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Accountability Under NCLB: The Case for Being Mean
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research comments on the "mean" versus "nice" approach to use to bring accountability to school districts. by Frederick Hess ![]()
The enactment of the federal No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002 made performance-based education accountability a federal mandate.
Aside from a few ideological critics, even most educators are sympathetic to the goals of performance-based accountability. The important split is not between ideological proponents and opponents of accountability, but between those who support tough-minded accountability, despite all its warts, and those who like the ideal of accountability but shrink from its reality. Nice versus Mean Accountability Simply put, there are two kinds of accountability: suggestive and coercive, or, more plainly, "nice" and "mean." |