The Age of Our Accountability.

Many school leaders today, not to mention many teachers, view“accountability ” as a loathsome political monster. Looming overeducators, insensitive to the many problems they face, it wields the carrot of rewards in one hand and the club of sanctions in the other. Some educators even blame accountability for perverting their noble purposes, twisting their sensibilities, and corrupting their integrity. Reviewing reports of cheating on state assessments, a keynote speaker at a recent public forum stated that accountability systems are responsible for “making good people bad and bad people worse” (Chester 2005, 3). He concluded that the accountability imposed by recent federal and state laws had negatively affected educators ’ ethics and professionalism, although no discussion ensued about any evidence of cheating before current accountability measures took effect. Is accountability truly to blame for this alleged distortion and cor-ruption? That’s hard to imagine, because accountability programs in edu-cation are really nothing new. Efforts to make educators more accountable for results have been under way in some states for more than three decades. Most people would agree, however, that what brought education accountability to the forefront was the No Child Left Behind act (U.S. Congress 2001), which made accountability its center-piece. And even the most adamant critics of NCLB would concede that regardless of the outcome of future elections, education accountability in one form or another is likely here to stay. “No Child Left Behind” The NCLB accountability system seeks to improve all children’s edu-cation by identifying schools that need improvement and taking correc-tive action. As nearly every school leader knows, the system stipulates that all students should achieve a state-defined “proficient ” or better level in mathematics and language arts. Annual, measurable standards in