Exploring Alternative Forms of Accountability

Good accountability programs provide good information. In literacies education, this means providing the public with information about how we support students in developing the range of literacies and communication skills highly valued in globalized, technologically-linked societies. It also means demonstrating what students are able to do with their literacies skills, how they take in, process, and communicate their ideas while working independently and/or in collaboration with others. Parents and the general public still need and want information about students' reading and writing development, but narrow measures of these skills provide little insight into the work of students and schools. Researchers with The Multiliteracy Project, working with teachers and administrators in The Vancouver School Board, are grappling with these issues. We are exploring how teachers might give accounts of their literacies practices, accounts that will supplement the information currently provided to educational stakeholders. The pages for Admiral Seymour, Lord Byng, and Sir Matthew Begbie schools include examples of these teachers' accounts.