"If you can read this, thank a teacher."Anonymous teacher
On the surface this might seem like a simple question with a simple answer, yet there are many factors to both teaching as well as learning. Not every student who receives excellent teaching learns and not every teacher truly teaches. However, it is a system and as a system it must have parameters in order to create definition and results that enable performance to be measured. Anything else will become devoid of any form in which to establish progress.
In addition, in the absence of accountability or consequence, performance becomes mediocre. While accountability need not necessarily be some draconian measure of such advanced degree to suggest, "If the student does not learn, fire the teacher." Similarly, a complete absence of accountability fails to reward those who are diligently and steadily demonstrating progress. In the absence of a reward response system eventually even those who remain motivated and make progress will begin to falter for a lack of competitive inspiration.
Trying to describe some sort of consequences associated with a compulsive educational system that identifies access to education as a fundamental human right, the following observations reveal some of the benefits as well as drawbacks. If one is offered all the gold one could ever want making unlimited amounts of gold available to anyone and everyone alike, pretty soon, gold holds very little value or interest. Similarly, making education a fundamental human right accessible to anyone and everyone alike, its value holds very little interest.
Unlike several hundred years ago when access to an education often involved significant effort on the part of the individual desiring the opportunity, it was not just enough to want the opportunity, one had to also demonstrate significant ability an remain available, or even seek out sponsorship to receive even a glance from instructors. A specific example brought to mind is Michael Faraday who spent years sweeping the floors of the lab before receiving opportunity to investigate and experiment eventually becoming a Cambridge University Professor and discovering the many properties of magnetism, he himself lamented at his own absence of mathematical facility for furthering his own endeavors.
Nevertheless, today's children recognize their access to education is a fundamental right requiring no further interest than merely "being." Therefore, they can choose to take or leave the opportunity at any given time choosing to pick up later where they left off today. Similarly, today's teacher is saddled with the responsibility to teach both those urgently desirous of learning alongside those who could take or leave it at any moment. This is decidedly more of a challenge than the instructors of several hundred years ago who not only could select students but could elect to drop them based upon their level of interest or ability.
Taking into consideration, the fact that the student of today holds education to a lesser degree of value than the student two hundred years ago, who might never even receive an opportunity regardless of degree of interest. Along with this lesser degree of interest and the necessity of instructing both those eager to learn alongside those with only a marginal degree of enthusiasm, today's teacher is faced with a far more complex scenario than ever before. On top of this is the expectation that the end result of this effort is demonstrable progress. The task of teaching is ever more challenging than any time in history.
This increased degree of complexity requires accountability more than ever in order to decipher measurable results of learning. For if the drawbacks of compulsory education are a perceived lesser degree of value due to its ready availability. The benefits of compulsory education are clearly defined by its arbitrary elevation of the commonwealth's intellectual capacity. This (along with the industrial revolution) has resulted in a technological explosion in social advancement. Now more than ever, accountability must serve to continuously delineate between what is working and what is not. For in such an accelerated advance in understanding there remains an even greater chance for significant sectors of society to be left behind. Similarly, a collapse of such a system is the equivalent to, the bigger they are, the harder they fall mentality." The consequences of such a system failing can be as catastrophic as the dark ages.
While accountability does not have to be punitive, without it education cannot remain competitive. Clearly, society has shown that significant weight is given to the technological advantage. Losing such an edge could result in the complete collapse of our social construct. Therefore, it remains imperative that accountability remains sewn into the fabric of the educational system otherwise; the drawbacks of the inherent devaluation compulsory education presents will topple the benefits. In this circumstance, low test results could wind up being no test results
"The lecturer should give the audience full reason to believe that all his powers have been exerted for their pleasure and instruction."- Michael Faraday