What accountability and the Supreme Court say about schools
The recent situation with the Supreme Court is yet another example of what happens when an institution does not address the discipline of accountability appropriately—trust in that institution will suffer mightily.
Being able to account for one’s efforts isn’t just a nice to have. Nor is it something ever well done when imposed from the outside (for the obvious reason that the non-technical outsiders are at a serious lack of understanding how best to do accountability within highly technical institutions). Rather, if trust in the institution is a goal that will only come from within a richly wrought accountability discipline, one capable of telling the unvarnished truth to the organization’s stakeholders to the point that it compels trust and actions deemed appropriate in their eyes.
And creating that accountability must be the job of the institution.
It does amaze me at the arrogance of important organizations (like what the Supreme Court has been absolutely guilty of doing) that put out the “trust me” defense, much as the Supreme Court has done since trust in that institution began its rapid decline. “Trust me” will send just the opposite message to stakeholders. It reeks of arrogance in the implied, “you just won’t understand,” and it fails completely to create understanding, which is the key to trust. Relying on “trust me” is a sure way to guarantee that trust won’t occur.
So now the justices will adopt a code of ethics, a form of accountability that can go a long way towards creating the trust they need. But trust only occurs with understanding and appropriate action. It remains to be seen if one or both of those occur. If they do, trust can be restored surprisingly quickly. But the irony of having a rich accountability is that if actions based on stakeholder understanding do not follow it will increase the distrust the accountability was trying to overcome. In other words, its necessary and a brave thing to do accountability well.
Of course, my specialty is school accountability. I'm often asked about the lack of trust in the institution of public schooling and my answer is the same there as it is for what the Supreme Court is experiencing: public educators have been pushed to the side when it comes to accounting for their efforts and instead accountability is something done quite poorly from outside. Trust in that scenario doesn't have a chance.
Being able to account for one’s efforts isn’t just a nice to have. Nor is it something ever well done when imposed from the outside (for the obvious reason that the non-technical outsiders are at a serious lack of understanding how best to do accountability within highly technical institutions). Rather, if trust in the institution is a goal that will only come from within a richly wrought accountability discipline, one capable of telling the unvarnished truth to the organization’s stakeholders to the point that it compels trust and actions deemed appropriate in their eyes.
And creating that accountability must be the job of the institution.
It does amaze me at the arrogance of important organizations (like what the Supreme Court has been absolutely guilty of doing) that put out the “trust me” defense, much as the Supreme Court has done since trust in that institution began its rapid decline. “Trust me” will send just the opposite message to stakeholders. It reeks of arrogance in the implied, “you just won’t understand,” and it fails completely to create understanding, which is the key to trust. Relying on “trust me” is a sure way to guarantee that trust won’t occur.
So now the justices will adopt a code of ethics, a form of accountability that can go a long way towards creating the trust they need. But trust only occurs with understanding and appropriate action. It remains to be seen if one or both of those occur. If they do, trust can be restored surprisingly quickly. But the irony of having a rich accountability is that if actions based on stakeholder understanding do not follow it will increase the distrust the accountability was trying to overcome. In other words, its necessary and a brave thing to do accountability well.
Of course, my specialty is school accountability. I'm often asked about the lack of trust in the institution of public schooling and my answer is the same there as it is for what the Supreme Court is experiencing: public educators have been pushed to the side when it comes to accounting for their efforts and instead accountability is something done quite poorly from outside. Trust in that scenario doesn't have a chance.
How to fix that trust? It's the same for the Supreme Court and for public schools: the leaders of our schools can make huge inroads by treating accountability as a discipline of their leadership, accounting for their efforts, creating understandings for their stakeholders, and then acting appropriate to those understandings. No policy change is needed to do accountability well--it was always supposed to be a leadership discipline, not something done from outside. A lousy system and a great system can exist side by side--and in fact, that will quickly prove which is a worthwhile and which is a lousy system by comparison--so waiting for a lousy system to go away is to accept the status quo of distrust as unavoidable. It is not, and our schools and students deserve better.
I say it all the time--fixing accountability is far easier than anyone thinks. We just need to do it. Which is why I love what I do for a living.
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