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Student Achievement and School and Teacher Accountability

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Abstract

This article is part of a set of papers generated from a keynote presentation by Dr. Jack Frymier at the 1997 CREATE annual meeting. Dr. Frymier dealt with several reasons, that, as he saw it, invalidate the use of student achievement data in teacher accountability systems. This article first notes problems with Dr. Frymier's conception of accountability. Next, it summarizes some of the recent evidence showing the strong connection between school and teacher effectiveness measures and student achievement. It then notes some of the benefits of school and teacher effectiveness measures external to their function as measures of performance. Next, policy issues arising from the use of student data and the associated research are considered. Finally, it concludes with some cautions about using effectiveness measures in teacher accountability systems.

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Mendro, R.L. Student Achievement and School and Teacher Accountability. Journal of Personnel Evaluation in Education 12, 257–267 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008019311427

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