did the no child left behind act miss the mark?

8/9/2019 Did the No Child Left Behind Act Miss the Mark?

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Educational Policy

25(1) 193214

The Author(s) 2011

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DOI: 10.1177/0895904810386604http://epx.sagepub.com

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1Rutgers University

Corresponding Author:

Lawrence J. Miller, 111, Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102

Email: [email protected]

Did the No Child

Left Behind Act Miss

the Mark? Assessing

the Potential Benefits

From an Accountability

System for Early

Childhood Education

Lawrence J. Miller1and Stephanie C. Smith1

Abstract

With growing evidence that human capital investment is more efficientlyspent on younger children coupled with wide variation in preschool accessacross states, this article uses a neoliberal approach to examine the potentialsocial costs and benefits that could accrue should the United States decideto implement a centralized preschool accountability system. Conceptualagency-based arguments that support implementing a preschool account-ability system are compared and contrasted with conceptual arguments thatoppose centralized accountability. In spite of credible conceptual argumentsthat local control over preschool access maximizes efficiency, we find themost support for an accountability system that enhances equity throughuniversal access to preschool.

Keywords

Early childhood education, accountability, agency theory, equity

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194 Educational Policy25(1)

Introduction

The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) is an outcome-based

accountability system that relies on tests in reading, mathematics, and science

to judge the quality of schools. The law requires testing students annually

from third to eighth grade. However, a majority of our nations children have

attended 5 years of school by the time they take their first high-stakes test.

As a result of the policy decision to delay testing students until third grade,

without implementing another outcome measure (or measures) as a substitute,

the United States is not currently measuring student outcomes between ages 3

and 7 in a systematic and comparable fashion.

In contrast to the primary and secondary education system for which out-come measures are collected and assessed, access to state-financed preschool

varies considerably across states. Twelve states do not offer state-financed

preschool, but Oklahoma funds nearly universal preschool for all 4-year-olds

(Barnett, Epstein, Friedman, Boyd, & Hstedt, 2008). Only half of the state

programs require that preschool teachers have a bachelors degree, and no

more than one quarter of state programs require that assistant teachers have

an associate degree (Barnett et al., 2008). Consequently, access to preschool

and preschool quality vary substantially across states and programs.Yet recent evidence about investment in human capital suggests that, at

least in the case of disadvantaged youth, the highest rates of return occur during

the preschool years (Heckman, 2006; Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, &

Yavitz, 2009). If accountability systems can improve access to preschool and

school quality, then perhaps the biggest opportunity to improve student out-

comes in the United States is through an accountability system for early child-

hood education.

Of course, there are practical concerns about designing the best account-ability system for early childhood education. Should NCLB be extended to

assess student performance in lower grades, including preschool? Or were

the designers of NCLB prudent in deciding to begin testing in third grade,

either because the system, in its current form, is not capable of assessing the

unique challenges of educating our youngest students or because an account-

ability system is not needed for early childhood education?

This article explores these questions from a neoliberal theoretical perspec-

tive, meaning that the relationship between the state and the preschool is ass-

umed to be contractual in nature. Accordingly, the state is assumed to be principal,

with the school serving as its agent. This article begins by asking whether we

need an accountability system for preschool. Conceptual agency-based argu-

ments that support implementing a preschool accountability system are

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Miller and Smith 195

compared and contrasted with conceptual arguments that oppose centralized

accountability. This assessment is followed by a systematic analysis of four

key elements of an accountability system: (1) jurisdiction, (2) standards,

(3) evaluation systems, and (4) compliance mechanisms. In the process of

analyzing these key provisions we examine what is known about the relation-

ship between centralized accountability systems and the performance of schools,

with particular attention given to experiences from other countries to widen

the scope of our analysis. These conceptual and empirical reviews inform our

discussion of the key aspects that policy makers must take into account when

considering an accountability system for preschool in the United States.

