Since the COVID-19 pandemic shut down public school buildings across the United States in early 2020, research on academic indicators has documented disproportionate--and potentially long-lasting--impacts on Latino students. This report examines several strategies and practices that have tremendous promise for accelerating Latino students'…

Debate over the design of state and federal accountability systems is an important ongoing issue for policy makers. As we move toward next-generation accountability through No Child Left Behind's (NCLB) waivers and reauthorization drafts, it is important to understand the implementation and effects of key elements of prior accountability systems.…

The 1983 publication of "A Nation at Risk" gave birth to an effort to reform K-12 schools and increase student achievement all over the United States. More than 30 years later, the school reform efforts have grown into immense industries with marginal effect. Major legislation and programs have been launched throughout 3 decades, with…

This article uses data from California to analyze the results of the proposed accountability system in the Senate's Harkin-Enzi draft Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization. The authors analyze existing statewide school-level data from California, applying the accountability criteria proposed in the draft law. Comparing the…

At some level, principals always have been instructional leaders--but never before has their role been more prominent. First, the accountability movement--No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in particular--thrust principals into the spotlight on academic achievement. Then budget cuts peeled away capacity at both the district and school levels, thinning…

This study compared a value-added approach to school accountability to the currently used metrics of accountability in California of Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and Academic Performance Index (API). Five-year student panel data (N?=?53,733) from 29 elementary schools in a large California school district were used to address the research…

In California, at the time of this study, the CAHSEE determined if a student will graduate with a high school diploma or receive a certificate of completion of high school requirements. Although students may have completed all their high school credits, if they do not pass the CAHSEE, then the student will not receive a high school diploma or a…

Value-added models and growth-based accountability aim to evaluate school's performance based on student growth in learning. The current focus is on linking the results from value-added models to the ones from growth-based accountability systems including Adequate Yearly Progress decisions mandated by No Child Left Behind. We present a new…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation's "persistently lowest achieving" public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model.…

The USC School Performance Dashboard, now in its seventh year, draws on California school data from 2003-2012 to rate charter schools on academic and financial measures of performance. It also provides an accompanying interactive site at www.uscrossier.org/ceg/. Unlike other school databases, this one assigns values--high, medium, low--to the…

This qualitative case study extends the literature on urban district instructional policymaking by analyzing the ways in which normative and political pressures shaped district leaders' instructional policy decisions. Drawing on concepts from the politics of education, it shows how teachers and principals repeatedly nullified policies that aimed…

California's Academic Performance Index (API) is the state's main accountability metric. Authorized by the Legislature in 1999, around the time California was implementing rigorous new standards in math, science, social studies, and English language arts, the API relies heavily on the results of standardized tests designed to align with those…

The 2004-05 school year didn't start off well for the Sanger Unified School District. The district, located east of Fresno, had entered its first year of "program improvement"--a gentler way of saying that Sanger was among the 98 lowest-performing districts in the state based on success criteria in the No Child Left Behind law. The…

For as long as there have been struggling schools in America's cities, there have been efforts to turn them around. But overall, school turnaround efforts have consistently fallen far short of hopes and expectations. Quite simply, turnarounds are not a scalable strategy for fixing America's troubled urban school systems. Fortunately, findings from…

Federal education policy will soon undergo a major revision, with significant consequences for the state's own policy and practices. This report seeks to help federal and state policymakers consider this restructuring and one of its core questions: How should schools and school districts be held accountable for the academic progress of their…