Accountability in a Meritocracy: How Does That Work?

The U.S. hides its pride in having a public educational meritocracy as though it is afraid of being found out. It’s not perfect, right, but anyone with sufficient merit and a strong drive can achieve at high levels through hard work. At the same time, the country acknowledges that few of its children are affluent while many are not, that affluence makes a systematic difference in achievement, that differences in achievement reproduce inequity and injustice. The societal solution the country has implemented despite a record of losses boils down to one word: Accountability.

Federal accountability requirements for public schools were first enacted by Congress in 1965, following a time of prolonged, repeated shocks to the system. In the aftermath of World War II, millions of GIs advantaged by the 1944 GI Bill increased college enrollment and spawned a rebirth of community colleges, shaking off the moniker ‘junior college.’ Schools had to scale up to handle this unprecedented influx of students and the baby boomers to come. In 1957 the Soviet launch of Sputnik created a crisis of confidence in American education, particularly in what we call STEM education.

“Sputnik woke the nation up, serving as a ‘focusing event’ that put a spotlight on a national problem. In this case,…the problem was education. Congress responded a year later with the National Defense Education Act, which increased funding for education at all levels, including low-interest student loans to college students, with the focus on scientific and technical education.”

In 1965 the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Eduction Act (ESEA) took place as part of the War on Poverty. Lyndon Johnson held a deep regard for education. At the signing of the law, he had invited a special teacher in his life, a symbolic bridge between a past intimate, local kind of school to the upcoming swirl of change the future would bring. Here is a quote from Johnson at an appearance in Texas after the signing of the ESEA in April, 1965:

“In this one-room schoolhouse Miss Katie Deadrich taught eight grades at one and the same time. Come over here, Miss Katie, and sit by me, will you? Let them see you. I started school when I was 4 years old, and they tell me, Miss Kate, that I recited my first lessons while sitting on your lap.”

The ESEA was tweaked a few times. In 1966, it was amended with a focus on Special Education; in 1967 it was amended again to include Title VII, providing federal funds for competitive grants to innovate models of bilingual education and recognizing the rights of non-English speaking children to learn in school in their first language, a right upheld by the Supreme Court in the Lau decision of 1972.

During the time of the scathing Coleman Report (1966), like the early years of Reconstruction after the Civil War, the ESEA was part of an ambitious movement to lift up the poor through public schools swept up in a wave of progressivism that would meet a brick wall named Jim Crow in the 19th century, states rights in 1981. But then, in the middle of Vietnam and the summer of love, there seemed to be an innocence of faith in schools to transform us all:

In 1981 the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act (ECIA) reflected the Reagan administration’s policy objective to reduce federal involvement in public education while increasing state and local control. Requests for proposals scored competitively to encourage local groups of teachers to get funding for innovative proof of concept projects under ESEA morphed into block grants given to state governments so they could control resources. The intention was not to innovate, but to hold schools accountable and punish.

This transfer of responsibility for education from the federal level to the states was nothing new. But in 1981 it conflicted with a growing grassroots movement to create national professional academic learning standards, a force which gained traction and attracted funds, but died almost overnight in 1996. The New Standards Project labored for almost five years to construct a national portfolio assessment system for English and Mathematics and was well along when suddenly funding evaporated.

This excerpt from the introduction to the English-Language Arts Standards developed through the New Standards Project available here communicates the inclusive philosophy of the standards movement that would soon be decimated by the standardized test mania of the next major reauthorization of ESEA under George W. Bush (NCLB). The generous, teacher-friendly spirit of this work has been wandering in the wilderness these past few decades:

“From its inception, the English Language Arts Standards Project has been field-based. A guiding belief has been that the process of defining standards must be an open, inclusive one. As a result, thousands of K–12 classroom teachers have been involved in writing, reviewing, and revising the many successive drafts of this document and have guided its development every step of the way over the last three-and-a-half years.”

NCLB (2001-2015) required annual testing in reading and math for grades 3-8 and once in high school and set a goal of 100% proficiency by 2014. Schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) were sanctioned. In Big Brother fashion it handed out a list of highly qualified teacher standards thank you very much. Generally, the compassionate, conservative approach carried out ever stricter oversight of state policies and practices.

ESSA (2015-present) maintained NCLB's annual testing requirements, but it shifted more control back to states for setting academic standards, choosing intervention strategies for struggling schools, and determining teacher evaluation systems. It eliminated the 100% proficiency requirement and allowed states more flexibility in setting improvement goals, but it maintained the requirement for 95% test participation rate.

Both laws continue the fundamental principle of the original ESEA: federal funding tied to accountability measures, particularly for schools serving disadvantaged students. However, ESSA reduced federal oversight while maintaining the basic testing and accountability framework established under NCLB.

What began in Johnson's era with a teacher holding a young student on her lap in a one-room schoolhouse evolved into a strangely cold, bureaucratic institution constantly trying to prove its worth or polish its star. Yet for all its policy shifts and reforms, America still grapples with its core challenge, that is, creating schools to serve all students.

We can account for daily attendance, for homework, for test scores, for grades, but we cannot account for the inequities embedded in the daily lives of children. The accountability movement, however imperfect, stands as America's stubborn insistence that its promise of educational opportunity for all is worth fighting for. But it has to be done thoughtfully, morally, carefully, scientifically—not ideologically.