Just as the Cold War fostered the rise of the “military industrial complex,” America’s perceived inferiority to educational outcomes in other countries has spawned the “accountability complex.”
This accountability complex equates responsibility with student achievement. It holds students, parents, and teachers personally responsible for failure despite the reality that causes of student failure are well beyond their personal control. Students shoulder much of the burden, particularly students who often have the least amount of power to change their circumstances.
Most children attending public schools are impoverished, lacking not only capacity for accountability but the power to advocate for reform. In Georgia, more than 60 percent of children attending public schools are from low-income families. This begs the question, how can we hold children and families accountable for a test score, when we do not hold systems and policymakers accountable for meeting the basic economic and health needs of our most vulnerable populations?
Accountability is necessary, but students should not be the only focus. Accountability is not achieved by “blaming the victim.” A narrative that characterizes children as undisciplined, parents as apathetic, and teachers as ineffective does not increase accountability, it only fosters resentment and despair. Schools are filled with students for whom achievement is secondary to chronic illness, family violence or homelessness.
About 12 percent of U.S. children are born prematurely, a condition strongly associated with poor educational achievement. In urban areas, prematurity rates often approach 20 percent. Think all children start out equally? Touring a large urban neonatal intensive care unit, with numerous critically ill infants so small they can fit in a shirt pocket, will quickly show otherwise.
Poor educational achievement is endemic in Georgia. More than two-thirds of our fourth graders are not proficient readers. Georgia’s school systems ranked 35th in the nation in quality.
Students who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch had an average 4th grade math score 25 points lower than students who were not eligible. About 23 percent of Georgia’s children live in poverty.
Kids Count ranks Georgia as 42nd in overall child well-being. Almost 13 percent of all youngsters and 16 percent of African-American children are born prematurely in this state. Our rate of prematurity is among the worst in the nation, as noted by the March of Dimes, which recently gave Georgia a “C” for its prematurity rates — a specific risk factor for poor educational attainment. Also, almost 12 percent of Georgia’s children do not have health insurance.
Decreasing inequities in health and economic conditions among Georgia’s children holds higher priority than high test scores. Holding impoverished, disadvantaged and powerless children accountable for a test score is simply unfair. Should a child who is born prematurely or has other morbidities be expected to perform as well as a healthy child, especially when such morbidities go unnoticed?
Systems, not children, are ultimately accountable for the achievement gap. Sick and hungry children are at high risk of failure. About 25 percent of Georgia’s children live in a household that is food insecure, and almost 60 percent of Georgia’s children are eligible for free or reduced lunch. About 39 percent of Georgia’s children rely upon public health insurance.
Accountable and effective systematic support of a child’s educational achievement extends well beyond pedagogy; it ensures a child’s basic needs are met. Many child illnesses are not as readily apparent as physical or mental disabilities, but they hinder achievement nonetheless.
The public discourse around accountability must change. We declared a war on “bad test scores.” Wars on social problems are often ineffective. Current discourse incites state systems to target poor-performing schools as enemies of the state that must be confronted, taken over or punished.
Poor test scores are insufficient conditions for such a war, and children are never the enemy. Children are better served by redirecting our aggression toward system-level, population-based change.
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