Lorna Earl, Ph.D.

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Accountability is NOT Paint By Numbers

• Lorna Earl, Ph.D.
• Head, International Centre for Educational Change
• OISE/UT And
• Director of Aporia Consulting Ltd.

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Possible Titles

• Being Accountable Measuring Effectiveness and
  Improvement in Schools
• School Effectiveness and Improvement Research
  Implications for Policy, Practice and
  Accountability
• Accountability Surveillance or Improvement
• Everything That You Always Wanted to Know about
  Accountability But Were Afraid To Ask

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Accountability Let Me Count the Ways

• Accountability as Conversation
• Accountability and Improvement
• Accountability is not Paint By Numbers

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What is Accountability?

• Responsibility and Entitlement.
• Who is accountable?
• To Whom?
• For What?
• In What Manner? and
• Under What Circumstances?
• Wagner (1989)

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Accountability By whom To whom For what?
Responsibility of Responsibility of Responsibility of
Entitlement to Central Government District/LEA School Administrators/Teachers
General public/ taxpayers quality of educational programs quality of educational programs quality of program and program delivery
cost effectiveness cost effectiveness judicious and efficient use of resources
equity of policies, structures and programs equity of policies, structures and programs equity of policies, structures and programs
Individual parents and students quality of educational programs quality of educational programs individual student learning
cost effectiveness cost effectiveness fair and equitable treatment
equity of policies, structures and programs equity Appeal process
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Accountability In what manner?

• Accounting - gathering, organizing and reporting
  information that describes performance
• Accountability - the conversation about what the
  information means and how it fits with everything
  else that we know and about how to use it to make
  positive changes

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Changing Roles in Accountability

• Researchers Communicate research in ways that
  make the findings accessible use and the
  consequences defensible.
• Educators Learn to live with data, use it and
  like it.

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Accountability and Improvement

• Accountability without improvement is empty
  rhetoric
• Improvement without accountability is whimsical
  action without direction

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Accountability Under what conditions?

• Monitoring and Improvement
• Pressure and Support
• Accountability and Capacity-building

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Indicator Categories
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PAINTING A GALLERY OF IMAGES
Setting the Canvas
Planning This Picture
Blocking the Canvas
The First Strokes
The Image Grows

• What do we know?
• Where do we want to go?

• Establishing role, purpose, and audience

• Matching planning goals to indicator categories
• From indicator categories to actual and potential
  data sources

• Examining, interpreting and displaying data
• Formulating key messages

• Clarifying the messages and supporting evidence
• Delivering the message
• Checking audience reaction

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Capacities for Leaders in a Data-Rich World

• Develop an Inquiry Habit of Mind
• Become Data Literate
• Create a Culture of Inquiry

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A Leader with an Inquiry Habit of Mind

• Values deep understanding
• Reserves judgment and has a tolerance for
  ambiguity
• Takes a range of perspectives and systematically
  poses increasingly focused questions

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A Data Literate Leader

• Thinks about purpose
• Recognises sound and unsound data
• Is knowledgeable about statistical and
  measurement concepts
• Makes interpretation paramount
• Pays attention to reporting and to audiences

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A Leader who Creates a Culture of Inquiry

• Involves others in interpreting and engaging with
  the data
• Stimulates an internal sense of urgency
• Makes time
• Uses critical friends

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Internal Capacity for Change

• Internal capacity is the power to engage in and
  sustain continuous learning of teachers and the
  school itself for the purpose of enhancing
  student learning.
• Stoll (1999)

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• If you make a change and it feels comfortable,
  you havent made a change.
• Lee Trevino

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• Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful and
  committed citizens can change the world. In
  fact, it has never happened any other way.
• Margaret Mead