The Education Policy Analysis Archives is a peer-reviewed
scholarly journal freely accessible on the internet at
http://epaa.asu.edu.

EPAA has just published Volume 9 Number 32 "Autonomy and
Accountability in the Context of Standards-Based Reform" by
Susan Watson and Jonathan Supovitz.

The article can be accessed directly at
http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v9n32.html

An abstract follows:

Autonomy and Accountability in the Context
of Standards-Based Reform

Susan Watson
Consortium for Policy Research in Education
University of Pennsylvania

Jonathan Supovitz
Consortium for Policy Research in Education
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract
In this article we discuss the effects of one urban school
district's efforts to increase the autonomy and
accountability of schools and teams of teachers through a
standards-based reform known as team-based schooling. Team-
based schooling is designed to devolve decision-making
authority down to the school level by increasing teachers’
autonomy to make decisions. Increased accountability is
enacted in the form of a state-level standards-based
initiative. Based on our evaluation over a two-year period
involving extensive fieldwork and quantitative analysis, we
describe the ways that teachers, teams and school
administrators responded to the implementation of team-based
schooling. What are the effects of increasing school-level
autonomy and accountability in the context of standards-
based reform? Our analysis highlights several issues: the
'lived reality' of teaming as it interacts with the existing
culture within schools, the ways that teachers respond to the
pressures created by increased internal and external
accountability, and the effects of resource constraints on
the effectiveness of implementation. We conclude by using our
findings to consider more broadly the trade-off between
increased autonomy and accountability on which standards-
based reforms like team-based schooling are based.

___________________________________________________
Gene V Glass, Editor
Education Policy Analysis Archives
College of Education,
Arizona State University
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