The research questions raised in this review article are prospective in nature

in that they seek to answer questions about implementing a federal account-ability system for preschool at some point in the future. This study relies on

evidence drawn from research conducted by others to examine the possible

benefits and costs of a variety of accountability policy choices available to

federal policy makers. Therefore, any policy suggestions found in these pages

should be taken with a healthy amount of skepticism, as we are generalizing

findings from studies that may not be generalizable to the unique aspects of

preschool education in the United States, among many other limitations of

this approach. Notwithstanding these limitations, the questions raised by thisarticle are important enough to allow a bit of speculation.

This article proceeds as follows. The second section Should Preschools Be

Held Accountable? contrasts conceptual arguments in favor of an account-

ability system to those opposed to an accountability system. The third section,

Do Accountability Systems Affect School Quality, defines and describes

four key provisions of public accountability systems and reviews the litera-

ture to determine what is known about the relationship between particular

types of accountability and school quality. The fourth section, Prospects forImproving Early Childhood Education Through Accountability, provides a

policy discussion, and the fifth section, Conclusion, provides our concluding

observations about the prospects for equity and quality gains through a cen-

tralized accountability system for early childhood education.

Should Preschools Be Held Accountable?

At the center of conceptual arguments that either support or oppose a central-

ized accountability system is an irresolvable conflict between the importance

of local control, which may lead to a more efficient supply of public education,

and federal intervention, which may produce a more equitable system of pub-

lic education. In spite of the apparent intractability of philosophical debates



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over the advantages of centralized versus decentralized governance systems,

the federal government already makes a substantial financial investment in

early childhood education through the Head Start program, so the practical

question examined here is whether the federal governments role should be

increased, and if so, by how much? This section begins by reviewing four argu-

ments in support of a federal accountability system and is followed by a review

of three arguments that either oppose a federal accountability system or pro-

vide theoretical support for the primacy of local control over central control.

Conceptual Support for Preschool Accountability

The primary argument in favor of a preschool accountability system is thatpublic education is a government failure. The absence of the invisible hand

in the government sector, which matches supply and demand in the private

sector, leads to either an inefficient supply of public education or a supply of

inefficient schools. In the case of an inefficient supply of preschools, it is

difficult for an accountability system to recalibrate supply to match demand

without sacrificing efficiency. A universal system will increase public spend-

ing on preschool education, which will crowd out a substantial proportion of

private investment on preschool education, without changing accessibilityrates for students who formerly attended a private program. 1On the other

hand, a means-tested program will not provide access to preschool for all

students who do not have access to preschool in the same way that a univer-

sal program would. Further complicating the issue of access is the fact that

public support for a universal program will be greater than support for expan-

sion of access to public preschool on a means tested basis.

The second form of public education as government failure reasons that

public schools operate inefficiently because they do not face the same threatsto survival that private schools face. Public schools do not have to provide

service levels equivalent to their tuition price (i.e., per-pupil expenditure lev-

els) because parents only bear the tax price of the school, which is always less

than the amount spent to educate the child, as taxpayers share this burden

collectively. As a result, the monitoring incentives for parents of public school

children are not sufficiently high enough to extract higher performance levels

from teachers and administrators. An accountability system that sets perfor-

mance standards in combination with incentives to meet those standards is

expected to improve the efficiency with which public education is produced.

Perfect information is rarely available. This is one of the challenges in

judging school quality. In markets where information failures are widespread,

government can serve as an information provider. Residents choose to live in



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communities, in part, based on their preferences for public services, includ-

ing education. Schools with good reputations may merely benefit from serv-

ing children from well-educated parents, whereas schools with bad reputations

may suffer from the opposite scenario. Said differently, it is difficult to dis-

entangle the effects of residential sorting from the value that schools add to

human capital. Further complicating assessments of school quality is the fact

that both resource levels and resource quality vary across schools as well. For

these reasons there may be considerable variation between assessed school

quality and the actual quality of schools in the community. In the absence of

reliable information about actual school quality, residents must rely on imper-

fect substitutes to estimate school quality, such as the socioeconomic compo-

sition of students attending the school and pupilteacher ratios.An accountability system that is capable of identifying aspects of student

performance that are within a schools control could provide more accurate

information about school quality by providing parents and taxpayers with

more accurate information about school quality after controlling for the

effects of student background and resource variation on student outcomes.

