For decades, American education reformers have promised that technocratic accountability systems would transform our schools. We’ve spent billions implementing standardized tests, creating elaborate school-rating systems, and demanding “data-driven” improvements. Yet two new reports reveal an uncomfortable truth: These government accountability systems aren’t just ineffective—they’re actively misleading parents and policymakers while failing the students they claim to serve.
Parents Don’t Trust the Government on School Quality
A revealing new study published in Education Sciences examined how parents use and perceive the A-F school rating systems in 15 states. Researchers conducted focus groups with 44 parents across Arizona, North Carolina, and Texas—three states with established letter-grade accountability systems. The findings expose a massive disconnect between official ratings and parental priorities.
Indeed, most of the parents in the focus groups were simply unaware that their states even had letter-grade systems. When researchers asked focus-group participants about their state’s accountability framework, responses ranged from confusion to complete ignorance. One parent asked, “Where is that grade found? No one has sent out a flyer [saying], ‘Hey, check your school’s grade.’”
Even parents who were aware of the A-F grading systems “had little understanding of what inputs were behind the grades the state issued.” After researchers explained each state’s school grading framework, parents were not impressed. They found the grading systems to be “overly simplistic” as they simultaneously failed to accurately reflect objective measures of performance, such as the state test, and failed to capture the subjective nature of school quality.
Only 23% of parents consulted state report cards when looking for information about their child’s school, according to a national survey referenced in the study. Instead, parents turned to school visits, independent rating websites (such as GreatSchools), friends, neighbors, and social media—all sources they trusted more than official state accountability reports.
The Grade Inflation Scam and the Trust Deficit
Parents have good reason not to trust states’ school accountability metrics. A recent Heritage Foundation analysis reveals how state accountability systems have devolved into what my colleague Matthew Ladner calls “weapons of mass deception.”
States responded to federal accountability pressure not by improving education, but by lowering the bar for “proficiency” and gaming the system through statistical manipulation.
Even more telling is the gulf between state ratings and independent assessments. In Arizona, the state education department rated only 0.25% of Phoenix-area schools with the equivalent of an “F” grade. By contrast, the independent GreatSchools platform rated 24% of similar schools poorly, a difference of more than 90 times.
Which seems more credible: that virtually every school is performing well, or that nearly a quarter are struggling? Given that fewer than one-third of Arizona students passed the most recent state test for English Language Arts, and only 4 in 10 passed the state math test, the GreatSchools assessments are likely more accurate than the state’s A-F grading system.
As Ladner shows, the problem is not isolated to Arizona. In state after state, so-called accountability systems hand out “A” grades like candy while “F” grades remain rare, even as statewide math and English proficiency rates are abysmal. “With a sad but consistent predictability,” Ladner concludes, “state accountability systems failed to hold many adults meaningfully accountable.”
Both studies point to the same fundamental flaw in state accountability systems: political interference. Stanford professors John Chubb and Terry Moe observed that teacher unions and education bureaucracies proved to be “maestros of political blocking,” systematically undermining any accountability measures that might threaten the status quo. When reform happened, it was only because these interests found it acceptable—typically meaning more spending and softer standards.
Understandably, these failed accountability systems have eroded public trust. The Heritage study notes that 89% of parents believe their children are performing at grade level, while only 26% of eighth graders actually scored “proficient or better” on national math assessments in 2024. This massive disconnect between perception and reality is no accident—it’s the predictable result of accountability systems designed to obscure rather than illuminate educational performance.
The parent perception study confirms this trust deficit. When parents can’t rely on official school ratings, they create their own information networks. Parents described elaborate processes of checking multiple websites, joining community Facebook groups, visiting schools personally, and relying on word-of-mouth recommendations—anything but the official state ratings supposedly designed to help them.
That’s not a bad thing. Government accountability systems are doomed to fail due to a toxic combination of political capture and bureaucratic ineffectiveness and inertia. Fortunately, there is a better way.
A Path Forward: Real Accountability to Parents
These studies don’t argue for abandoning accountability. Rather, they argue for real accountability that puts parents in charge, not politicians and bureaucrats.
Real accountability is when institutions are held directly accountable to those who bear the consequences of their performance. In the case of schools, that means students and their parents. Real school accountability requires transparency and choice.
The parent perception research shows that families desperately want information about school quality, but they want comprehensive, honest assessments that reflect their values and priorities. Schools should publish clear data not just on test scores, but on the factors parents actually care about.
