School accountability and improvement policy are on the precipice of a paradigm shift. While the multiple-measure dashboard accountability approach holds great promise for promoting more meaningful learning opportunities for all students, our research indicates that this can come with substantial challenges in practice. We reflect upon the lessons…

The paradigm of test-based accountability has been a dominant force for decades, yet some argue that we have recently witnessed a dramatic change in the key beliefs influencing educational policy. To understand the extent of this transformation, we investigated the policy narrative supporting the adoption of a multiple measure accountability…

In 2013, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) with a clear mandate for democratic involvement in district goal setting and budgeting. School districts are expected to organize "meaningful engagement" of key stakeholders, including parents, students, educators, and the broader community, in…

Purpose: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) represents a notable shift in K-12 accountability, requiring a more comprehensive approach to assessing school performance and a less prescriptive approach to intervening in low-performing schools. In this article, we seek to leverage the experiences of California's CORE (California Office to Reform…

Background/Context: Researchers have amassed considerable evidence on the use of student performance data (e.g., benchmark and standardized state tests) to inform educational improvement, but few have examined the use of nonacademic indicators (e.g., indicators of social and emotional well-being) available to educators, and whether the factors…

This research brief describes work done for RAND Education and documented in "Pain and Gain: Implementing No Child Left Behind in Three States, 2004-2006", Brian M. Stecher, Scott Epstein, Laura S. Hamilton, Julie A. Marsh, Abby Robyn, Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Jennifer Russell, and Scott Naftel." The three states discussed are:…

The Implementing Standards-Based Accountability (ISBA) study was designed to examine the strategies that states, districts, and schools are using to implement standards-based accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and how these strategies are associated with classroom practices and student achievement in mathematics and science.…

Since 2001-2002, standards-based accountability (SBA) provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) have shaped the work of public school teachers and administrators in the United States. NCLB requires each state to develop content and achievement standards in several subjects, administer tests to measure students' progress toward…

In 2002, the RAND Corporation launched a project to understand how educators are responding to the new accountability requirements in California, Georgia, and Pennsylvania--three states that represent a range of approaches, regions, and student populations. The researchers aimed to identify the factors that enhance the implementation of SBA…