An Accountability Lesson from Michelle Obama

Education Week (subscription only)

Education can learn something from Michelle Obama's campaign to combat childhood obesity, according to an op-ed piece appearing in the August 25 issue of Education Week, written by McREL President and CEO Tim Waters and Douglas B. Reeves, chairman of the Leadership and Learning Center. Waters and Reeves contrast education's superficial focus on test scores with Obama's more nuanced approach, including not just a focus on pounds but also on nutrition, exercise, and frequent monitoring of health indicators. State and federal policymakers would do well, they write, to revisit the accountability equation. "If we want to avoid the educational equivalent of anorexia and pill-popping--teaching focused only on test content and test-taking strategy--then the accountability equation must include causes, not merely effects."

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