Read

New at The A Word: State Education Leaders Speak Out on School Accountability

By
Learn more about William McKenzie.
William McKenzie
Senior Editorial Advisor
George W. Bush Institute

The latest installment of Bush Institute interviews on school accountability spotlights state education leaders

This week’s edition of The A Word: Accountability-The Dirty Word of Today’s Education Reform presents interviews with four state education leaders: Hanna Skandera, Kevin Huffman, Felicia Cummings Smith, and Gerard Robinson. 

Skandera led New Mexico’s schools from 2010 to 2017. Huffman headed Tennessee’s education system from 2009 to 2015. Robinson was chief of Virginia’s schools from 2010 to 2011, and Florida’s schools from 2011 to 2012. And Smith served as Kentucky’s chief academic officer and associate commissioner of education from 2009 to 2014. 

As state leaders, their decisions impacted thousands of students. That includes the decisions they made about their state accountability systems. 

They each believe in the fundamentals of accountability: raising academic standards, testing students independently to make sure they meet those standards, and assigning consequences to the results. At the same time, they have ideas about how to improve accountability systems, starting with getting classrooms better supports to help students overcome learning deficits.

You can read more of these conversations at our site, as well as at The 74, the non-partisan education news site that simultaneously is publishing these Bush Institute interviews. And next week, we will wrap up with the views of several education leaders at the local level, plus a set of recommendations for accountability’s future.