Accountability
“What if” is a game I like to play with my staff.
“What if,” I ask them, “all our kids were 4.0 students who earned full-ride scholarships to the best schools in the state… yet graduated jerks? Would it be worth it?”
Of course not.
“What if,” I continue, “they graduated 4.0 students, earned full-ride scholarships and grew into quality men and women… but in order to make that happen, you had to work insane hours, lose your family and friends, and end up alone? Would you do it?”
Again, no.
After a few more scenarios just like that, the point becomes obvious: as educators, we need balance. We need boundaries. And we need accountability.
Accountability: It’s the Goal
“When the profit motive gets unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen,” Daniel Pink says from the TED stage. We create bad products, deliver lame services, and build uninspiring places to work.
In schools, when we drift from purpose, we sacrifice accountability.
In a world obsessed with numbers, accountability often gets pushed aside because it isn’t easily measured. But it can be. Just like we can’t see the wind but can measure its effects, we can measure the impact of accountability on a classroom, a staff, and a community.
When a school has a clear and sincere code of accountability—shared expectations, consistent follow-through, honest reflection—teachers feel safe, students exercise autonomy, and the community buys in. Unsurprisingly, test scores rise. And when they do, teachers are encouraged, students are inspired, and the community is more engaged.
But high test scores are not the goal and never should be.
First, if test scores are the goal, the bar is way too low. We can chase numbers and still end up with lousy teachers, disengaged students, and a toxic culture. If we want to be a respectable school, we need higher standards than high scores.
Second, test scores are shallow. Teachers didn’t accumulate debt, give up nights and weekends, and commit to a life of service just to help kids chase a number. They chose this profession to make a difference—to shape young men and women into quality older men and women. High test scores are worth celebrating, sure… but like the day after a Jay Gatsby party, the sparkle fades quickly. The fireworks end. And we’re left staring at a distant green light, wishing for something deeper. Something real.
As I tell my staff often:
We can teach students to never break the law and still have them grow into bad people.
Or we can teach them to be men and women of character and integrity… who then naturally choose lives that honor the law.
Test scores aren’t the goal. They’re just a checkpoint on the way to something bigger.
Accountability: How It Shows Up
We don’t just want to be schools doing great things; we want to be schools filled with great people doing great things. But that requires something essential: staff and students who feel safe, free, and part of something bigger than themselves.
Accountability provides that.
Accountability Creates Freedom
Believe it or not, boundaries create freedom.
Architects once studied how a fence affected children at play. On unfenced playgrounds, students huddled close to the teacher, unwilling to wander. But when a simple fence outlined the space, kids explored the entire playground—running, climbing, discovering—because they knew exactly where the boundaries were.
Accountability is the fence of a school.
When staff and students know what’s right, expected, and non-negotiable, they are free to teach, learn, act, and make decisions within those boundaries.
Accountability Provides Safety
Even if we rarely need it, knowing a structure exists matters.
It steadies the room.
It steadies the adults.
It steadies the kids.
Accountability Protects Us From Ourselves
Our desire to succeed—to be the best school, the best teacher, the best boss—can drift if we’re not grounded. Accountability keeps our motives tethered to our purpose.
Accountability Still Requires Kindness
Clear expectations and kind hearts are not opposites.
They’re partners.
One shapes the path; the other softens the journey.
Accountability is the boundary that allows our motivation to flourish.
It protects us.
It frees us.
It forms the foundation of a healthy classroom, a healthy school, and a healthy community.
Accountability is what allows us to do great things—
and inspires others to follow.