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			The Accountability Chain: Engaging Parents, Students, Teachers, Principals, Communities and the Private Sector in Education Improvement By Stephanie Gottlieb Learning to conform appears to be the aim of education for an alarmingly growing number of people in this country. This 'reason-not-why' mindset is behind the unpleasant truth that our learning systems do little to promote inquiry – the search for illumination through discovery – and exist primarily as instruments of social control. When children's questions go unheard, they grow deaf to life's questions, as also to the answers it provokes them to find. A school is the response to a community's search for the tools to gift its children with, to mine life's richness. In this community thrust, the child is the focus of adult collaboration. It is, thus, the responsibility of our community as 'guardians' (parents, policy makers, heads and managers of schools, teachers, caring citizens) to ensure that their collective wisdom makes school a repository of inquiry-driven learning – a place where the child grows, through its first working experience of democracy for humanization. – Shilpa Kagal, Director of Parisar Asha, India In this issue of Changemakers.net journal, we return to the topic of social entrepreneurs' contributions to education, exploring another fundamental, although often neglected, component of improving education in a profound, sustainable way. Accountability has been a key concept in education policy for over a century, with roots traced back to 19th century England ¹.
	Read more about how these programs aim to promote accountability in education: School voucher programs Charter schools Standards-based testing		Programs to increase levels of accountability in education have entered education policy in numerous ways. For instance, several countries and numerous U.S. states and several countries have instituted voucher programs entitling children in poor performing public schools to use government funds to attend private schools. Similar programs are active in Latin America and Europe. Likewise, there has been a proliferation of charter schools in the United States. These privately run schools rely primarily on government funds and offer children in public schools a no-cost alternative education. Standards-based testing also is becoming common, seeking to hold schools accountable for the content and quality of the education they provide. These programs are controversial and the methods of implementation are clearly a key to their success. Opponents contend that vouchers and charter schools effectively punish poor performance of public schools, making undeniably apparent that deficiencies exist and the imperative to improve. However, the programs do little to improve the failing schools, often weakening them by diminishing the government funds available. Likewise, the private and religious schools that are the alternatives often are less accountable regarding admissions policies, use of funding and scholastic achievement. In some ways, these schools are more accountable to their students and parents of students, because they will close with insufficient enrollment. However, their budgets and test scores need not be public knowledge, and they can chose only to admit the "right" students. This lack of transparency and feedback loops hinders their accountability to their clients (parents and students), as well as to overseeing bodies such as state education boards. Effective accountability systems engage the various parties that should be involved in education by giving them responsibility in the education process. Feedback loops must be built into accountability systems to provide opportunities for all sectors to help with improvement. Accountability systems are inherent to education institutions, be they public, private or religious. Students can fail to graduate based on their grades, punishing them for not working hard enough. Schools can close when parents believe their children are not getting a good education and withdraw them. Children can "vote with their feet" and drop out of schools that they do not deem effective and engaging. The school's charter can be revoked by government as a result of poor performance.² Employers that are not satisfied with the quality of a particular school's education can stop hiring graduates of that school. Accountability systems are best at improving education when they enrich, not only punish. Society has attacked the issue of education reform from almost every angle imaginable. It is clear that deficiencies in curricula, teachers' skills, teachers' attitudes, teaching methods and facilities are all interconnected. And addressing only one aspect in isolation will have limited (if any) benefits when problems exist in other areas. Just as the best teacher will have difficulty in a school system that gives him or her no leeway to alter a bad curriculum, the finest curriculum will fail if teachers are not trained properly so that they can implement it well. The social entrepreneur's job is not only to see a new pattern for society – but to make it fly society wide. That can only happen if the entrepreneur draws all actors together. In the education arena, social entrepreneurs have been responsible for applying accountability in ways previously unexplored, finding better ways to engage the participants (teachers and students) as well as those who should be active participants (communities and the private sector).
