Is the title of this Washington Post article a rhetorical question? Of course students will blackmail teachers and schools. I know they will because they already are holding teachers and schools hostage all over the country and the so-called experts don't have a clue.

Why? Because, while many states are perfectly willing to close schools, fire teachers, and fire principals, they are not willing to hold students accountable for the results of their state assessments. They are not willing to take the political risk of making state assessments barriers to graduation. They lack the moral courage to stick with their stated values about the need for a quality education for all, because they don't truly believe in their own students. They fear that many students are not capable of achieving at higher levels. Legislators are running from the inevitable political fallout that will result from what they fear will be dramatically declining graduation rates.

Fear not all ye faint of heart! One state, Virginia, stuck to its promise and required all students to pass six of eleven end-of-course exams, which were used to calculate adequate yearly progress. Despite the most rigorous standards and assessment system in the country, graduation rates and proficiency rates continue to improve.

It is common knowledge to anyone who has worked in a high school in the last decade that students routinely "flag" or "Christmas-Tree" tests. Teachers and principals in many states have based their careers and the fate of their schools on the hoped for, good will of their students. Unfortunately, even if 90% of the students put forth 100% effort, which is unlikely, the remaining 10% will undermine even the best efforts of teachers and school leaders to raise test scores.

One principal in another state lamented to me that, despite having one of the best college admission rates in his entire state, his school is now on the "needs improvement" list because his seniors thought it would be funny to draw Mickey Mouse on the answer sheets on last year's assessments. The joke was on the school.

From another perspective, many of these students have been repeatedly tested since the third grade and they have reached the breaking point. They are sick and tired of spending long hours taking tests from which they never receive feedback. By high school, they have figured out that these tests have no direct effect on them. Colleges will never see the results and their grades will never suffer. Consequently, if they don't "feel" like taking the test seriously on a given day, they don't. So what? Well, the principal gets fired and the teachers are transferred that's "so what." Meanwhile, those seniors are away at college having a good laugh at the expense of their alma mater back home.

The Bottom Line

Unless everyone in a system including state officials from the governor on down, district offices, schools, principals, teachers, and students are held accountable and hold themselves personally accountable, there is no system of accountability. What we have in many states is not a system of accountability but rather an excuse to scapegoat convenient targets of opportunity--principals, teachers, and "failing schools."