The government need not require such transparency. In a robust market, schools that share information that parents want will have an advantage over those that don’t. Instead, the government should avoid crowding out independent rating organizations by shutting down their “official” but practically useless rating systems. As Ladner observes, resources like GreatSchools, Niche, and MatchED are already providing platforms where parents can learn about schooling options based on the personal experiences of other parents.
Most importantly, accountability must flow to parents through genuine education choice. The Heritage study notes that the rapid expansion of education savings accounts and school choice programs reflects a “sustained paradigm shift” toward trusting parents rather than state officials to assess school quality.
When families have real options and honest information, they create bottom-up accountability that no amount of political maneuvering can subvert.
Jason Bedrick is a research fellow with The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Jason Bedrick.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Our schools are a disaster, but we can’t judge by yesterdays standards, since todays student is diversified so, that school became a tower of Babylon, who could possibly navigate and function in that. People in the country more than a decade still not only not speaking but don’t have any intention doing so. How can a child of such household prosper? It’s a mulligan stew into which our kids are supposed to function. I have no idea what teacher could cope with that. No one benefits from the system as it is. Let’s not forget mentally challenged who too attend .Mess created by open border and generous benefit for which we pay, those creating it unaffected. Their kids attend exclusive schools, no diversity and multi culti there..
The majority of the blame for the past three decades of FALLING and FAILING public schools can be blamed the following six things:
1. Liberalism and their FAILED left-wing/Socialist indoctrination of students, IE forcing their curriculum, goals, agendas, and ideology on students, and the TOTAL LACK of discipline.
2. The corrupt and Marxist-driven NEA;
3. Corrupt and power-hungry teacher’s unions, whose main goal is to shield and protect incompetent, unqualified, and sexual predator teachers
4. Left-wing/Socialist parents who have FAILED MISERABLY at parenting, ‘enabling’ their brainwashed kids to think, say, and do anything they want, including being totally disrespectful to teachers, cussing them out, threatening them with violence, and ALL with ZERO consequences. And while their loser parents threaten the teachers, school, and school district if they even think of disciplining or failing their little DEMON.
5. And then of course, there are the sarcastic, disrespectful punk students who attend school, NOT to learn, but rather cause trouble: fighting, stealing, vandalizing, bringing weapons to school, etc… while facing NO CONSEQUENCES.
6. And a far Left-wing court system, FILLED WITH CORRUPT, SOCIALIST, SLEAZY JUDGES THAT RULE AGAINST decent parents trying to protect their children, preventing them from having ANY SAY in their child’s education. Pure evil, controlling Nazi-ism
Now not ALL schools, districts, parents, or students fall into these categories. But there are certainly enough to drag down the bulk of the public schools because of exactly what I described above.
Graduating from an all boys Catholic high school in 1962, we all had to pass the New York State Regents Exam in order to receive a diploma. I doubt most students today could not complete the first page.
I have no doubt about the grading issues and the failures of US schools to teach common sense principles. However, I see some significant flaws in the Education Sciences survey noted in this article. “44 parents across 3 states were surveyed.” So that means about 15 parents per state. Probably on 14 in AZ to make it 44 instead of 45. That is the representative sample used for drawing the various conclusions of the survey. Parents numbering less than the number of students in a single classroom are the sample for each state. Only “23% of parents consulted state report cards…” equals 10 parents across 3 states. Drawing a conclusion that the “findings expose a massive disconnect between official ratings and parental priorities” is a big reach from such a tiny sampling. Any statistical analysis of such a tiny sample is silliness, in my opinion.
When the economy or the “instant gratification” need took over, schools became free day care as more and more families had to have both parents working to survive in some cases. It became important to have the latest and best of everything. In order to keep kids in the free day care zone, parents did not push back against whatever the schools did. With the teachers unions, NEA etc given open opportunity, they took it. Parents were considered a detriment to the established education model and were to be ignored or removed. There is a belief in a lot of cases that the children are “safer” cared for by the establishment and we should not be allowed to interfere. Unfortunately, for the establishment, COVID interfered. With parents and children forced to stay at home, parents had the eye opening experience or seeing what their kids were really being subjected to. Hence, home schooling became a reality and a lot of parents realized that they were capable of raising their own children and educating them…and believe it or not, mom (or dad) could afford to stay home and provide that. Since the establishment of the NEA, the grades and proficiency of students has gone into the toilet. The USA used to be rated one of the best for education and now we are almost at the bottom. We can thank Soros and Bill Gates for a lot of this indoctrination. When are you going to wake up parents?
ALL Public Ed OK nationwide