What is accountability?

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Accountability refers to the increasingly perceived need to gauge the overall effectiveness of education. The term can apply to students, teachers, schools, districts, states, and the national educational system.

At present, the idea of standards-based reform has gained many supporters as a strategy for achieving higher levels of accountability. Standards-based reform seeks improvements in education through development of standards upon which teaching and learning are based. These include content standards, which describe student learning goals, as well as standards for quality in teacher education, school organization/culture, and assessment itself.

In this view, standards are seen as a driving force in making systemic change—change throughout the entire educational system.