The study is based on critically analyzing the chapter ‘Do the Good Grades Matter?’ by Rebecca Jacobsen and Andrew Saultz reflecting on the general perception of school quality and public accountability data. How the role of ‘school performance’ is changed with the passage of time, as now schools, state Education department and districts are more interested in reporting, collecting and assembling data as compared to previous decades.
It was observed that previously the data were produced for and used mainly by district personnel and school, however now the accountability data is used and produced mainly for wide public. As mentioned in the article, education system is considered to be a public institution and it is necessary to proof that
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Methodology
For this work, the author uses ‘qualitative method’ for examining these issues. Rebecca and Andrew use parent satisfaction and performance data from newspaper coverage of School progress reports and New York City elementary schools. Thus for the analysis to be authentic and realistic they used multiple years of data while restricting the analysis to elementary schools only.
Major Findings
The major findings were based on two assumptions one is ‘if you build it, they will use it’ and second one is ‘truth in numbers’. The overall analysis revealed that it is true that accountability data influence the perceptions of public. However it was also revealed that this influence can vary liable on arbitrated information provided in newspaper relating the quality of this accountability