A Study On Internal Accountability In Public Institutions Of Higher Education In U.S.

Higher education quality problem has become a focus of the field of highe r education all over the world at present. Through higher education accountabilit y, higher education sector in the United States effectively responded to the pers uit of higher education stakeholders and improved the quality of higher educatio n. In the process of popularization of higher education in United States, internal quality and potential management problems of public institutions of higher edu cation made the decline of public trust in higher education. At the same time, public colleges and universities was facing many problems, such as the higher e ducation funds was limited, market competition was intense, educational costs w as increased and many other issues. In1972, professor of Pennsylvania state un iversity Kenneth P. Mortimer firstly put forward the concept of "internal accoun tability" in his book "Accountability in Higher Education". Later, Graham Patric ia Albjerg, Martin Trow and Joseph C. Burke called for colleges and universitie s to strengthen internal accountability and promote the internal assessment and r eform. Internal accountability of public colleges and universities had become an important steering and the development tendency of higher education accountab ility.As a system of self-management and a practical method, internal accountab ility is the process of self-evaluation for improvement and the internal education al quality assurance conscious action inside U.S. public colleges and universities. Internal quality subjects of public colleges and universities conclude a contract ual relationship based on the quality responsibility, internal accountability is the process of undertaking of responsibilities. The core idea of internal accountabilit y is to enhance the internal quality of public colleges and universities.Historically, under the influence of Social Ccontract Theory and New Publi c Management Theory, the idea of responsibility and performance evaluation wa s introducaed into Ameirican higher education area. Public colleges and universi ties began to be held accountable, higher education evaluation movement also ri sed immediately, internal accountability of public institutions of higher education had gradually formed. Before the nineteen sixties, the United States federal go vernment strengthened the management of public institutions of higher education through "Morrill Act","GI Bill" and "National Defense Education Act". From60’s to80’s,"Elementary and Secondary Education Act" and "Coleman report" and "Coleman Report" reinforced the educational accountability; Public trust cris is and the financial crisis of higher education made internal accountability get p reliminary development. Since the nineteen eighties, U.S. government furtherly st andardized the responsibility scope of public institutions of higher education, int ernal accountability gradually became mature and became a system of self-mana gement which improved the internal quality of public colleges and universities.From a theoretical point of view, Burton R. Clark constructed the "triangle of coordination" of higehr education system. After that. Joseph C. Burke. Mart in Trow and Robin Middlehurst established "accountability triangle" which revea led the basic idea of interaction of government, market and higher education. T he professional theory scholar Maurice Kogan, Brenda Neuman-Sheldon, Richard F. Elmore and Joseph C. Burke regarded internal accountability as a kind of p rofessional accountability, a kind of self-accountability and regulate behavior in public colleges and universities. Dwight D. Frink and Richard J. Klimoski’s Rol e Theory, Leon M. Lessinger’s Behavioral Accountability expended the view of internal accountability theory. Through the investigation of the theory above, we can build the ideal model of the accountability of higher education:accountabil ity and trust are the core contradiction in the triangle model, U.S. public colleg es and universities dominated by the dynamic game of external administrative a ccountability. Professional internal accountability and market external accountabili ty. This model contains the intrinsic logic of the development of the country, hi gher education and market coordination.From the constituent elements of view, the principal with the colleges and universities’s senior administrators and the academic power with the academic se nate are the subjects of internal accountability. Teachers, students and other qual ity of main body are the objects of internal accountability. The essence of inter nal accountability is the mutual accountability between internal stakeholders whi ch formes a culture of quality. The quality of curriculum and teaching, academi c and research, teachers and students, the school organizations are to be held ac countable in internal accountability. As the core elements of internal accountabili ty, performance indicators are generally designed by State Higher Education Coo rdinating Council and public institutions of higher ecuation. Performance indicat ors have the characteristics of comprehensive, deeping-going and policy-guidance, so they play a more and more important role in the management and develop ment of public colleges and universities. At the same time, the operation of int ernal organizations for internal accountability provides a feasible technology path and a strong organization guarantee.After nearly forty years of development, internal accountability has establish ed a relatively perfect operation mechanism, the implementation ways including internal reviews, internal audit, internal assessment, internal audit and the volunt ary system of accountability. The U.S. public colleges and universities submit or publish institutional reports to record the implementation effect of internal acco untability. The University of Texas at Austin case proves that the implementatio n of internal accountability has achieved positive results.Internal accountability emphasizes professional value orientation and stresses the responsibility of quality of main body, focus on student’s achievements and advocates the supervision of external entities. The purpose of internal accounta bility is not to be held accountable, but to improve the educational quality of p ublic colleges and universities. Internal accountability has a positive effect in th e development of American higher education. It enhances responsibility consciou sness of the main body in U.S. public colleges and universities, improves the q uality of U.S. public colleges and universities, constructs the culture of quality and sets a good example for constructing internal quality assurance system of hi gher education for other countries. Also, internal accountability faces some chall enges. According to Barbara S. Romzek’s accountability theory, internal account ability is a kind of professional accountability in public colleges and universities which expresses the respect for professional knowledge and university autonom y. The realationship between internal accountability and external accountability is unity of opposites, to form "promoting the outside, combination of inside and outside" quality guarantee system is the overall goal of U.S. public colleges and universities. There is no unified evaluation criterion for internal accountability because of the diversity and difference of U.S. public colleges and universities.The idea of internal accountability corresponds to the concept of improving the quality of higher education in our country."National medium and long-ter m educational reform and development plan (2010-2020)" and "Some suggestion s on improving the quality of higher education comprehensively" propose to stre ngthen self-assessment and establish internal quality assurance system in colleges and universities. Internal accountability can bring the following enlightenments for constructing internal quality guarantee system in colleges and universities in our country:firstly, making the internal responsibility clear in colleges and univ ersities, establishing, the balance relationship model of internal quality subjects r estrict each other; secondly, constructing internal quality guarantee mechanism of higher education, building the mechanism of multi-level, multi-structure internal quality assurance; thirdly, designing internal evalution indicator system, adhere t o the principle of combination of diversity and unity; fourthly, setting up intern al quality assessment agencies, monitoring and evaluating the internal quality of education in colleges and universities; fifthly, constructing the internal culture o f quality of colleges and universities, building "people-oriented" and "everybody-responsibled" quality culture.