Skip to main content
OpenSchoolData

School Accountability

The system by which schools and districts are held responsible for student outcomes, including state ratings, improvement plans, and potential interventions for chronically low-performing schools.

Reviewed by OpenSchoolData Editorial Team

How It Works

School accountability in the United States is primarily governed by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which requires each state to develop an accountability system that includes academic achievement (proficiency), academic progress (growth), graduation rates (for high schools), English language proficiency for English Learners, and at least one indicator of school quality or student success (such as chronic absenteeism or school climate surveys). Under ESSA, states must identify the bottom 5% of schools for comprehensive support and improvement (CSI) and schools with consistently underperforming subgroups for targeted support and improvement (TSI). Identified schools must develop improvement plans and may face escalating interventions if they do not improve. Before ESSA, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) imposed a more rigid federal accountability framework that labeled schools as "failing" if they did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) targets. ESSA shifted authority back to states, allowing each state to design its own accountability system within federal guardrails. OpenSchoolData supplements state accountability systems by presenting real federal data in a consistent format across all 50 states. While state report cards use state-specific formats and metrics, OpenSchoolData shows NCES enrollment data and EDFacts proficiency and graduation rates in the same format regardless of state, making it easier to understand school data nationwide.

Related Terms

  • School Data Profile, The collection of real federal data OpenSchoolData presents for each school, including NCES enrollment, demographics, student-teacher ratio, and EDFacts proficiency and graduation rates.
  • Proficiency Rate, The percentage of students at a school who meet or exceed grade-level standards on state-mandated standardized tests in reading and math.
  • Academic Growth, A measure of how much academic progress students make over time, regardless of where they started, tracking improvement rather than absolute performance.
  • School Report Card, An annual public document produced by each state that provides performance data, demographic information, and accountability ratings for every public school and district.

Explore School Data

Search SchoolsMost Improved SchoolsAll Glossary Terms

Real federal data: NCES CCD enrollment (2022), EDFacts proficiency rates (2020, district-level), EDFacts graduation rates (2019, district-level).

About This Definition

This definition is part of the OpenSchoolData Education Glossary, 33 terms explaining how school performance data works in the United States. All definitions are written in plain language for parents, educators, journalists, and researchers.

School Accountability is one of the U.S. K-12 school outcomes and enrollment concepts that recurs across this site. The definition above is the technical answer; the paragraphs below add the practical context for how the concept connects to the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data behind every per-entity page on the site.

In the NCES Common Core of Data and EDFacts data, this concept shapes one or more of the fields that drive the per-entity grades and rankings on this site. The methodology page describes which fields feed into which output; this glossary entry documents the underlying term.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, 2026.