The anatomy of accountability

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Abstract
This discussion reconsiders issues of educational accountability. To do so, I report on a qualitative case study of a public elementary school that identified how a model of educational accountability threatened to punish educators through a sophisticated network of surveillance. Data indicated that district personnel used standardized tests to monitor teachers in attempts to coerce them into accepting normalizing judgments of their practice. The study also described the surveillance within the school, including strategies by curriculum developers, reading facilitators, parents, and the principal to monitor teachers’ work. The analysis examined the effects surveillance had on participants and described the ways teachers amplified the effects of surveillance in the school. The analysis rethinks such punitive accountability practices and suggests replacing them with opportunities for teacher education and teacher learning.

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