Educational quality might improve through lower demand at poor perform-

ing schools and higher demand at better performing schools. Of course,

separating the factors that are within a schools control from those that arenot, in relation to student achievement, is more easily said than done. This

issue is discussed further in the third section, Do Accountability Systems

Affect School Quality?

Equity is the most important reason to implement an accountability system.

Equity enhancement, along with national defense and macroeconomic stabil-

ity, is one of the important functions of the federal government (Musgrave,

1959). As discussed earlier, access to preschool, preschool program inputs,

and preschool quality vary across states and across programs in the UnitedStates (Barnett et al., 2008; Currie, 2001). Additional evidence from cross-

country comparisons finds that the United States does not educate 90% more

of its youth until they reach age 6. Twenty-two other countries reach this

milestone by age 5 or younger, and 6 countries reach it by age 3. While coun-

tries like Sweden that fail to reach this admittedly arbitrary milestone until

age 6 have homogenous populations and low rates of child poverty, the

United States has one of the highest rates of child poverty of all rich countries

(Rainwater & Smeeding, 2003). This convergence of relatively high rates of

child poverty and relatively low rates of access to preschool is worrisome

because preschool program access may offset some of the effects of depriva-

tion associated with poverty, but unfortunately that access is not as broadly

distributed as it could be.



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Eliminating access inequality to early childhood education may help to

reduce the size of the achievement gap in early grades and may lessen the dis-

parity in long-term outcomes between those from more advantaged and less

advantaged backgrounds. Certainly access equality and some degree of mini-

mum program inputs could be established by an accountability system, but

equalizing program equality would be a much more difficult endeavor.

The fourth argument for a national accountability system is based on access

to expertise. The federal government may be able to attract and retain higher-

quality experts to develop, implement, and manage an accountability system

compared to what individual states or school districts could attract for the same

task. This advantage assumes that such expertise exists and that the federal

agency tasked with implementing the accountability system would be ableto hire based on competency instead of hiring based on political affiliation.

Developing a methodology for measuring student and school performance is

a challenging endeavor that would likely benefit from national attention.

Conceptual Opposition to Preschool Accountability

There are several reasons why policy makers should exercise considerable

caution in deliberations about an early childhood accountability system. Themost compelling objection comes from the theory of fiscal federalism,

which concludes that the most efficient method of matching supply and

demand, in light of jurisdictional variation in cost and preferences, is to

empower localities to make such decisions (Oates, 1999). An accountability

system could lead to a less efficient supply of educational resources

because the supply would necessarily become more uniform in nature and

some communities will be allocated more (or less) than they prefer. A sec-

ond concern about accountability systems is that the incentives targeted atparticular student outcomes could have the unintended consequence of

motivating teachers and administrators to cheat, by changing exam scores

or discouraging some students to take exams, for instance. The third con-

cern is whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to

mandate changes to state education systems. State constitutions provide the

constitutional support for public education. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court

declined hearing the case of San Antonio vs. Rodriquez, further cementing the

issue of education as a state rather than a federal concern, at least from a legal

perspective (Baker & Green, 2008).

While there may be slightly more conceptual support for a federal account-

ability system as equity enhancer and information provider, and slightly less

conceptual support for a federal accountability system as efficiency enhancer,



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the empirical evidence may tell a different story. The next section of this

article reviews the literature on four accountability provisions that may have

a critical impact on the ability of an accountability system to improve equity

and preschool quality.

Do Accountability Systems

Affect School Quality?

