A Truce in the Accountability Wars

In American education, the scars of the “accountability wars” still run deep. More than two decades after the federal No Child Left Behind Act established punitive, high-profile accountability requirements for America’s K–12 schools, states and districts remain wary of debates over testing, student performance, and school improvement. This understandable backlash has pushed many states toward the other extreme: local control without meaningful oversight, where responsibility has too often dissolved into complacency. Neither approach has delivered what students deserve. 

And the stakes are only getting higher. Schools today face challenges that no one has a ready blueprint to solve: the lingering effects of the pandemic on student learning, declining enrollment, eroding trust in public institutions, and deep political discord that too often turns classrooms into battlegrounds. Add to that the disruptive force of artificial intelligence and the urgent need to reimagine high school for a changing economy, and it’s clear that the old approaches to accountability aren’t up to the task.

It’s time for a truce—a forward-looking approach that moves us past old extremes. 

Today’s systems are not designed to help us succeed together: incentives point in different directions, policies pile up incoherently, no one feels empowered to drive change, and energy too often gets redirected into blame rather than problem-solving. What we need instead is a new kind of accountability, one that is reciprocal, rooted in shared responsibility, and designed so that people at every level have the authority and the support to act on behalf of students.

A different question

In education, the word “accountability” now has a negative connotation because it is associated with blame. But the public education system cannot abandon the idea that we are accountable to students, families, and taxpayers for providing a high-quality education. The challenge is not whether we should have accountability, but what kind of accountability system will help us achieve our goals.

We often talk about accountability as if the way to improve schools is to point out where teachers and administrators fall short. But instead of assigning blame, we should ask what we are trying to accomplish in teaching and learning, and what resources educators and school systems need to get there.

Imagine a district where student outcomes have been stagnant for years, and the data make it painfully clear that students are not learning what they need to succeed. The first question usually is, why aren’t students doing better? But the more important question is, where in the system are the solutions? Perhaps the district can’t hire enough qualified teachers. That’s not a purely local problem. It may require a regional training and recruitment effort or higher salaries, both of which depend on state or regional action. Maybe the issue is weak leadership capacity, and the state needs to support school and district leaders better so they can guide improvement. Or perhaps the district is facing political turmoil or community conflict, and the state needs to step in to stabilize the system. And if local leaders say they’re drowning in too many initiatives, reports, and mandates, then the state must ask which of its own policies are creating barriers to the very improvement it demands. A system built on reciprocal accountability doesn’t stop at pointing out what’s wrong; it mobilizes every level of government to fix what’s broken.

This is the heart of reciprocal accountability. Everyone is responsible for improving student outcomes, but not in the same way.

What reciprocal accountability looks like

A system of reciprocal accountability starts with a simple premise: If we expect schools to deliver better results for students, then every level of the system must take responsibility for supporting them. But execution is complicated. For too long, our systems have been top-down, siloed, and oriented toward compliance, more focused on proving schools and districts have followed rules than on doing what it takes to ensure real improvement. 

A forward-looking accountability system must treat dramatic improvement in student outcomes as urgent and non-negotiable. Such a system must shift from a culture of blame and compliance to one of shared responsibility, where leaders at every level of the system set clear goals, support one another to meet them, and learn quickly from what’s not working to build something better. This approach challenges the long-standing assumption that accountability and support must remain in separate structures. In practice, the two should reinforce each other, much like in a healthy professional learning community in which teachers and administrators study student work together, adjust practice based on evidence, and commit to better outcomes—while administrators maintain ultimate responsibility for the school’s quality. Building this kind of system requires strong, trusting relationships and a belief that every actor will do their part. 

This new paradigm honors the expertise of local educators while also acknowledging that the state holds the ultimate constitutional authority for educating students, and so it must intervene when districts and schools lack the ability or will to improve. At the same time, we must create formal structures that hold the state itself accountable for setting the conditions for improvement—through clear priorities, aligned resources, and coherent policies. 

To this end, I offer four principles that can guide states toward a new balance.

1. Define clear goals for schools and for the system—and sustain them over time.

Schools today are drowning in competing demands from states and the federal government and facing a great deal of uncertainty in funding and policy. In this tumultuous climate, states must play a leadership role in setting clear academic goals for the system. State leaders need to define what high-quality instruction looks like, how they will support schools and districts to deliver it, and two or three non-negotiable goals—such as early literacy, math proficiency, and college and career readiness—that the system can commit to for the long haul. This serves two essential purposes: first, clear expectations signal when urgent action is required; and second, a long-term focus enables districts to concentrate on what matters most—teaching and learning.

A sharper focus on teaching and learning also offers a way through the political and cultural battles playing out in schools. While communities may disagree on many issues, most can rally around the goal of helping students master the fundamentals. 

From there, states need to align all initiatives, funding streams, and accountability requirements with those goals. In a reciprocal accountability system, the state plays a critical role in ensuring instructional coherence, i.e., making sure the guidance schools receive adds up to a consistent strategy rather than a jumble of competing demands. With this kind of clarity, schools and districts can focus on long-term improvement instead of shifting mandates. 

2. Go beyond test scores when diagnosing school and district performance.

Standardized tests are essential for ensuring that every student’s learning is measured against shared expectations and for shining a light on outcome inequities. These quantitative measures remain critical for monitoring progress and ensuring transparency, but they are not sufficient to drive true improvement across the system.

Standardized quantitative measures cannot fully capture the breadth of what our education system is trying to accomplish, nor can they explain why a school or district may be underperforming. Test scores can show outcomes, but they cannot show whether a district has the instructional systems, leadership capacity, or community trust needed to sustain progress, or what interventions may be needed.

