A system of accountability in public schools predicated upon standardized testing accompanied by high-stakes consequences for leaders, as well as teachers and students, has posed a daunting challenge to educational leaders who align themselves with core tenets of progressive education. This essay explores what it might mean--and take--to stay true to these core values in contested terrain. It suggests a way of acting that steers clear of both naive and cynical readings of what is possible. Merely conforming to externally imposed mandates and highly questionable measures of achievement trivializes the very identity of the progressive educator, but too firm and resolute a stand poses its own set of risks. Staying true in the current landscape of top-down accountability and increasingly refined systems of surveillance, it is argued, requires an alert, resourceful, creative stance on the part of progressive leaders. In a field so overdetermined by antiprogressive forces, it requires a kind of steadiness, by which I mean the capacity to right and refashion oneself in the midst of circumstances both unforeseen and anticipated that present themselves. Always mindful of one's core values, suppleness and nuance matter.