Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks

Federal school accountability policies like No Child Left Behind were based on a logic that measuring school performance and making the results public through tools like school report cards would incentivize educators to create strategies for improving school quality. Yet, most schools needed more t...

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Main Author: Kelly McMahon
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Arizona State University 2017-12-01
Series:Education Policy Analysis Archives
Subjects:
Online Access:https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/3210
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author Kelly McMahon
author_facet Kelly McMahon
author_sort Kelly McMahon
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description Federal school accountability policies like No Child Left Behind were based on a logic that measuring school performance and making the results public through tools like school report cards would incentivize educators to create strategies for improving school quality. Yet, most schools needed more than incentives to be able to design improvement strategies that would lead to all students becoming proficient in standard subjects like math and ELA. As a result, states and school districts implemented an infrastructure of supports. To date, there is little research that considers how support providers use accountability tools to diagnose problems and design targeted improvement strategies. Without better knowledge of how schools and providers commit to particular improvement strategies, it is difficult to determine whether we need better school report cards or strategies, or both to improve school quality. This study aims to address this gap by examining how four Children First Networks in New York City used accountability metrics to develop targeted improvement strategies, which led to distinctly different improvement strategies. The article closes with implications for policy.
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spelling doaj.art-5b605e088d3e417892a5aba3a6767fd12022-12-21T23:09:40ZengArizona State UniversityEducation Policy Analysis Archives1068-23412017-12-0125010.14507/epaa.25.32101693Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First NetworksKelly McMahon0Northwestern UniversityFederal school accountability policies like No Child Left Behind were based on a logic that measuring school performance and making the results public through tools like school report cards would incentivize educators to create strategies for improving school quality. Yet, most schools needed more than incentives to be able to design improvement strategies that would lead to all students becoming proficient in standard subjects like math and ELA. As a result, states and school districts implemented an infrastructure of supports. To date, there is little research that considers how support providers use accountability tools to diagnose problems and design targeted improvement strategies. Without better knowledge of how schools and providers commit to particular improvement strategies, it is difficult to determine whether we need better school report cards or strategies, or both to improve school quality. This study aims to address this gap by examining how four Children First Networks in New York City used accountability metrics to develop targeted improvement strategies, which led to distinctly different improvement strategies. The article closes with implications for policy.https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/3210Accountabilityimprovementschool support
spellingShingle Kelly McMahon
Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
Education Policy Analysis Archives
Accountability
improvement
school support
title Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
title_full Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
title_fullStr Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
title_full_unstemmed Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
title_short Relations between accountability and improvement strategies in New York City’s Children First Networks
title_sort relations between accountability and improvement strategies in new york city s children first networks
topic Accountability
improvement
school support
url https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/3210
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