Power, Accountability, and the Teacher Quality Problem

• In Event: Assessing Teacher Quality: Understanding Teacher Effects on Instruction and Achievement

Abstract

Objective

This paper offers a critique of the teacher accountability perspective. The latter holds that schools are marked by low standards, a lack of coherence, poor management, and little effort to ensure adequate supervision and organizational control, especially in regard to their primary activity—the work of teachers with students. Typically reforms call for "tightening the ship" in one way or another. The main argument of my paper is that the accountability perspective overlooks some of the most important sources and forms of organizational control and accountability that already exist in schools and as a result, overlooks the ways schools themselves, and in particular the ways they are managed and organized, contribute to problems of teacher quality and performance. As a result, the reforms the accountability perspective has spawned often do not work.

Theoretical framework

This paper uses a theoretical perspective drawn from the sociology of organizations, occupations, and work. The operating premise, drawn from this perspective, is that fully understanding issues of teacher quality and performance requires examining the character of the teaching occupation and of the organizations in which teachers work.

Data Sources and Methods

This paper summarizes a series of analyses on the levels, distribution and effects of control and accountability in schools undertaken over the past two decades. This research involved both advanced statistical analyses of quantitative data and interpretive analyses of qualitative data. Among the sources of data were the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the International Survey of the Locus of Decision-Making in Educational Systems, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Cultural Development (OECD) and a field study of four schools in one metropolitan area.

Data Results

Comparative data from a number of nations indicate that schooling in the United States still remains a far more non-federal and local affair than in most other systems. However, while the education system in the United States is relatively decentralized, schools themselves are not. The data show that while school principals and school governing boards often have substantial control over many key decisions in schools, teachers usually have little influence or autonomy over many key decisions concerned with the day-to-day management of their work and their workplaces. Moreover, the data indicate that internal centralization in schools has increased, especially since the advent of NCLB. The data also showed that the amount of influence and autonomy held by teachers is related to how well schools function. Schools where teachers have more influence and autonomy over decisions have fewer problems with student misbehavior, have more collegiality and cooperation among teachers and administrators, and do a better job of retaining their teachers.

Implications

Accountability in schools is reasonable and necessary. However, the data indicate there is an imbalance between the degree of organizational control exerted in schools and the degree of influence and autonomy entrusted to teachers. This paper advocates a balanced approach – in which organizational accountability and teacher influence go hand in hand.

Author

• Richard Ingersoll, University of Pennsylvania