An accountability system is a statute or regulation in which a central (i.e.,

principal) government utilizes constitutionally granted power to establish regu-

lations that govern the behavior of subordinate governments (i.e., agents).2Accountability statutes have four key provisions that are most likely to affectschool equity and school quality, including (1) jurisdiction, (2) standards,

(3) evaluation systems, and (4) compliance mechanisms. Each provision is

addressed in this section by first describing the policy choices available to

policy makers and then by reviewing the literature to improve our understand-

ing of the inherent tradeoffs that are involved.

JurisdictionA statutes jurisdiction has several components that must be addressed by the

legislation, including defining which actors the statute has legal authority over,

defining the geographical boundaries of the statutes authority, and establish-

ing the subject matter applicable to the statute. In practical terms, when draft-

ing accountability legislation, policy makers must decide whether they want

to hold states, school districts, schools, or teachers accountable and whether

they want to hold public or public and private preschools accountable.

The education accountability systems in the United States, New Zealand,the Netherlands, Chile, and Great Britain are all federal institutions, and all

five systems hold schools, rather than districts or teachers, accountable. While

most federal accountability systems target schools, the merit pay movement

in the United States is an example of an accountability system that targets

teachers rather than the more common approach of targeting schools. There

is no evidence that we are aware of that suggests that merit pay improves

student performance in public schools, though there is some comparative

work that suggests that private schools may be effective at using merit pay

(Ballou, 2001).

Policy makers must also decide whether or not to apply their standards to

all organizations offering preschool or whether they prefer to limit the scope

of the legislation to the public sector. Because private and sectarian schools in



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the Netherlands receive substantial federal funding, the accountability system

applies to these schools as well (Ladd, 2010). Whereas, in the United States,

the NCLB accountability system limits its jurisdiction to public schools.

Standards

Accountability standards can be divided into three types. There are input-based

standards that establish minimum programmatic requirements, such as class

size limits, teacher certification requirements, and health and wellness assess-

ments. While input-based standards may be an effective way of ensuring a

minimum level of programmatic quality across schools, they do not specifically

address the production processes responsible for program outcomes and, thus,are unlikely to have a significant effect on the efficiency of the preschool edu-

cation system. Process-based standards emphasize particular operating pro-

cedures and expectations. If procedural standards are shown to be effective,

and if they are used in coordination with input-based standards, they may

have a better chance of improving school quality than input standards alone.

Then there are outcome-based standards that can be selected from a host of

quantitative (e.g., student performance on cognitive, social, emotional tests) or

qualitative (e.g., teacher assessments, inspector reports) standards. Outcome-based accountability systems vary according to the unit of analysis selected

(e.g., individual vs. school) and the methodology used to measure performance

(e.g., value-added vs. percent passing). Notably, schools have the most control

over educational processes and less control over resource inputs and student

outcomes.

Input-based standards. The most important input-based accountability stan-

dard is access. In the United States, where 82% of 4-year-olds attend preschool,

nearly half of all preschool students are publicly funded (Barnett et al., 2008).However, only 52% of 3-year-olds attend preschool, and only one third of

those positions are publicly funded. One of the biggest problems in the United

States is access to Head Start. Although Head Start serves more than 800,000

students, there are more than 1.6 million students who are eligible to attend

(Currie, 2001).

France, Sweden, and Germany enroll more than half of children aged 3 or

more in government-financed preschool (Boocock, 2003; Tietze, Cryer, Bairro,

Palacios, & Wetzel, 1996). Other nations do not provide as much support for

preschool access. In the United Kingdom, only half of preschool-aged chil-

dren attend any prekindergarten program, though children may start primary

school at age 4 (Boocock, 2003). Portugals program also has low national

enrollment (Tietze et al., 1996).



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Process-based standards. There are two process-based accountability sys-

tem for early childhood education in the United States. The federal Head Start

program maintains a robust set of 11 different procedural standards. These

standards are different from input standards. For example, rather than speci-

fying minimum building standards or the types of health care students shouldreceive, the standards state that students will be taught in a safe environment

and provided health check-ups within 45 days after starting the program (see

Table 1). The standards are written in subjective language leaving them open

to interpretation.

