ggw is correct in stressing school culture. Our fundamental goal should be an improved school culture that allows for 21st century education. Accountability is just one tool in creating that culture. Your subsequent post linked to a reference to Michelle Rhee’s “Culture of Accountability.” I have no problem with that goal, as long as we are using a valid system of accountability, but it is 14 years after 1994 and we are not even close. You may cite a few examples of an accountability culture that does not degenerate into a “Testing Culture,” but I doubt you will find many.

The AFTs proposal should raise the question of who is accountable for safe and orderly schools, because to paraphrase your post, if everyone is accountable about everything then none is. Given the tenor of your recent comments, I suspect you’ll agree that teachers have some accountablity for disorderly and dangerous schools, and principals have more, but the real accountablity should rest on the policies of central offices. But this is a grey area bordering on a “social and fiscal policy issue over which they have no control.” As we head into the Fourth Nine Weeks, I am again reminded our our school’s annual pattern. Despite our ongoing gang war, we no longer have dangerous and chronically disruptive students detroying our learning culture. So, we know how to get the job done, and we do it in a humane and legal manner, which is one reason why it take seven or eight months every year. We could follow due process and create a safe and orderly environment in the first Quarter if social and fiscal policies allowed.

This is the hard truth: some individuals and perhaps some schools can raise student performance even in high poverty secondary schools in spite of the chaos, but that number will always be very small. And I doubt that the NYC central office really wants to address that issue. It is much easier to argue that “high expectations” and professional developement will solve some of those most intractable problems of generational poverty. And if you don’t believe teachers like me, then the AFT proposes that student and parent surveys be considered.

I reviewed the Ed Sector research, and read the articles on the Turnaround conference, and I still don’t see why you seem to believe that we have a viable system of accountability on the horizon. Were you to reread your own research from the perspective of a teacher, I suspect that you would agree that your own research undercuts your faith in the prospects of output accountability. I’d love to have a “city by city” rearguing of this issue. This is too long, but soon I’ll be arguing that we should break NCLB into pieces, and incorporporate accountability into each piece, as we abandon any effort to create some overarching system of accountability by test scores, replacing it with diagnostic testing.

Sure: possibility of it being wink-wink to members like Obama to Canada — “We’ll say this but we’ll keep the old way.”

But assuming good faith, I like it, and applaud Ms. W, because she’s taking a risk.

In particular, wise policy proposal to include school culture as a real metric — not just reported assaults, but the little things like noise in the hallways which makes it even harder for teachers to succeed.

It’s possible to unite a failing school community around improving the culture; celebrate hard work which led to those gains; then use the trust to delve into the needed changes to bolster achievement.