Relating performance-based accountability policy to the accountability practices of school leaders

Educational accountability is increasingly acting as a lever for policy reform that utilizes a central mechanism of large-scale student testing as a measure of school effectiveness. The current literature is flooded with research on the impact of U.S. and English models of performance-based accountability on schools. As a nation without a federal education mandate and comparatively minimal overt punitive consequences for educators, Canada's approach to testing and accountability proved to be markedly different from the models reported on in the literature. This thesis describes a three-phased, mixed-method examination of the relationship between the province-level policies of performance-based accountability and the related school-level practices. In the first phase, the performance-based accountability models in ten provinces and territories in Canada were described and categorized using a five-dimensional framework. In the second phase, the related practices of secondary school administrators in Alberta and Ontario were examined through survey data. In the third phase, the relationship between the different policy models and school leader practices were examined. The findings indicate that there is a potential relationship between provincial policies and the practices of secondary school leaders in Canada. However, inherent in the policy models are opportunities for legitimate local flexibility. The degree of local flexibility in the Canadian models allow for the influence of individual leader's belief about the utility of performance-based accountability in public education to act as a key factor related to school leader practices. Finally, the findings are discussed identifying the distinctions in the Canadian approach of performance-based accountability and re-conceptualized as inquiry-based accountability. Inquiry-based accountability is proposed as a model that better captures the Canadian approach where there is an emphasis on the process of accountability for school improvement, rather than for an evaluation of school quality.

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