Authority and Control: The Tension at the Heart of Standards-Based Accountability

2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-445
Author(s):  
JACK SCHNEIDER ◽  
ANDREW SAULTZ
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Loose Coupling ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Accountability Movement ◽  
The Common ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act ◽  
And Control

In this essay, Jack Schneider and Andrew Saultz offer a new perspective on state and federal power through their analysis of authority and control. Due to limitations inherent to centralized governance, state and federal offices of education exercised little control over schools across much of the twentieth century, even as they acquired considerable authority. By the 1980s, however, such loose coupling had become politically untenable and led to the standards and accountability movement. Yet, greater exertion of control only produced a new legitimacy challenge: the charge of ineffectiveness. State and federal offices, then, are trapped in an impossible bind, in which they are unable to relinquish control without abdicating authority. Schneider and Saultz examine how state and federal offices have managed this dilemma through ceremonial reform, looking at two high-profile examples: the transition from No Child Left Behind to the Every Student Succeeds Act, and states’ reaction to public criticism of the Common Core State Standards.

Learning from failure

2018 ◽  
Vol 99 (8) ◽  
pp. 46-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jay P. Greene ◽  
Michael Q. McShane
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Education Reform ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Race To The Top ◽  
Reform Initiatives ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Learning From Failure ◽  
The Common

Over the last two decades, federal and state policy makers have launched a number of ambitious, large-scale education reform initiatives —No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, the Common Core State Standards, and others — only to see them sputter and fail. In 2017, the authors convened a number of leading scholars to explore why those initiatives failed and what can be learned from them. Participants agreed that to be more successful in the future, reformers will need to balance ambition and urgency with humility, political acumen, and the ability to recognize when it’s time to slow down or scale things back.

scholarly journals Relooking at the Common Core Standards Through the Lens of Equity – Closing the Achievement Gap

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
N. K. Rathee
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Achievement Gap ◽  
Common Core ◽  
State Standards ◽  
Common Core Standards ◽  
National Assessment ◽  
Closing The Achievement Gap ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
12Th Grade ◽  
The Common

On the failure of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to close the “achievement gap” between whites and minorities, the Common Core State Standards were heralded as the best way of raising academic standards for all children around the country and closing the achievement gap. Numerous reports have emerged questioning the efficacy of the Common Core Standards to deliver what was promised. Public disillusion is apparent. This paper is an attempt to revisit the Common Core Standards through the lens of data generated by its implementation. Quantitative data available from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) for 4th, 8th and 12th grade students and their achievements scores for mathematics and reading for the years 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015 were taken into consideration. Results have revealed no increase, much less significant, in the average achievement scores and no indication that the achievement gap was being narrowed. Recommendations have been made for having a relook at the content and the implementation of the standards.

Why ESSA has been reform without repair

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-21
Author(s):  
Andrew Saultz ◽  
Jack Schneider ◽  
Karalyn McGovern
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Equity In Education ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Federal Authority ◽  
Accountability Movement ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act ◽  
Reporting Data ◽  
Over Time

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was designed to remedy the wrongs of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Yet Andrew Saultz, Jack Schneider, and Karalyn McGovern explain that, so far, it has failed to fundamentally alter how the federal government interacts with schools. They discuss the need for federal authority over issues of equity in education and how federal authority has expanded over time, leading to the accountability movement, which, under NCLB, required schools to provide quantifiable measures of student achievement. Although ESSA was touted as a return of control to the states, states are still held accountable for testing requirements, reporting data, and sanctioning underperformance. The authors recommend instead a model of rigid flexibility, in which centralized offices might require certain activities but allow schools some choice in determining specific goals.

The happy (and not so happy) accidents of Bush-Obama school reform

2018 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 31-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick M. Hess ◽  
Michael Q. McShane
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
School Reform ◽  
Common Core ◽  
School Reforms ◽  
Achievement Testing ◽  
Data Systems ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Policy Ideas ◽  
The Common ◽  
Unexpected Outcomes

Drawing upon their new edited volume of essays looking back on the school reforms of the Bush and Obama years, the authors explain just how few of those reforms went according to plan. Some of the unexpected outcomes were positive, they note, pointing to the improvement of school data systems and the bipartisan compromise that put an end to No Child Left Behind. Some of them were negative, such as a public backlash against achievement testing in general and the implementation of the Common Core in particular. And all of them should lead reformers to question their own certainty about how their policy ideas will play out.

scholarly journals Research on Teacher Evaluation: A Review of Statute, Regulation and Litigation in the Region

2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen M. Hazi
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Teacher Evaluation ◽  
Rural Schools ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Potential Problems ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

Limited research has been done to examine teacher evaluation in rural schools. This article presents an analysis of legislation and regulation of teacher evaluation in selected rural states, highlights their commonalities and differences, reports their litigation, and speculates on potential problems that can result in rural schools. It ends with recommendations for states to consider now that the Every Student Succeeds Act (formerly No Child Left Behind) has passed, and states have the option to reconsider their teacher evaluation plans.

School Accountability

2018 ◽  
pp. 520-550
Author(s):  
Morgan Polikoff ◽  
Shira Korn
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Accountability ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Accountability Systems ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Policy Choices ◽  
Accountability Policy ◽  
Improve Student Achievement ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

This chapter summarizes the history and effects of standards-based school accountability in the United States and offers suggestions for accountability policy moving forward. It analyzes standards-based accountability in both the No Child Left Behind Act and the Every Student Succeeds Act, and discusses the effects of accountability systems. The authors argue that school accountability systems can improve student achievement, but that unintended consequences are possible. How accountability systems are designed—the metrics and measures used and the consequences for performance—has both symbolic and practical implications for the efficacy of the system and the individuals affected. Synthesizing what is known about the design of school accountability systems, the authors propose policy choices that can improve the validity, reliability, transparency, and fairness of these systems.

Look Back: The feds, the states, and Kappan

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-7
Author(s):  
Teresa Preston
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Department Of Education ◽  
Federal Mandates ◽  
Elementary And Secondary Education ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Federal Department ◽  
Education Act ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

Across the decades, the balance of power between the federal government, states, and local districts has shifted numerous times, and Kappan authors have weighed in on each of those shifts. Kappan Managing Editor Teresa Preston traces those shifts, beginning with the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which gave the federal government a larger role in public education. Further expansion occurred under the Carter administration, with the launch of the new federal Department of Education. As the new department continued operations under Reagan, its priorities expanded, but actual decision-making authority reverted to states. States, in turn, began involving themselves more with instructional and curricular matters, a trend that eventually made its way back to the federal level, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Under NCLB, federal mandates had the effect of requiring state and local levels to take on additional responsibilities, without necessarily having the capacity to do so. This capacity issue remains a concern under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

The Editor’s Note: From what it’s not to what it is

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-4
Author(s):  
Rafael Heller
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Policy Debates ◽  
The Law ◽  
Every Student Succeeds Act

Since the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) was passed in December 2015, policy debates about the law have focused not so much on what it does, but on the ways in which it undoes No Child Left Behind. All the same, ESSA has begun to result in real changes on the ground, in many parts of the country. And now that states have completed the writing of their ESSA plans and have moved on to implementing them, attention has begun to shift from what ESSA is not to what is, in fact, going on under the new law.

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