Accountability
JJSE was founded through a community organizing effort by a group of teachers, parents, and youth, with the explicit goal of providing better educational options for students who were not being served well in traditional schools. One assumption underlying this effort was the idea that real accountability is rooted in relationships rather than bureaucracy.
Accountability in most American public schools today is based on the notion that high test scores mean that the school is performing well and doing a good job. If a school has low test scores, the theory goes, then the teachers must be failing, and thus higher-level educational bureaucrats (either from the district or the state) should more closely direct operations at the school and push for increased performance by the teachers, who will presumably work harder or smarter to please their superiors in the bureaucracy, resulting in higher test scores. While this concept of accountability is a vast improvement over the earlier idea that low achievement was the inevitable result of poverty or race, we believe it is still deeply flawed.
At JJSE, we adhere to the concept of “relational accountability” described in the 2008-2012 SFUSD strategic plan: “We are striving for the genuine accountability you feel when you promise someone you live, or care deeply about, that you will do something that is important to her or him.” We believe that teachers are most accountable for results when they have promised those results to families they know and care about, and thus do not want to disappoint.
As part of our effort to be accountable to students and families, we have always invited parents to sit in on classes and see what their children are learning, and we have always asked students for their feedback on how their teachers are performing.
Now, with the launch of our JJSE pedagogy project, we are taking the next step in making teaching practice transparent by posting video clips of our teachers’ instructional techniques on this web site. In doing so, we are describing what we believe good teaching looks like, so parents and students will know what they can expect from a JJSE teacher, and so they can ensure that the level of instruction meets their standards. At the same time, we are opening the door to a wider public conversation about what teaching for social justice means—a conversation that we believe has the potential to improve urban education.
For more on accountability, please see the following entries from our Teach for Equity blog:
