Amid rising concerns in recent decades about the performance, equity, and efficiency of education systems, policy-makers worldwide have sought to reform educational governance. Key reform elements include standardized testing, teacher monitoring and evaluation, and accountability, often in combination with other features such as decentralization and market orientation (Verger et al. 2019). Researchers in different countries have explored "accountability" as phenomenon, concept, policy, and social practice within different systems of educational governance. In capturing this complexity, typologies of accountability defined and developed over time reflect changes in governing logics and political agendas in particular contexts. In this article, the authors consider two views of accountability rooted in the US context and widely referred to in international studies of educational governance. Although developed at different times--and, in one case, in another domain--they remain relevant for understanding accountability practices in education today.