Educational Accountability

Is it wrong to take an accounting of the accomplishment of our vast apparatus of public instruction? The American public is just becoming aware of this word “accountability” as signifying a method of reform in education. Practically everybody approves of accountability in principle; also practically everybody has some objections to its practical application. What is all the fuss about? Well, actually, the “accountability” movement is a recognition that our schools aren’t what they ought to be, and that we should do something about their sorry state.

At present, the most promising but controversial statewide endeavor to achieve accountability through a state department of public instruction is taking place in Michigan. Federal educational authorities—the reforming people among them, anyway—cooperate heartily with Michigan’s Department of Education to set an example that other states may emulate. People seriously interested in the subject may obtain abundant recent publications by writing to that Department at Lansing, Michigan.

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Russell Kirk

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Is it wrong to take an accounting of the accomplishment of our vast apparatus of public instruction? The American public is just becoming aware of this word “accountability” as signifying a method of reform in education. Practically everybody approves of accountability in principle; also practically everybody has some objections to its practical application. What is all the fuss about? Well, actually, the “accountability” movement is a recognition that our schools aren’t what they ought to be, and that we should do something about their sorry state.

At present, the most promising but controversial statewide endeavor to achieve accountability through a state department of public instruction is taking place in Michigan. Federal educational authorities—the reforming people among them, anyway—cooperate heartily with Michigan’s Department of Education to set an example that other states may emulate. People seriously interested in the subject may obtain abundant recent publications by writing to that Department at Lansing, Michigan.