New York State can set up an accountability program, but to be successful it must rest on the following principles. Teachers, schools, and districts should be responsible only for initiating the best processes of education, not for the outcomes. Judgments of accountability must be nonthreatening and must result in a cooperative effort to help teachers and administrators improve their skills. The state must be willing to make the financial commitment to provide the materials, the testing, and the retraining necessary to make an accountability system function properly. If accountability rests on these three principles, it has a chance for success. If accountability is established only as a politically expedient program, not only is it likely to fail, but from the point of view of educational quality, it should fail. (Author/MLF)