Educating and raising young people is becoming increasingly complex as schools and education systems face a multitude of challenges, including declining learning outcomes, concerns about student wellbeing, societal polarization, teacher shortages, and rising inequality. These challenges often exceed the capacity of individual schools and require collaboration with other organizations, such as youth services, community organizations, and other schools. Conventional governance approaches to school autonomy and accountability have proven inadequate for addressing these issues. In many cases, such measures have exacerbated school competition, fragmented educational provision, and widened disparities in students' learning opportunities (Blazar & Pollard, 2017; Maroy, 2015).

Nonetheless, in response to these challenges, several national and local governments in Europe and beyond are rethinking governance frameworks to embrace shared accountability approaches that prioritize more than just narrow, school-level outcomes. Such efforts often involve leveraging broader territorial resources to support collaborative teaching and learning processes across schools. An implicit assumption of this new policy approach is that meaningful accountability in education that minimizes negative side effects requires not only a shift in focus but also a reconfiguration of the locus and scale of accountability practices. This entails moving from isolated, autonomous schools that are held accountable for their learning outcomes, typically measured by standardized tests, to interconnected school networks and partnerships withother community organizations. Partnerships must, in turn, be mutually accountable for broader educational and social outcomes, including reducing school dropout and improving educational success. Such a policy shift prioritizes shared responsibility among schools, fostering meaningful collaboration, sustaining improvement dynamics, and mobilizing additional educational resources at the local level. However, the success of this approach depends on careful policy formulation and design that effectively organizes accountability relationships and practices within the framework of educational networks.

This symposium brings together recent research on policies that redefine the focus and locus of school governance and accountability in education across four distinct contexts. The studies examine the regulatory frameworks, implementation processes, and impacts of these initiatives in diverse educational settings. The first paper provides a literature review on accountability in collaborative educational networks, exploring conditions under which shared accountability models emerge along the persistence of top-down accountability structures and the implications of this entrenchment. The second paper introduces a shared accountability model rooted in local self-evaluation and collaboration under the New Public Education reform in Chile. The study illustrates how fostering trust and strengthening social capital can address systemic inequalities and link accountability to equity and inclusion. The third paper examines Portugal's TEIP Programme, which supports schools in vulnerable regions by providing autonomy and additional resources. While this autonomy fosters innovative practices, the programme's accountability framework struggles to accommodate local specificities. The findings highlight the need for shared accountability to advance equity and social justice. The fourth paper explores Catalonia's "Educational Zone" pilot project, a governance model grouping schools in deprived areas to facilitate collaboration and shared goals. By redistributing administrative duties and focusing on collective objectives, the initiative seeks to tackle inequalities and promote shared accountability across schools and local actors.

Although the policies in each case are adopted for different purposes and aims, they converge on adopting a shared accountability model. All cases analyzed have implications for existing accountability models by emphasizing the need to move beyond single school indicators to collective outcomes and exploring how to meet these through a partnership. Finally, a common concern in all the papers is the analysis of the potential and limits of this approach when it comes to bringing about positive transformations across the entire educational system, with a specific emphasis on their impact in disadvantaged schools.

Blazar, D., & Pollard, C. (2017). Does test preparation mean low-quality instruction?. Educational Researcher, 46(8), 420-433. Maroy, C. (2015). Comparing accountability policy tools and rationales: various ways, various effects?. In Governing educational spaces (pp.35-56).Brill.