Head Start guidelines are used at Head Start centers, used electively by some

state prekindergarten programs and used infrequently by private programs

(Frede, 1995). The National Association for the Education of Young Children

(NAEYC) is an external accrediting agency that publishes guidelines fordevelopmentally appropriate practice (DAP) as well as standards for accredi-

tation (see Table 2). DAP is used voluntarily by some preschool centers,

including Head Start, state prekindergartens, and private centers. Though

DAP and Head Starts accountability systems overlap in most areas, DAP

omits standards for health care and screenings and Head Start omits standards

for teachers.

Outcome-based standards. Currently, the United States and Chile both use

standardized tests as their outcome standard. The No Child Left Behind Act

requires testing of student in reading, math, and science annually between 3rd

and 8th grades and once between 10th grade and 12th grades (U.S. Depart-

ment of Education, 2004).3The goal of NCLB is to close the achievement

gap between high-achieving affluent schools and low-achieving low-income

Table 1.Age by Which 90% of the Population Is Enrolled in School, by Country

Age 3 Age 4 Age 5 Age 6 Age 7

Belgium Germany Australia United States TurkeyDenmark Hungary Austria Finland Brazil

France Japan Czech Republic Greece Chile

Iceland Luxembourg Ireland Poland Russia

Italy New Zealand Mexico Slovak Republic

Spain Norway Netherlands Sweden

United Kingdom Portugal Estonia

Switzerland Slovenia

Israel

Source: Authors table based on data from Indicator C. Education at a Glance 2008: OECD.



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Table 2.A Comparison of Two Input-Based Accountability Systems

NAEYC Head Start

Social andemotionalconsiderations

The program promotes positiverelationships among all children andadults.

The program should build trust,foster independence, andencourage self-control by settingclear limits.

Curriculum The program implements a curriculumthat is consistent with its goals forchildren. Focuses on skills in thefollowing areas: social, emotional,physical, language, and cognitive.

The program should developcognitive and language skills,provide sufficient time, space, andequipment for the developmentof gross and fine motor skills.

Teaching The program is uses developmentally,

culturally, and linguisticallyappropriate and effective teachingapproaches.

The approach to child development

should be linguisticallyappropriate, recognizingindividual interests, cultures, andlearning styles, and be inclusive(with regard to disabilities as wellas race and gender).

Assessment Ongoing systematic, formal, andinformal assessment approaches toprovide information on childrenslearning and development.

Assessment required for childrenwith disabilities.

Health The program promotes the nutritionand health of children and protectschildren and staff from illness orinjury.

The program has proceduresfor health emergencies. Theprogram also identifies childrensnutritional needs and providesmeals that are appropriate.

Teachers The program employs andsupports a teaching staff who hasthe educational qualifications,knowledge, and professionalcommitment necessary to promotechildrens learning and development.

Families The program establishes andmaintains collaborative relationshipswith each childs family.

Managing agencies must engagein a process of collaborativepartnership building with parentsto establish mutual trust and toidentify family goals, strengths,and necessary services and othersupports.

Communityrelationships

The program establishes relationshipswith and uses the resources of thechildrens communities to support

the achievement of program goals.

Managing agencies mustestablish ongoing collaborativerelationships with community

organizations to promote theaccess of children and familiesto community services that areresponsive to their needs

(continued)



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from White, middle-class backgrounds putting students from other cultural

and socioeconomic backgrounds at a testing disadvantage (Meier, 2002).

A third concern over the use of high-stakes tests is the use of average per-

cent passing rates to measure student achievement. Often, it is the students near

passing who receive most of the teachers attention, due to a practice known

as triage, where teachers focus on these specific students to the detriment

of students unlikely to either pass or fail the exam (Brint & Teele, 2008;

Lipman, 2003). Rather than shifting the entire distribution to the right, which

was the goal of the legislation, NCLB may be encouraging teachers to move

a few students from near passing to just passing, which will not produce the

learning gains needed to meet the legislations ambitious goals. A system that

assesses individual learning gains could avoid this concern, however.

