States Adopt Accountability, Transparency Legislation

In 2002, the No Child Left Behind Act was signed, and standardized tests became a critical piece for evaluating student performance.

Fast forward seven years, where federal funds begin to flow from President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and education officials are taking even greater steps to increase accountability and transparency.

Parents and community members want to know exactly where the money is going, how the schools are improving and how students are learning. State governments and school districts have been making efforts to publicize this information under the direction of the U.S. Education Department.

According to Congressional Quarterly, Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently stated, "While we’re going to do everything we can to be transparent, we expect parents and community groups and local reporters and medias at the community level to really watch how these dollars are spent and help us make sure and hold education leaders accountable for spending that money wisely."

Such transparency will give the community ready access to information about school performance, financial resources and the student and faculty populations.

The following are examples of recent legislation that highlight the push for more accountability and transparency in the nation's education system:

• Colorado Bill: SB 09-163 (proposed legislation)
  The state board of education must set, reaffirm or revise targets for measuring the performance of the public education system in the following areas: student longitudinal academic growth, student achievement levels on statewide assessments, postsecondary and workforce readiness, and progress made in closing achievement and growth gaps.
• Virginia Bill: SB 1285
  Requires local governing bodies and school divisions to publish a brief synopsis of their annual school budget in a newspaper that circulates in the affected locality. An advanced notice of seven days shall also be given about one or more public hearings, at which citizens of the locality can attend and state their views on the budget.
• New Mexico Bill: SB 123
  Administrator preparation programs need to submit data for the Student Teacher Accountability Reporting System in the Public Education Department. The data on those programs will be included in the annual statewide educator accountability report.
• California Bill: SB 618 (proposed legislation)
  Allows the Legislature to hold the public elementary and secondary education system responsible for preparing students to enroll at a University of California or California State University campus without taking remedial courses.
• Oklahoma Bill: SB 222
  Establishes a council that is responsible for coordinating the creation of a unified, longitudinal student data system. The data system shall be accessible to a range of stakeholders and shall improve teaching, inform public policy, foster a culture of evidence-based decision making, conduct research and provide reports.

For more information about accountability initiatives across the nation, visit the following organizations' Web sites:

• The Heritage Foundation
• Education Innovation
• Ed.gov
• Democracy Web
• Utah Public Finance Web site
   

Source: The U.S. Education Department’s National Educational Technology Trends Study of districts, 2007

*This story is from Converge magazine's Summer 2009 issue.