State education systems in the U.S. experienced major disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from assessments administered during, and at the conclusion of, the 2020-21 school year indicate substantial 'unfinished learning', with the losses generally greater among disadvantaged and marginalized students. States' assessment systems are…

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) claim to be an evolution of previous work. Yet prominent voices in the science education community argue that they are a revolution. This study sought to examine these competing claims by analyzing an older middle school science curriculum through the lens of the NGSS. This analysis demonstrates that…

High school graduation rates have increased dramatically in the past two decades. Some skepticism has arisen, however, because of the confluence of the graduation rise and the starts of high-stakes accountability for graduation rates with "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB). In this study we provide some of the first evidence about the role of…

U.S. federal policies No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top resulted in a policy overlap that created unique challenges and opportunities for administrators. This study examined principals' perceptions of an overlapping accountability-innovation policy context and their sense of how the policies affected their role as leaders. Primary data for…

We examine the effects of disseminating academic performance data--either status, growth, or both--on parents' school choices and their implications for racial, ethnic, and economic segregation. We conduct an online survey experiment featuring a nationally representative sample of parents and caretakers of children age 0-12. Participants choose…

Objectives: Working under the constraints of external accountability policy, public school principals are faced with challenges in prioritizing educational goals. Using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) data sets, this study examined the nature and sources of changes in principals' educational goal priorities in the era of accountability,…

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has been criticized for encouraging schools to neglect students whose performance exceeds the proficiency threshold or lies so far below it that there is no reasonable prospect of closing the gap during the current year. We examine this hypothesis using longitudinal data from 2002-03 through 2005-06. Our…

This paper compares and contrasts two required building level school violence measures under NCLB, arrests and incidents of well-defined school misconduct acts, across 20 years of Pennsylvania's approximately 3,000 public school buildings. Generally, both arrests for school violence and incidents of school violence are rare events. Over 20 years,…

On December 10, 2015, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (P.L. 114-95), legislation which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, and replaces the widely criticized No Child Left Behind Act. After various versions were offered, rejected, or revised, the ESSA ultimately passed both chambers of…

The persistence of underperformance in schools within large urban districts remains a significant challenge in the U.S. K-12 education system. Education policymakers have enacted legislation aiming at improving these schools through "turnaround" initiatives. However, students attending underperforming schools face multifaceted challenges…

Grounded in the sense-making literature, this study explores the discourse around and sentiment toward the newly passed Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) as discussed on the social media platform Twitter. The study explores the characteristics of and connections between users, the content of posts, and the sentiment toward ESSA. Data consisted of…

In 2001 under No Child Left Behind, states were required to create an alternate assessment for students with significant cognitive disabilities using alternate achievement standards. In 2003, all states had created an alternate assessment. All fifty states independently developed, implemented, and revised their alternate assessments. By 2014,…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required states to set cutoffs to determine which schools were subject to accountability for their racial/ethnic subgroups. Using a regression discontinuity design and data from North Carolina, this study examines the effects of this policy on teacher turnover and attrition. Subgroup-specific accountability had…

In almost any conversation about accountability for private schools, accountability for public schools is assumed. This is a dangerous myth. By assuming that the edifice that states and the federal government have created over the past several decades actually holds schools accountable, school choice advocates immediately find themselves in an…

A recent literature provides new evidence that school resources are important for student outcomes. In this paper, we show that school finance reform-induced increases in student performance are driven by those states that had test-based accountability policies in place at the time. By incentivizing school improvement, accountability systems (such…