	Additional information about Sharat Babu Vasireddy's innovative school governance systems		Sharat Babu Vasireddy is using innovative school governance systems to create new conceptions of accountability. An Ashoka Fellow from Hyderabad, India, Sharat has initiated an educational movement of decentralized "community schools" run by slum dwellers, engaging sectors of society that previously had no link to the education system. The community members gain a sense of ownership of the schools, not only maintaining responsibilities for the school management, but even selecting whom they would like to be trained as teachers. Against a backdrop of highly centralized and rigid state-mandated education, Sharat Babu Vasireddy has effectively decentralized school governance, putting it in the hands of students, parents, teachers and communities. In Paraguay, the teacher training program of María del Carmen Arriola has created new responsibilities for teachers and communities. She develops future teachers' skills in early childhood development while instilling in them a responsibility to improve their communities. After their initial training period, in which they serve as teacher assistants, they set up their own preschool centers in previously unserved poor neighborhoods. Whereas classic day-care models, which are what preschools tend to mimic, provide only baby-sitting for children, these teachers stimulate children and generate enthusiasm in the community about the importance and benefits of early childhood education. As a result, the student-teachers easily recruit volunteers from the community to continue their work once their certificate program is completed and they go on to "formal" preschool assignments. The teachers take with them valuable skills in both teaching and engaging communities, while the communities experience a new sense of responsibility for their children's preschool education. Mostafa Shiblee (profiled in September, 1998 Changemakers) has fostered children's accountability for their own education and their voice in society through debate societies. A gifted speaker himself, winner of several prizes for public speaking, Shiblee believed that creating parliamentary-style debate clubs throughout the secondary schools in Bangladesh could help cure a widespread affliction of student violence, drug addiction and general apathy. In 1991, when the establishment of Bangladesh's first democratic government opened the door for change, Shiblee's dream went into high gear. He set out to establish a system of parliamentary debates to teach students to identify and analyze their country's problems, develop thoughtful, imaginative methods to solve them and learn about conflict resolution. By learning these things before they get to university, they can restore a constructive student activism based on social responsibility and develop a new generation of leaders in a democratic society. They also improve listening skills and independent thinking, the essence of quality education in the modern world.
	Additional information about: Success for All National Library Power		Success for All and National Library Power are two U.S. programs that effectively engage parents and communities in education. They fuel and capitalize on two rallying cries – the need for schools at least to provide literacy skills, and the need for libraries as community resources. They then use them to unite communities for education improvement. In communities without resources, child illiteracy and the lack of libraries are lamentable realities. However, when societies have invested in providing universal education opportunities and communities have resources, apathy is a disgrace. High literacy rates and thriving libraries are achievements that communities can take pride in. Each of these programs has found ways to generate community support and involvement to create and sustain the necessary accountability systems. Accountability in education is by no means a new concept, however social entrepreneurs have enlisted it in new successful ways. In this issue, we explore the programs of María del Carmen Arriola and Sharat Babu Vasireddy, two Ashoka Fellows who have addressed the accountability concept with new twists. We also provide information about several other individuals and programs that are successfully building accountability systems worldwide for the improvement of education. More information on the Web: www.edreform.com www.publiceducation.org www.nea.org www.successforall.net www.absj.com www.rethinkingschools.org Stephanie Gottlieb is Associate Director of Ashoka's Global Fellowship Program, based in Washington, D.C., and has worked on international development projects in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Footnotes According to Kirst, of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement, the origin of creating accountability systems to improve education is the "payment by results" scheme of 19th century England. At this time, schools were paid according to the performance of their students on standardized exams, (Accountability: Implications for State and Local Policymakers, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, Washington D.C., July 1990). [ back ] In the U.S., where sixteen states maintain legal jurisdiction to close, take over, or overhaul chronically failing schools based on their students' test results ("Pew Charitable Trusts' Education Week Release Report on State Accountability Efforts," Philanthropy News Digest, 5(2), January 13, 1999). [ back ]

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