Accountability in the News

Two weeks ago at a press conference President Bush responded to a question about accountability. The correspondent identified the president, by virtue of his support for the No Child Left Behind initiative, as someone clearly committed to the principles of accountability. In that light, the correspondent asked the president how he could justify his decision to commute Scooter Libby’s sentence and continue to support Alberto Gonzales.

The political implications I will leave to others, but the president’s response helps clarify why so many educators tend to view accountability initiatives defensively and with suspicion rather than as an opportunity to improve. The president responded to the correspondent’s question first by pointing out that Scooter Libby had been “convicted,” and the ordeal of that conviction was sufficient punishment, in the president’s view, for his crimes. On the other hand, Gonzales, the president argued, had not been convicted.

The point is clear. According to this implicit definition of accountability, as illuminated in the president’s response, education has been tried and convicted. I don’t recall the trial. Apparently the prosecution effectively made the case, including the argument that the United States’ economy, the most powerful in the history of the planet, owes not a whit of thanks to the country’s system of public education.