New small schools foster a different kind of accountability.

© Copyright Tony Wagner, 2001 (first published in Education Week, December 5, 2001)

Public education accountability is an abiding preoccupation of policymakers and business leaders today, and for good reason. We need to ensure that schools are truly educating all students for a future that is very different from the one their parents were prepared for. But growing numbers of people inside and outside of schools are concerned about the educational consequences of the increasing use of "high stakes" standardized tests as the primary driver of accountability.

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Machine-scored tests do not measure the sophisticated skills of critical thinking, problem-solving, and so on that are essential for work and citizenship. The tests are also one-time events that do not give an accurate picture of an individual student's strengths and weaknesses, and the results usually cannot be used to diagnose students' educational needs. Nor do they provide educators with the knowledge needed to improve teaching. Finally, the greatly increased emphasis on high-stakes testing threatens to drive curiosity and love of learning as motivations for mastery out of the classroom. There's no time and too much fear for such "leisure" pursuits.

But what is the alternative? Thus far, many critics of standardized testing have been more concerned with seeking waivers than with describing an alternative system that would hold schools accountable for significant improvements in all students' learning.

I've had the opportunity in my work to spend time in a number of new small public middle and high schools around the country that are developing a very different accountability system—one that I propose to call "relational accountability." There are now more than 100 new small schools in New York City alone, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York are supporting the creation of perhaps 1,000 additional new small high schools or conversions to schools-within-schools in the coming years.

Creating a new school or school-within-a-school from scratch is an opportunity for a small group to rethink what it means to be an educated adult in the 21st century and to develop a clear mission. Often, small groups of teachers, parents, and community members spend endless hours discussing and finally coming to agreement on the goals of the new school. The collaborative creation of a focused, clearly articulated, shared sense of purpose is the first requirement of a relational accountability system and is the heart of what I call a "new village" school. The discussions that lead up to the creation of the vision are a form of professional development and adult learning that generates a sense of "ownership" of new ideas and practices, rather than mere program "buy-in"—a favorite word of the education compliance cops these days.

Knowing students deeply, teachers are far more able to coach, nurture, and demand excellence from each one.Secondly, by the schools' small size, the organization of faculty into teams that often work with the same group of students over several years, and the creation of advisory systems, these new village schools foster the development of teacher-student relationships that are very different from those that characterize most middle and high schools today. Teachers come to know their students well—their interests, strengths, and weaknesses as learners. Knowing students deeply, teachers are far more able to coach, nurture, and demand excellence from each one. No student remains anonymous or falls through the cracks. Equally significant, the entire school, as well as individual classrooms and advisory groups, is characterized by a strong sense of community, where learning and helping one another have become shared responsibilities. Strikingly, one finds no graffiti or bathroom smoking in these schools. They belong to the students, as much as to the adults.

Educators in new village schools welcome parents' questions and concerns, in contrast to the fortress mentality of more bureaucratic leaders in conventional schools. They understand that the success of all students is totally dependent on close collaboration between educators and parents. Three-way parent-teacher-student conferences to discuss student work are the norm and are well-attended. Parents are a part of the school community.