Accountability

As we think about ways in which to make the California education master plan work better, it is critial to keep in mind that accountability can neither be successfully legislated nor effectively inspected into what we do as far as the reform of education is concerned.

Thus, whether we are talking about accountability as far as teachers, students, administrators, and many others involved are concerned, we must be aware that unless members of each of these groups of people have learned and can exercise accountability, it will not exist just by talking about it or creating new laws and educational testing procedures to enforce it. 

Instead, the master plan itself must have built into it an appropriate program of activities to help each person involved to not only understand better what educational accountability is all about, but also how to acquire, develop, and apply accountability. If we are able to do so successfully, those involved in the implementation of the plan would be very successful in the long-term. If, however, we fail to ensure that the plan possesses relevant activities aimed facilitating the development of personal accountability, we may end up failing.

I hope that we do not ignore this issue as we prepare ourselves toward the implementation of the master.