Local school boards have primary authority for running educational systems in the U.S. but little is known empirically about the merits of this arrangement. State takeovers of struggling districts represent a rare alternative form of educational governance and have become an increasingly common response to low performance. However, limited…

Public support for school improvement policies can increase the success and durability of those reforms. However, little is known about public views on turnaround. We deployed questions and embedded experiments in a nationally representative 2017 survey (n=4,214) to uncover opinions regarding (a) which level of government should lead on turnaround…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of…

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K-12 schools in the U.S. has been notably gloomy. Observers argue that either nothing works or we don't know what works. At the same time, the federal government is asking localities to implement evidence-based interventions. But what is known empirically about whether school…

Turning around persistently low-performing K-12 schools and districts has been an elusive goal despite prioritization at the highest levels of government. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Education encouraged states to adopt tiered accountability systems, like the Massachusetts model, which allows state takeover of districts in cases of…