[...]... inside or outside of educational organizations, however, find the present state of accountability tolerable The answer is not to abandon the present system, but to improve it—and most of all, to place the data that we have in its appropriate context Accountability: A Physical, Not an Autopsy Once we accept that the purpose of accountability is to improve student achievement, then the entire system of... an autopsy, devoted much time to recommending diet, exercise, and other health regimens to the patient, as it is quite unlikely that the patient was listening The physician conducting a physical, by contrast, devotes extensive time to understanding and communicating methods of improving health Educational leaders are the wise physicians who must consider how to improve education, not merely how to analyze... top priorities? If you examine your own A-level priorities, how many are related to regulatory compliance, meeting demands for reporting and information by external authorities, dealing with local personnel issues, handling parents and student complaints, and so forth? How many deal with student achievement? When I examine the task lists of many educational leaders, I rarely find a majority of the top... includes systemwide indicators—test scores, attendance, dropout rate, safety, and other matters that apply to every school throughout the system, state, or district The second tier of accountability indicators includes six to ten schoolbased indicators, measuring strategies that are uniquely suited to the needs of that school and the students it serves These schoolbased indicators frequently measure... accountability If it is only to evaluate schools without helping leaders, teachers, and policy makers understand how to improve, then the present system of scores and statistics serves adequately The present system produces convenient scores, routinely announces the “top” and “bottom” schools, and reinforces common stereotypes 155 156 THE DAILY DISCIPLINES OF LEADERSHIP about student achievement With a... and every other activity of student achievement requires an investment of time Without effective leadership time management, the complaints of “I don’t have the time!” will drown out the voices demanding improved performance and better leadership Chapter Nine Accountability From Autopsy to Physical Leadership Keys The purpose of educational accountability is to improve student achievement Accountability... LEADERSHIP or allow a Boston subway driver to smash it to a million pieces, and I will not endure the catastrophe suffered by someone who loses the only copy of a calendar or task list Linking Leadership Time Management to Student Achievement After only a few weeks of using daily prioritized task lists in whatever manual or electronic form you choose, a picture will emerge of how you allocate your priorities,... priorities and your organizational goals On my list that I have shared, warts and all, seven of the top nine priorities (the A’s on the current list), relate to clients, one to a publication, and one to an organizational need at the center This probably reflects a failure to delegate as much as I should with respect to some client service matters Only one out of nine A-level priorities is focused on internal... is a shift of mind—from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something ‘out there’ to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality And how they can change it” (pp 12–13) Because building a learning organization... often than not, however, the stark evidence of the daily prioritized task list shows how rare these items are amid all the other demands on the time of an educational leader This is not an impossible situation, and it can be reversed It starts when, for instance, a board of education monitors its own agenda and its own demands for information from senior educational leaders A board can ask, How many of . leadership time to student achievement Leadership time is inextricably linked to student achievement. Every element of achievement, from professional development to organization to assessment to collaboration,. OF L EADERSHIP 153