Superintendents confront a number of external and internal demands as leaders of complex educational organizations. Compounding the external demands superintendents confront is the recent, heightened advancement of national educational reform policy occurring through the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. The federal education reform legislation enacted through these presidential administrations contained provisions to address low-performing schools. Subsequently, state educational agencies constructed and imposed corrective action policy for low-performing school districts and schools. This study delves into the perceptions superintendents hold regarding state imposed corrective action policy for low-performing schools. This study describes the perceptions of superintendents in low-performing schools around the federal and state sanctioned Diagnostic Tool for School and District Effectiveness (DTSDE) process and the theoretical rubric upon which the DTSDE is built upon. A qualitative research design was used to collect and analyze data interviews of 11 district leaders of public school districts identified as Focus school districts in the Capital, Mohawk, and Mid-Hudson regions of New York State. The researcher focused upon the roles superintendents perceive they play in the DTSDE process, how superintendents use state recommendations to support student success at the district level, and the strengths and limitations of the DTSDE instrument and process. The data collected was analyzed around three research questions, yielding 19 findings. The results of the research conducted in this study underscores the critical role of the superintendent in the intergovernmental federal to state to local district implementation of national and state educational reform policy. Of the several recommendations resulting in this study, perhaps the most significant recommendation is identifying the role of the superintendent as a critical agent in enacting school reform practices as a result of state imposed corrective action policy. In the DTSDE process, the principal and not the superintendent of schools is responsible for school building reform. It is recommended that the process New York State uses to diagnose low-performing Focus school districts amplify the role of the superintendent in the reform process to better link external policy demands to school district organizational practices leading to student success. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]