That’s why states need richer evaluation of school and district performance. In addition to publishing outcome data, states should conduct regular, professional reviews—similar to accreditation visits—that provide a fuller understanding of how schools and districts are supporting teaching and learning and where they are falling short. Reviews of this kind offer a more accurate diagnosis and better guidance for improvement than quantitative metrics alone, and can also reveal the systemic challenges schools and districts face that require state action.

3. Provide authentic support—and intervene when necessary.

Too often, struggling schools and districts are left to fail. Local control should always be the goal, but when districts don’t have the capacity or the political will to make needed changes, students pay the price. At the same time, when help does arrive, it often feels top-down, disconnected, and compliance-driven, rather than designed around what schools and districts actually need.

Support must be reimagined as a truly school-centered, all-hands-on-deck, wraparound approach that does whatever it takes to help schools and districts succeed. Instead of locking resources into prescribed programs, a state’s support system should take a case management approach, tailoring assistance to each school or district’s real needs, whether instructional, financial, leadership, or community-based. State-designated support providers must have the authority to remove systemic barriers and deliver expertise or authority that schools cannot generate on their own. For example, a district may want to launch a high school program better aligned to student needs but be constrained by outdated seat-time rules, or may need to consolidate schools to remain financially solvent but face intense political resistance. In such cases, the state may need to step in—providing policy flexibility, clearing bureaucratic hurdles, or reinforcing a sound decision even when it is politically unpopular.

And when challenges require broader solutions, such as policy change, additional funding, or new services, providers should be able to elevate these issues quickly so state decision-makers can address them. This approach also requires sustained investment in professional development and coaching, aligned with the state’s goals, to help districts anticipate and tackle their biggest challenges before they escalate, including how to address issues often considered outside the traditional scope, such as political instability or labor-management conflict.

But states must pair authentic support with accountability. When districts cannot or will not improve, states need a clear escalation protocol. That means moving from provider-level support to regional or state intervention, with increasing authority and consequences at each step. Intervention should never be about punishment; it should be about ensuring that students are not left to languish in failing schools and that educators get what they need to be successful. 

A forward-looking system must better balance these two realities: providing whatever support schools need to succeed, while also stepping in decisively when support alone is not enough.

4. Build a learning system that holds everyone accountable, including the state.

In most systems, accountability flows only one way: downward, onto schools and districts. But when state policies, funding rules, or priorities are incoherent or contradictory, local educators are left carrying the burden with no recourse. This not only frustrates those on the ground but also prevents state leaders from understanding and addressing the barriers they create.

A forward-looking system must incorporate feedback loops with support providers, policymakers, and state leaders to incentivize state leaders to listen to and respond to what schools and districts are experiencing, rather than assuming solutions from afar. Support providers should report not only on whether schools are improving, but also on what barriers stand in the way, giving policymakers real-time information about where rules, funding structures, or mandates aren’t misaligned with student success. To make this real, we need to redesign the system so that trust, collaboration, and shared problem-solving are actively supported and incentivized. That means creating structures that reward schools, districts, and state and regional entities for working together.

And just as districts and schools must work in alignment to improve outcomes, so too must the different parts of state government: education agencies, the legislature, and the governor’s office. Regular reviews of major policies—with clear roles and responsibilities for state entities, expectations for impact, and transparent measures of progress—would show whether each level of government is meeting its responsibilities and what must change to support improvement. By making this information visible, these structures also empower advocates, the federal government, philanthropies, parents, and community members to act on behalf of students.

To this end, the state must also invest in research and evaluation to determine whether new strategies and interventions are working and what is getting in the way. This commitment is essential to building the evidence base, strengthening implementation, and ensuring that resources are directed toward practices that deliver results. With federal research grants shrinking and state program funding being cut and reconfigured, states now have an opportunity to design a more effective and responsive research and evaluation infrastructure to better support districts, schools, and student outcomes. 

Finally, reciprocal accountability means the state itself must be held to the same standard it sets for schools and districts. If evidence shows that state priorities or regulations are hindering progress, leaders have a responsibility to change course. A learning system anchored in reciprocal accountability is one where each actor has distinct but interlocking responsibilities, and each must be both empowered and expected to carry them out in ways that strengthen teaching, learning, and student success.

The path forward

The work ahead will not be easy. Building a stronger public education system will mean confronting some of the hardest, most deeply embedded challenges in American education governance: outdated mindsets about accountability, a widespread lack of trust in the system itself, and the persistent tension between local control and state responsibility. For decades, we’ve swung between blaming schools for failures they can’t fix alone and letting systems drift without clear direction. What’s needed now is the courage to face these realities head-on. 

In order to chart a path forward for accountability, we must reckon honestly with the push and pull between local flexibility and state leadership and replace a compliance culture with one that builds capacity. This transformation will also require resources, not necessarily in the form of new spending, but through a thoughtful realignment of existing funds toward approaches that actually help schools improve.

And above all, we need visionary leadership from the very top. Reciprocal accountability will not happen through incremental tweaks or bureaucratic reorganization. It will require governors and state leaders to take ownership of public education as a defining moral and economic priority—leaders who can articulate a shared purpose, inspire confidence across partisan and institutional lines, and align their agencies and teams behind a coherent agenda for improvement. While a fully reciprocal accountability system is new, many of its elements have been implemented in states and countries, offering a rich body of practice to adapt. This is not the easy path, but if we can summon the courage and leadership to take it, then we can finally move beyond the old accountability wars and deliver the schools—and the future—our students deserve.