transform the lives of their students are not rewarded, nor are subpar educators who deprive students of future opportunities required to improve or punished.

Posted by James Zellmer at April 20, 2006 6:40 AM
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