This paper examines the responses of four high schools to new accountability policies in two states, New York and Vermont. In each state, one school that was better positioned with respect to the policy and one that was a target of the policy were studied. New York's policy attaches high stakes for students though the Regents high school exit…

The consequences of large state testing are often uniformity of expectations for achievement. The largest impact of higher standards, then, are realized by traditionally disenfranchised student populations, particularly the least affluent who are most likely to bear the yoke of low expectation. This paper advances S. Messick's (1981) fundamental…

In l975, a longitudinal evaluation was begun of the New York State Experimental Prekindergarten Program to determine its effects on children's cognitive and non-cognitive development. The population consisted of 5,000 disadvantaged 4-year-olds enrolled in the program. The study provides evidence that the program had a general effect, not…

In New York the private and benevolent Free School Society began operations in 1805 because there were too few schools for the poor in the city, and it treated education as a regular separation from a seductive yet frightening world. Perhaps the most neglected and misunderstood period in the history of an organization whose activities have been…

Long Island, New York, including Nassau and Suffolk Counties, is a patchwork of small ethnically, racially, and economically segregated towns organized into 126 school districts. School funding patterns and problems conform to racial, ethnic, and class lines. Predominantly minority school districts generally have higher property tax rates, fewer…