At CRPE, we study how assessment, accountability, and oversight can strengthen public education while fostering equity, innovation, and continuous improvement. Our research examines how traditional accountability frameworks can narrow teaching and constrain schools’ ability to adapt, and we explore approaches that measure what truly matters for student success—academic growth, deeper learning, and readiness for life beyond school. We also investigate how oversight can balance school autonomy with strong protections for access and quality, ensuring that all students are well served. Across this work, our goal is to inform accountability systems that uphold public trust while enabling schools to innovate and respond to the diverse needs of their communities.
School accountability matters. In a country founded on the dream that any child can grow up to be whatever she wants to be, accountability provides a measuring stick to judge how well schools are doing at giving each child—and every type of child—a fair shot at a good future.
Preparing for a hiking trip brings you face-to-face with the world of trade-offs. You weigh, literally and figuratively, every ounce of what you put in your pack, trying to decide if the comfort something might bring in camp is worth the discomfort of hauling it up there in the first place.
State leaders and policymakers are working hard to figure out how to bolster the capacity of state education agencies to meet the unprecedented demands they face to drive improvements in K-12 performance and productivity.
Andy Smarick, Ashley Jochim, and I have been exchanging posts on new roles for school districts and state education agencies. We agree government should set goals and hold providers accountable for performance but rely on independent parties to run schools and deliver services.
I recently read a fascinating Wall Street Journal article by Raymond Zhong, a Delhi-based reporter, about regulating global financial markets. I’m by no means a finance person; what caught my interest were the insights relevant to education and how we oversee and regulate schools.
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