For more than two decades, federal law has required states to identify schools failing to provide students with a high-quality education and has led to substantial debate about how best to do so. Appropriately identifying the lowest performing schools matters because it allows state and local education agencies to target limited resources for…

This is the appendices for the full report, "Identifying the Nation's Lowest Performing Schools: Shifts Following the Passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)." This study examines state identification of schools for the most intensive support to see how changes in federal laws and regulations played out nationally and at the…

When the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) began requiring states to identify schools for support and improvement plans, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction (NDDPI) recognized a statewide challenge. As a variety of improvement efforts got underway at individual schools and districts, the department lacked an overarching plan and…

Whole-school reforms have received widespread attention, but a critical limitation of the current literature is the lack of evidence around whether these extensive and costly interventions improve students' long-term outcomes after they leave reform schools. Leveraging Tennessee's statewide turnaround reforms, we use difference-in-differences…

School turnaround in the United Stated has been a focus dating back to the mid 1960s with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act aimed to ensure that children have equal access to excellent educational opportunities. This qualitative study targeted seven Turnaround Principals of…

South Carolina implemented its Read to Succeed (RTS) policy in 2014 in accordance with federal requirements. The problem addressed in this study was that there are many students in South Carolina Title I schools still failing to achieve reading proficiency after 3 years of full implementation of RTS. The purpose of this qualitative study was to…

The school turnaround initiative and school reform have been focal points of the national education conversation since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 was enacted by Congress under the Johnson Administration. No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001) built upon the concept of equal access to a high-quality education for all…

The "statewide system of support," a feature of Congress's 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, provided an organizational framework for a "managerial" approach to school improvement that was accelerated in No Child Left Behind (2001). When Congress temporarily flooded states with economic…

Ohio policymakers have consistently voiced support for rigorous education standards and ensuring that all students have the knowledge and skills needed to succeed after high school. State leaders have a duty to step in when schools are falling far short of performance standards. Students receiving a substandard education are more likely to…

The pandemic put both a microscope and a wide-angle lens on America's education systems. Under the microscope, parents had a window into individual classrooms as never before, as their children struggled to learn through laptops. Many didn't like what they observed. Through the wide angled lens, the country was jolted by evidence that school…

While multiple studies have examined the impact of school turnaround, less is known about reforms under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). To advance this literature, we examine North Carolina's Restart (NCR) model. NCR aligns with ESSA by giving school leaders increased flexibility. Also, NCR differs from previous turnaround models by…

Prior to the 2012-13 school year, New York and many other states underwent changes to their accountability systems as a result of applying for and being granted waivers from the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. A key component of these new accountability systems, under what is known as ESEA Flexibility or NCLB Waivers, was the…

The recent Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requires states to identify and turn around their lowest performing schools, but it breaks somewhat from prior policies by granting states significant autonomy over how they identify and turn around these schools. This mixed-methods study, which draws on administrative, qualitative, and survey data,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) offers states increased flexibility in how they identify, rank, label, and support underperforming schools. Initial reviews of state ESSA plans, however, suggest that identification and labeling policies have remained relatively unchanged. In this study, we analyze all state ESSA plans to systematically…

Under waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government required states to identify schools where targeted subgroups of students have the lowest achievement and to implement reforms in these "Focus Schools." In this study, we examine the Focus School reforms in the state of Kentucky. The reforms in this state are uniquely…