The Source

A digital magazine focused on education thought leadership.
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Topic: Accountability

A Call to Action: What Key Leaders and Stakeholders Can Do

A Call to Action: What Key Leaders and Stakeholders Can Do

Section 10 of 10. SEAs should begin the conversation about what the new approach to accountability should entail. By framing continuous improvement accountability as a desired long-term strategy that can be built together over time, SEAs can use the ESSA as a framework to inject new ideas, encourage collaboration, and... Read the full article >
How Do We Improve Elementary Math Education? It Starts in High School.

How Do We Improve Elementary Math Education? It Starts in High School.

Like me, most middle and high school mathematics teachers are keenly aware of our role in preparing the next generation of STEM professionals—engineers, health care workers, biologists, chemists and statisticians. However, few of us spend much time thinking about how we prepare the most influential STEM professionals of all: elementary... Read the full article >
Getting Accountability Right: Principles and Policies for a New Era

Getting Accountability Right: Principles and Policies for a New Era

Educational policy critics now gather, with echoes of the funeral oration for Cease, not to praise the No Child Left Behind Act, but to bury it. That this legislation passed eight years ago with more Democratic than Republican votes is now only a little-remembered footnote. The conventional wisdom is that... Read the full article >
Transition to a Catholic School District

Transition to a Catholic School District

The journey from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) model of our past to recognition by AdvancED as a School District has been an evolving process for the Office of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Richmond, VA. Having the distinction of being the first Catholic diocese to... Read the full article >
Promoting and Supporting a Data-to-Action, Results-Oriented Culture within Durham Public Schools

Promoting and Supporting a Data-to-Action, Results-Oriented Culture within Durham Public Schools

Setting the Stage The beginning of the 2011-12 school year was a time of transition within the Research and Accountability (R and A) Department for Durham Public Schools (DPS) in Durham, NC. R and A entered the 2011-12 school year with a new department leader, two vacant data analyst positions,... Read the full article >
Surviving the New Age of Accountability

Surviving the New Age of Accountability

The first day of school for the Wickenburg Unified School District was August 8th – August 8th at 8:00 a.m., to be specific. At precisely 8:10 a.m., during a record heat wave in Arizona, the air conditioning units in Wickenburg High School went down. On the same day, we enrolled... Read the full article >
Suggested Reading

Suggested Reading

Transforming Education: Delivering on our Promise to Every Child The Council of Chief State School Officers It is imperative that we transform the national education agenda so that each and every child may succeed. This paper identifies four areas of focus that will lead the systems change necessary for a... Read the full article >
Student Learning is our Work

Student Learning is our Work

For some time now, school leaders have come under fire to demonstrate greater accountability for the learning of all students. While there are pockets of educational excellence that exist, the preponderance of public schools are considered underperforming and that is unacceptable. Who is accountable for student learning? The Meaning of... Read the full article >
Seven Levels of Accountability for Student Success

Seven Levels of Accountability for Student Success

With No Child Left Behind (NCLB) off the table for at least 32 states in the U.S., accountability measures will be left to states and local school systems. NCLB has been clear about closing achievement gaps between groups of students considered at risk. To ensure that there is an ongoing... Read the full article >
Reputation, Re-enrollment, Results

Reputation, Re-enrollment, Results

The late Stephen M. R. Covey, in his 2006 book The Speed of Trust, notes that in a high-trust ethos, everything is more efficient. Covey builds this theme throughout the book with the idea that leaders of organizations have the power, the responsibility and the ability to engender high trust.... Read the full article >