The economics of school accountability

Demands for more accountability and results-based incentive systems in K-12 education come from many directions and currently dominate much of the education policy discussion at both the state and federal levels in the United States (Ladd, 1996; Ladd & Hansen, 1999) and abroad (Burgess, Propper, Slater, & Wilson, 2005). Accountability in education is a broad concept that could be addressed in many ways: using political processes to assure democratic accountability, introducing market-based reforms to increase accountability to parents and children, developing peer-based accountability systems to increase the professional accountability of teachers, or using administrative accountability systems designed to drive the system toward higher student achievement. This article focuses on this last approach and pays particular attention to programs that focus on the individual school as the primary unit of accountability.