For decades, policymakers in the U.S. have leveraged accountability policy as a governing tool to lift school performance and close the achievement gap. Accountability become so widespread that it arguably became a "policy paradigm" with the passage of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in 2002. Yet after just 13 years of…

The Massachusetts Innovation Schools initiative authorized educators to operate with increased autonomy and flexibility. This descriptive case study examines the early experiences of teachers in one innovation school. We explore the innovations teachers leveraged to build capacity, with particular attention to how they enacted teacher leadership…

The participation of students with significant cognitive disabilities in accountability assessments aligned with general education standards is a heavily debated topic in the field of special education. Attempts to understand the impact of these assessments have generally been limited to correlational methods. We employed a…

Although chiefly framed in the context of domestic education policy, debates about the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) echoed international education policy debates and the workings of global education governance. As this article demonstrates, both domestic and international efforts were shaped by three key features: tension between centralized…

This paper presents a critical policy analysis of how anti-political education reforms impact arts education. I consider examples of educational policies--both within arts education and outside the arts--to analyze how arts education may be impacted by anti-politics. I argue that many arts education policy outcomes can be understood as indirectly…

Theoretical approaches to policy have started considering the ontological dimensions of policy. Concern for the ontological work performed by policy has introduced questions about what policy is apart from its instrumentality. There exists some research in policy studies proposing the possibility of non-instrumental and ontological features of…

Many educators and school administrators are familiar with the Multi-tiered System of Supports (MTSS), its application of data, and its effectiveness in resolving barriers to academic and social learning. Properly matched research-based interventions are likely to improve student academic and social outcomes. However, what becomes of the…

There have been countless efforts to improve academic achievement in public schools across the United States, especially in urban school districts. Few efforts, however, use rigorous analytic modeling tools to anticipate and prevent the potential side effects of change. This chapter proposes the application of system dynamics on educational reform…

Using narrow test scores as the only means of accountability does not serve students, teachers, or schools. Jonathan E. Collins writes that policy makers and educators should consider accountability as an education system designed to be accountable to the best version of students. This means assessing outcomes that policy makers too easily…

This article summarizes and assesses federal K-12 compensatory education policies during the past six decades. It focuses on the centerpiece of that effort, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Related programs such as America 2000, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Every Student Succeeds Act are discussed. It…

Historical policy stories that situate teachers as the root cause of problems in public schools have long accompanied educational reforms, including No Child Left Behind. This article portrays the history of teacher blame as a defining component of the grammar of American educational reform. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reformers identified…

No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act have made accountability central to conversations about education policy. But neither statute articulates a clear vision of what constitutes "quality" or "equity" in education, nor do they include a mechanism to ensure that schools have sufficient resources to pursue that…

Since its ratification in 1965, the ESEA and its reauthorizations have shaped educational policy and funding in the US. However, while the ESEA has been positioned as a fundamental system of educational governance to ensure quality in the nation's education system, it has been criticized for inconsistent support of diversity and the promotion of…

Background/Context: In the spring of 2015, about 135,000 New Jersey students--almost 20% of the test-eligible children--did not take the state's test. Opposition of this magnitude directly contradicted a central stipulation of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), which required states to test 95% of their eligible students to…

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened tensions around standardized testing policy and prompted the United States Department of Education to allow states to request waivers from federal standardized testing requirements. Paul Bruno and Dan Goldhaber describe the waivers that states requested and received, what they suggest about how state test results…