Evaluation Systems

An evaluation system is responsible for assessing state, district, or school

performance against a set of predetermined criteria. Governments can avoid

inherent conflicts of interest between operating responsibilities and assess-

ment duties by keeping evaluation departments and provision departments in

separate organizations. The evaluation system can be structured as a central-ized, consolidated organization that gathers information electronically and

communicates with stakeholders via written reports, or it can be structured as

a decentralized, inspectorate-based system that conducts school visits to gather

information and provides verbal and written assessments to schools about their

performance. Of course, there is nothing preventing the creation of a system

that performs both of these activities, but typically we observe countries choos-

ing one system over the other. However, an inspectorate system is required

in order to implement a process-based accountability system, for how else wouldschool-site processes and procedures be evaluated?

Inspectorate systems are used in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and

the Netherlands (Fruchter, 2007; Ladd, 2010). While the United Kingdom

has been operating a school inspectorate for more than 30 years, they have

only more recently begun to publish the results of inspections and publicly rank

schools. In contrast, both New Zealand and the Netherlands publish inspector

reports, though they do not rank schools based on those reports.

New Zealands inspectorate policy includes both process and outcome

assessment (curriculum is a process variable; test scores are a student out-

come). Assessment is based on the performance of the entire system (Ladd,

2010). More important, there is no discussion of adjusting performance for

exogenous cost factors, such as poverty, nor is there a discussion of how to



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weight each element of performance in a single assessment, leading one to

question the comparability and reliability of scores produced by this system.

In her review of the New Zealand and Dutch inspectorate systems, Ladd

draws some well-thought-out conclusions that are worth summarizing here.

Schools are the correct level to hold accountable because that is where pro-

duction of education occurs. However, because financing decisions, program-

matic choices, and labor agreements are most often made at a higher level in

the system, caution is warranted in limiting the goals of the accountability

system to measure what is within the control of the schoolschools control

processes and proceduresso that is what the accountability system should

focus on. As for student outcomes, Ladd suggests that inspectorates can bring

objective, disaggregated evidence to bear on the effectiveness or lack thereof,of government policies and thereby help to hold policy makers responsible

for those policies (Ladd, 2010, p. 17).

An important question arises for policy makers: What are the potential

gains in student learning from optimizing school operations? While the answer

to this question is well beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting that

we are only aware of one study that has examined this question. The Dutch

system was the only inspectorate system that was evaluated for its impact

on student outcomes. That study attributed an improvement of outcomes onstandardized exams of 2% to 3% of a standard deviation to the inspectorate

system (Ladd, 2010).

A compliance system that monitors and evaluates schools remotely (i.e.,

not through school inspections) requires the establishment of a data collec-

tion system to ensure that all data collected are comparable. Since each state

has a unique reporting requirement system, this step requires either a stan-

dardized national reporting system or a lot of redundancy and administrative

expense for school districts. The system must be implemented nationally,with data collected at some regular interval. Then the data can be aggregated

and assessed. There has been substantial progress on the information front in

the past decade, according to the Data Quality Campaign (DQC). In a recent

assessment of state data systems, DQC found that eight states could link early

childhood education data with K-12, postsecondary, workforce, and social

service data (Data Quality Campaign, 2009). But just like access to pre-

school, state data systems vary substantially in both quality and scope.

The final step in an input-based accountability system is the development

and implementation of a methodology that can reliably identify winners and

losers or compliers and noncompliers. Identifying productive schools is not

a simple task because resources are unevenly distributed across states, dis-

tricts, and schools; costs vary across geographical regions; and students are



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Americas Schoolsdraw the conclusion that allowing parents to choose where

to send their children to school would make for a more effective system of

education relative to the current system. Chile has a national voucher pro-

gram that allows students to move between the public, private, and sectarian

school systems, though tuition rates in the private sector continue to constrain

the choice set for low-income students (McEwan, 2008). In the United States,

vouchers are used in specific districts, such as in Milwaukee and Cleveland.

