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The latest NAEP scores reveal a stark and troubling reality: Students remain far behind. This is especially true for those who were already behind, widening already large learning gaps. Too many of the country’s school systems are failing to equip young people with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed.

I would argue that the causes are dual problems that are not only intertwined, but sit at the very core of this crisis of stalled learning recovery: Far too many boards of education have abandoned accountability and failed to embrace innovation. Yes, the challenges education stakeholders — parents, educators and policymakers alike — face are enormous, but the solutions are within reach if, collectively, we commit to a balanced approach. To recover lost ground, decisionmakers need to learn from bright spots in education, where accountability and innovation intersect to drive real results.

At the National Association of Charter School Authorizers we know high-performing charter schools can serve as models for driving meaningful results for students. Research shows how strong accountability practices from authorizers contribute to charter school success and how high-performing charters have increased the academic performance of surrounding district-run schools. NACSA’s own research has demonstrated the vast diversity of school models and approaches to learning that have found a home and are growing in the charter sector. Charter schools have consistently proven their ability to dramatically accelerate the learning of students furthest away from opportunity — a critical capacity, given the sobering NAEP outcomes for students academically behind. 

Here are three big lessons, based on the successes we have seen from authorizing high-quality charter schools, that decisionmakers can use to ensure all students receive an excellent education:

Understand accountability, encourage innovation and problem solving: For accountability to truly drive meaningful student results, there must be a shared understanding of what it is and is not. Accountability systems or frameworks ensure that all students meet high academic standards by defining expectations, creating conditions for innovation and accommodating the needs of families and communities to drive change when schools fall short. While accountability must impose consequences for failure — including making the tough decision to close schools that consistently fail to educate students well — it’s about so much more than that. It is about permitting excellent schools to expand so their successes can be replicated and, perhaps most importantly, ensuring that high and rigorous expectations for student learning are perpetuated.

When accountability is at its best, it fosters greater innovation. This is especially true in high-quality charter schools, where accountability and innovation are interwoven by design. These schools are given the flexibility to innovate and problem-solve in multiple ways — such as implementing evidence-based instructional models that draw from research-backed teaching strategies, finding creative ways of re-engaging students and using technology in unique ways — while being held to rigorous performance standards, ensuring they deliver for their students. It is this balance that needs to be more broadly replicated, allowing accountability and innovation to compliment one another in service of student learning and growth.

Align rigor with clear guidance: In order for teachers and school leaders — and, ultimately, students — to excel, they need policies and practices that promote achievement, which includes explicit guidance around expectations and clear measures of success.

Charter school authorizers play a critical role in ensuring expectations are both rigorous and attainable. By using tools like school performance frameworks and reports, progress monitoring systems, site visits, consistent parent communications and other evaluation and transparency systems, authorizers provide schools with the tools to understand how they’re performing and what’s expected of them. This alignment empowers educators to focus on what matters most: student learning.

Follow the excellence equation: High-performing charter schools have two important elements that drive their success: They are responsible for determining and executing their programmatic objectives, while their authorizers must set clear expectations and be transparent about performance. This clear delineation is the key to producing high-functioning schools where students are prepared for the next phase of learning and life.

At NACSA, we’ve observed that this excellence equation — balancing accountability for outcomes with freedom to innovate — is a common feature of the highest-performing schools. All schools should be empowered to tailor their programs to meet their students’ needs while accountability structures ensure their efforts are aligned with clear, rigorous goals.

As states and districts consider changes to their accountability systems, lowering standards and misleading students and families about the reality of academic progress is not the answer. The new NAEP results make it clear that now is the time to raise expectations and work together to leverage every tool available to advance learning.

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