Accountability Is In The Eye Of The Beholder
"If parents have meaningful options other than the single, public school to which they are geographically zoned, then they can hold schools accountable."
As we enter the 2025 Legislative Session, prepare yourself for a plethora of education bills. Between the education establishment attempting to secure more funding, the education reformers looking for more options, and the legislators attempting to improve the academic offerings of the state without violating local control, it can be a bit overwhelming to follow the education committees. Ubiquitous amongst the slew of education bills is a single word that everyone uses, but the meaning of which varies greatly. That word is accountability.
What does accountability mean to you? Webster’s defines it as: a willingness or obligation to explain one’s actions or to admit being the cause of a problem. Oxford English Dictionary defines accountability as: liability to account for and answer for one’s conduct, performance of duties, etc. However, the meaning of this word becomes elusive when used in the realm of education. So, let’s dig into it.
The education establishment attests that private providers are not accountable because they don’t follow state standards and accreditation, they don’t give the state standardized test, and their boards are not democratically elected. So, to the establishment, accountability is more related to compliance than to liability for performance of duty. Education reformers, on the other hand, insist parents are the arbiters of accountability because parents know their children best and may be looking for schools that offer something other than compliance to state standards, or they may be seeking true academic rigor, something most public schools fail to offer. Therefore, reformers suggest that public money should follow children to their schools of choice, whether that be public, homeschool, private or a blend of all. What’s the legislature to believe? Who’s right?
Mike McShane of EdChoice asks a clarifying and pivotal question in his paper The Accountability Myth. McShane asks, “Accountable to whom and for what?” The answers to these questions will vary, and there are no single right answers. Some people feel schools must be accountable to students for academic learning, or to parents for ensuring safety and security, or to the state department of education for adhering to standards, or to the legislature and citizens who ultimately fund them, etc. McShane’s overall point is that students, people and states vary. The only true accountability for an education system is one that encompasses choice at the consumer level. Because the legislature and the people will never have the choice to not fund the public schools, an improved system will intentionally give parents the freedom to choose. If parents have meaningful options other than the single, public school to which they are geographically zoned, then they can hold schools accountable.
Even the framers of Montana’s Constitution recognized this when they wrote, “It is the goal of the people to offer a system of education which will develop the full education potential of each person.” The framers used the word “system” not “school.” The education establishment would have us believe that the word “system” is defined as traditional, public schools run by locally elected school boards and funded by the people regardless of the student outcomes. However, the legislature seems to clearly understand that to meet the constitution’s goal, a “system” must be built.
With the passage of the Big Sky Scholarship, the Special Needs ESA, and Community Choice Schools, the legislature has been hard at work augmenting the system to provide parents with more freedom to choose, to encourage civil society to create diverse schools, and to give students more opportunities. If parents feel stuck in district schools because they do not have the ability to homeschool or funds for or access to private schools, then the public schools will never be held accountable.