According to Levin, who has written extensively on choice in public educa-

tion, the evidence on choice is inconclusive and often overshadowed by ideo-

logical beliefs (Levin, 2008).

The No Child Left Behind Act allows students to transfer to another school

if their school is labeled afailing school(defined as not having made adequateyearly progress for 2 consecutive years). It is expected that schools will begin

to improve when it is apparent that students are leaving the school because it

provides low-quality education to its students. In addition, student will receive

a better education by attending a school that is shown to be making progress

(Lauren, 2008). This approach may effectively pressure a few poor-performing

schools in an area to improve, but this approach may not be as effective in

scenarios where most of the schools in a district or city are failing. One study

of Charlotte, North Carolina, lends support to this concern as the authorsfound that few students change schools (Mikelson & Southworth, 2008)

Prospects for Improving Early Childhood

Education Through Accountability

Drawing on the conceptual review presented earlier in this article, we find

that there are potential benefits to increasing the federal role in early child-

hood education, especially if the accountability system is designed to be anequity enhancer. While the federal government could pass legislation making

early childhood education compulsory for 3- and 4-year-olds, a more pragmatic

first step would be to use accountability legislation to fully fund all Head

Starteligible students.

In contrast, our review of the literature relating to four key accountability

provisions suggests that the types of accountability systems implemented in

the past 20 years have largely failed to meet their ambitious performance

improvement goals. Reliance on high-stakes tests in primary and secondary

education systems has led to modest achievement growth at its best and gam-

ing behavior at its worst. Likewise, inspectorate systems may lead to modest

performance gains, but there is remarkably little research available on the

relationship between inspectors and student performance. This is not to



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suggest that accountability systems should be eliminated; rather, it suggests

that substantial improvements must be made to the existing system, particu-

larly in the areas of performance measurement, data quality, and efficiency

estimation. A pragmatic approach for a preschool accountability system

would be to forgo implementing a high-stakes testing system for now to allow

the kinks in the test-based accountability system to be worked out by primary

and secondary educators who have substantially more experience than pre-

school educators in working within this type of accountability system.

While the biggest social benefit from a preschool accountability system

may come from increasing access to preschool, increasing transparency of

preschool inputs through preschool report cards may be a relatively low-cost

way to improve efficiency. Report cards empower parents to make quick andsimple comparisons between programs on important dimensions, such as

pupilteacher ratio and percentage of teachers certified. An added benefit of

preschool report cards would be to lower the cost of information to research-

ers interested in investigating the relationship between student characteristics

and resource equity.

We are persuaded by the argument for using inspectors to monitor pre-

school quality. Preschools serve one of societies most vulnerable populations

making reliance on remote monitoring less appealing. Moreover, preschooleducators typically have fewer credential requirements compared with pri-

mary and secondary educators, suggesting that there may be fewer profes-

sional norms guiding the way school and classroom operations. This provides

an opportunity for inspectors to assess and possibly improve processes and

procedures in preschools. Though federal inspectors serve other sectors of

the economy, education is historically a state issue; thus, it may be prudent to

provide states with incentives to create inspection systems or to invest in their

current system, should an inspectorate system already exist. There is an impor-tant role for the federal government to play by lending research support to schol-

ars that can lead to policy recommendations about how to conduct quality-inducing

school inspections.

Until preschool reaches universal status, the accountability policy must

deal with several different programs (e.g., Head Start, state preschool, state

special education), each with its own set of standards and goals. Input- and

outcome-based systems are more uniform and inflexible than an inspectorate

system, which is comprised of people who can be trained to conduct school

evaluations according to the program(s) offered by a particular school. For

example, inspectors could audit service provision records for at-risk children

to ensure they are receiving all of the services they are entitled to, based on

the particular program the child is enrolled in, or they could audit program



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assignment procedures to ensure that children are matched with the program

that best suits their individual needs.

