Policymakers and educators are taking a new look at incentives as they work to improve accountability systems. This ERIC Digest examines the role of rewards and sanctions in school reform and identifies key issues in implementing incentive systems. The new accountability is based on five components: carefully designed standards, assessments…

Educational standards and accountability are at the center of an ongoing national debate on school reform that began almost 20 years ago. This debate has raised fundamental questions about school effectiveness and the strategies educators should use to boost student learning. This book provides a closer look at these questions and seeks to answer…

Developments in several states suggest that a state-imposed accountability system is gradually taking shape. State authorities have established both incentive systems to reward high-performing school districts and systems of sanctions to be applied to districts with a record of repeated low performance. To accomplish this, a majority of states are…