In my last blog, I described the devastating effect of test-based accountability and the current vogue of using value added methods for teacher evaluation on the profession of teaching.  But I also acknowledged the need for strong accountability systems in public education.  In our market economy, market forces punish the lazy, incompetent and inefficient by putting them out of business.  But public education is a monopoly, so we need other ways of ensuring that the people delivering the service have strong incentives to work hard and deliver high quality at a reasonable cost.

Before we start thinking about how to design more effective accountability systems, it might make some sense to think about the premises that underlie different approaches to accountability system design.

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