One concern about the use of inspectors to evaluate school quality is the

subjective language used to describe current process standards by Head

Start and the National Association for the Education of Young Children. A

more objective set of standards would need to be developed and commu-

nicated to schools prior to the rollout of an inspector-led accountability

program. A competent, well-trained system of inspectors could provide

objective evidence about how well preschools are performing against these

standards.

Conclusion

Deciding whether or not to implement a preschool accountability system is

not a simple task. This review of the conceptual arguments in support of an

accountability system finds the most support for an accountability system as

equity enhancer or information provider. Admittedly, there may be inefficien-

cies induced from increased access to preschool that crowd out private invest-

ment, and there are substantial methodological challenges to the development

of an accurate and reliable school-quality information system. Conceptuallyspeaking, there is little evidence to suggest that a centralized accountability

system can simulate the type of environment that private firms face in the

market place because of measurement concerns, the limited power of incen-

tives, the presence of collective bargaining agreements, and the limited power

of choice for nonurban residents, among many other challenges discussed in

this article. In spite of the very credible concerns raised by fiscal finance theory

that local control maximizes efficiency, equal access to early childhood edu-

cation is more important because of the positive externalities associated withearly childhood education that extend beyond local jurisdictions. Children

from Indiana or Mississippi, where preschool programs are not offered by the

state, should have the same access to preschool as children from Oklahoma,

which has the highest preschool enrollment rates in the country for 4-year-olds.

The empirical evidence on accountability systems suggests that we are in

the early phase of the learning curve. While there is hope for improved mea-

surement systems, such as the value-added approach to measuring student

achievement and improved databases that follow students over time and across

institutional and disciplinary borders, these developments are still many years

away from being fully realized and assessed. While development of an accoun-

tability system that can increase efficiency and equity across all types of

schools continues, policy makers can use the tried and true technology of



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mandating new preschool access standards and stimulating state investment

in capacity building for both inspectors and data systems. It may not be pru-

dent to recommend additional federal expenditures for preschool during a

period of tremendous economic hardship and trillion-dollar deficits. And

there is no doubt that transitioning the nation from a system of daycare for

some and preschool for others to a universal system of preschool will be an

expensive proposition. But in a time of rising child poverty rates, it seems

only fair that we provide all children an equal opportunity to compete in pri-

mary school and beyond.

Notes

1. Half of preschool students attend a private program in the United States.

2. If the accountability law is passed by congress, then the law is referred to as a stat-

utory law, whereas if the executive branch implements the law, then the account-

ability system is considered to be regulatory law. In the remainder of this paper we

refer to accountability statutes to make the paper more readable. Note also that

although this paper is written from the federal perspective, much of the discussion

is applicable at the state level as well.

3. While NCLB allows states to opt out of the standards set by NCLB, and the fed-

eral government allows states to develop their own tests, states risk losing federalaid if they elect not to implement the system. For these reasons, states have more

power under NCLB in the US relative to local jurisdictional authority in the other

countries listed here, and this may limit the comparability of the U.S. system to

accountability systems in countries with either a unitary governance system and/

or a highly centralized education financing systems.

Authors Note

The authors would like to thank Carolyn Brown and a referee for their thoughtfulcomments and suggestions. We are responsible for any and all errors.

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Bios

Larry J. Miller is an assistant professor in the School of Public Affairs and

Administration at Rutgers University. He earned his PhD in Public Administration

from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University

where he specialized in pubic budgeting, finance and social policy. His research

interests include public budgeting and education finance, with an emphasis on equity.

Stephanie C. Smithhas worked as a preschool and kindergarten teacher for Chicago

Public Schools and as a Pre-Kindergarten Coordinator for a Chicago Head Start pro-

gram. She is currently a doctoral candidate in Urban Systems at Rutgers University

Newark and is researching differing early childhood pedagogies for low-income

minority children on the South Side of Chicago.

did the no child left behind act miss the mark?

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