HR: 1330h
AN: ED13A-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Education Reform as it Relates to Science Education
AU: * Elliott, R J
EM: rjelliot@uno.edu
AF: University of New Orleans, 514 Rue de Bac, Covington, LA 70433
AB: Four decades of educational reform efforts from the nineteen sixties have not significantly improved our schools. It is believed that in the equation of educational reform, leadership and power in educational reform have mitigated against educational reform through the misapplicaiton of examination and accountability. A major subset of the field on public administration is accountability. Accountability is widely used in government although the concept is loosely defined. Most often it is used to express public frustration, to call for control, and to transmit a range of political agendas. Any accountability framework originates from the American model of shared powers between independent governmental bodies. It allows for institutions to depend on and accommodate other institutions. Accountability assumes that individuals or agencies may hold accountable for their performance. This assumes that there is a unidirectional flow of power and influence between a controlling partner and a controlled partner. This assumption is false. Individual administrators are exposed to the authority and persuasion within a democratic framework. Educators are also confronted with control mechanisms that are rooted in the organizational and professional standards and disciplinary standards regardless of whether any democratic controls are evoked. Accountability relationships have the potential to become quite complicated. Performance evaluation is significant to every accountability relationship. In the public sector, the citizens hold government accountable and the idea of performance evaluation is relative at best, however, in education the use of examination for accountability allows for the misapplication of the exam and affects education reform in negative ways.
DE: 0840 Evaluation and assessment
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly