Performance Accountability is, or at least should be, the hallmark of the charter school movement.  We have been saying that accountability is the distinguishing feature of charter schools since their inception a decade and a half ago.  We regularly say that charter schools are accountable.  But, what does that mean, exactly – to be accountable?  Charter schools and their authorizers must have a crystal-clear, common understanding of accountability – what it is and what it means.  This article will help you sift through the rhetoric and get to the truly essential concepts in a tactical way.

The dictionary definition of “accountable” suggests imminence of retribution for an unfulfilled obligation or violated trust (elected officials are accountable to the voters).

This dictionary definition of accountability includes three distinct components:

• Obligation or trust
• Failure to fulfill
• Retribution

Quality accountability recognizes that ambiguous space between adequate performance and performance that is too bad to be tolerated.  A re-statement of the three components of accountability more suited to the charter school environment is therefore appropriate:

• The promise.  The word promise implies a conscious, deliberate, overt commitment.  Obligations or trusts may be involuntary.  The promises made by charter school operators should be deliberate, voluntary acts.
• The performance.  The performance [relative to the promise] will be used to provide a more positive expectation and to avoid the negative connotations typically associated with accountability.  Performance, of course, must be measured (assessed) and compared to the promise (evaluated).  Unlike failure to fulfill, performance has a positive connotation.
• The consequence.  We’ll use the word consequence because retribution focuses only on the negative.  Consequence can be either positive or negative.  Performance begets consequences - pleasant consequences for good performance and unpleasant consequences for bad performance.  There are always natural consequences to behaviors or performances.

Without all three, there is no accountability agreement.  Remove, weaken or shorten any of the three and, like that stool, the accountability agreement ceases to be useful or effective.

Articulating the Promise

Articulating the promise—the first leg of the accountability triad—requires something for which someone is accountable.  As noted earlier, that “something” is the promise.  In charter schools, it is a promise to perform. The clearly articulated promise specifies the components to be measured, the metrics to be used, and the standards by which performance will be evaluated.  It specifies and quantifies how good is good enough and how bad is too bad.  The articulated performance promise is the functional definition of both success and failure.  Though they are in fact interrelated, the performance promise should address academic, fiscal, organizational and compliance performances separately.
The promise must be quantifiable and quantified.

Evaluation and the accountability based on the evaluation depend on commonality between the measures that define the performance promise and the measures used to monitor and assess performance.  Articulation of the academic performance promise, the fiscal performance promise, and the organizational performance promise are addressed.

Performance and Performance Monitoring

This part of accountability is where the school does what it has promised to do.  It teaches children, manages its finances, functions as an organization, and does so within the state’s regulatory framework.  This is where the authorizer monitors the school’s operations and performance and evaluates the extent to which actual performance measures up to what has been promised.

An adequately crafted and articulated accountability agreement will specify the measures, methods and timelines to be used to report/collect performance data.  It will also specify the timeline and for the periodic evaluation and providing feedback to the school regarding its performance.  The time and energy invested to craft a detailed monitoring, evaluation, and reporting plan pays dividends during the plan’s implementation.

Specifying Consequences

It is not enough to establish performance standards and monitoring mechanisms.  The consequences of the performance (both good and bad) must also be specifically stated so that there is NO ambiguity. No school should commence operations without a clear understanding of what it needs to do to assure contract renewal, what performance will result in certain contract termination, and what to expect if actual performance be somewhere between the two.

The stakes are as high for the authorizing entity as for the school involved.  All accountability-related decisions must be defensible, whether they are as routine as a decision to intervene or as monumental as an end of term renewal decision.  They must be defensible in the court of public opinion as well as in a small claims court.  These decisions are defensible only when they are the previously agreed upon consequences of the extent to which the school’s performance fulfilled its performance promise.

Academic Performance Accountability where the promise, performance, and consequence are spelled out within a school’s academic program.
Fiscal Performance Accountability where the promise, performance, and consequence are spelled out for financial performance.

Organizational Performance Accountability where the promise, performance, and consequence are spelled out for organizational performance.

The Value of Accountability Agreement

A clearly articulated accountability agreement is an essential prerequisite to a defensible contract renewal or termination decision.  Regardless of the complexity of the problem or the intellectual challenges it presents, charter school authorizers must ultimately make a dichotomous decision – whether or not to renew every charter school contract.  An accountability agreement directs and enables coherent and efficient data collection.  The complete, negotiated accountability agreement is the only foundation upon which defensible renewal decisions can be based.