Much will swiftly be written about Arne Duncan’s brand-new Race to the Top for school districts (and, interestingly, for charter schools and consortia of schools), and it’s premature to say much on the basis of early press accounts. But Alyson Klein’s invaluable Ed Week blog flags one fascinating tidbit that suggests a welcome new Education Department focus on the failings of today’s school-governance arrangements:

Just to be eligible, districts by the 2014-15 school year will have to promise to implement evaluation systems that take student outcomes into account—not just for teacher and principal performance, but for district superintendents and school boards. That’s a big departure from the state-level Race to the Top competitions, which just looked at educators who actually work in schools, not district-level leaders.” [Emphasis added]

How very refreshing, even exhilarating, the inclusion of superintendents and boards in a results-based accountability system, rather than the customary focus only on schools and their principals and teachers (and sometimes the kids themselves). Will the NSBA and AASA react angrily to this goring of their own members’ oxen? Or will they—as they should—welcome this logical and potentially powerful widening of the theory and practice of accountability?

-Chester E. Finn, Jr.

This blog entry originally appeared on the Fordham Institute’s Flypaper blog.