Carolyn D. Herrington

Accountability, Standards, and the Growing Achievement Gap: Lessons from the Past Half‐Century

The rise of accountability policies during the early 1990s coincided with an increase in the achievement gap between white and minority students, reversing decades of steady improvement in outcome equity. This article explores the policies that helped to reduce the achievement gap before 1990, the effects of the subsequent shift toward accountability, and what can be learned from past successes to guide the future development of accountability systems. An extensive review of research suggests that pre‐1990s reductions in the achievement gap occurred because minority students were exposed to greater resources and academic content. We find little evidence that most forms of accountability have placed any downward pressure on the achievement gap, suggesting that the upward trend in the gap during the 1990s may be more than a coincidence. The few forms of accountability that have apparently helped to improve equity, especially promotion‐graduation exams for students, have in common with past successful policies the effect of increasing student exposure to resources and/or content. This suggests that accountability can help to improve educational equity but that such a change must be based on some basic assumptions that are inconsistent with much of the current reform movement. Specifically, A Nation at Risk has important lessons for No Child Left Behind and state‐level accountability programs.

Revisiting the Importance of the Direct Effects of School Leadership on Student Achievement: The Implications for School Improvement Policy

Much is left to be known regarding the impact of school principals on student achievement. This is because much of the research on school leadership focuses not on actual student outcomes but rather on other peripheral results of principal practices. In the research that has been done in this area, significant relationships have been identified between selected school leadership practices and student learning, indicating that evidence existed for certain principal behaviors to produce a direct relationship with student achievement. Further, although these relationships typically account for a small proportion of the total student achievement variability, they are of sufficient magnitude to be of interest and additional investigation. Actions taken to better understand and improve the impact of principals on the achievement of students in their schools have the potential for widespread benefit, as individual improvements in principal practice can impact thousands of students. It is in this light that potential direct effects of principal practices should be revisited.

Decertifying the Principalship: The Politics of Administrator Preparation in Florida

Although some factors seem to be moving to allow greater decertification of the school principal profession, other factors, moving in the opposite direction, call for greater oversight by government. Four factors—perceived shortage of principals, accountability and the changing role of principals, growing influence of the state over school administration, and new conceptualization of good public management—have created a set of challenges to certification that have propelled a renewed analysis of certification and licensure. This article focuses on alternative certification and licensure of principals—looking at the historical factors leading up to the introduction of alternative licensure for principals—the challenges to alternative licensure programs, and provides a case study of one district’s and one state’s (Florida) current experimentation.

Editors’ Introduction: The Use of Teacher Value-Added Measures in Schools New Evidence, Unanswered Questions, and Future Prospects

Teacher accountability based on teacher value-added measures could have far-reaching effects on classroom instruction and student learning, for good and for ill. To date, however, research has focused almost entirely on the statistical properties of the measures. While a useful starting point, the validity and reliability of the measures tell us very little about the effects on teaching and learning that come from embedding value added into policies like teacher evaluation, tenure, and compensation. We pose dozens of unanswered questions, not only about the net effects of these policies on measurable student outcomes, but about the numerous, often indirect ways in which these and less easily observed effects might arise. Drawing in part on other articles in the special issue, we consider perspectives from labor economics, sociology of organizations, and psychology. Some of the pathways of these policy effects directly influence teaching and learning and in intentional ways, while other pathways are indirect and unintentional. While research is just beginning to answer the key questions, a key initial theme of recent research is that both the opponents and advocates are partly correct about the influence of these policies.

The Future Of Vouchers: Lessons from the Adoption, Design, and Court Challenges of Florida's Three Voucher Programs.

This study considers why Florida has been the most aggressive state in adopting school vouchers. Vouchers are consistent with Florida’s tradition of aggressive educational accountability policies, arising from the state’s moderate social conservatism, openness to privatization, and state demographic characteristics. Even with this fertile political soil, vouchers probably would not have been adopted without the efforts of Governor Jeb Bush. The programs also rest on a shaky legal foundation because of the state’s Blaine Amendment and constitutional provisions for “public” and “uniform” schools. The authors conclude that state-level voucher programs in Florida and other states are on uncertain political and legal ground.

States and Their Struggles with NCLB: Does the Obama Blueprint Get It Right?.

This article analyzes challenges states identify in implementing No Child Left Behind (NCLB) with the Obama administrations proposals for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization. Drawing upon information from six states, this study shows that the Obama administration Blueprint for Reauthorization of ESEA responds to a number of state concerns with NCLB but fails to acknowledge the sheer magnitude of the challenges states face. The Blueprint addresses the overall concern for greater flexibility in timing, focus, and remedies that states express. Furthermore, the Blueprint acknowledges but does not fully address the importance of teacher and leader quality and the distributional challenges. The Blueprint falls short, however, in addressing the need for a more robust body of knowledge regarding effective intervention, the pragmatic obstacles to redistribution of high-quality teachers and leaders, and the political and fiscal challenges that states combat in intensifying and funding the level of performance it demands.

Introduction: Teacher and Leadership Preparation and Development: No Strangers to Politics

Debates over the quality of the nation’s teaching force extend at least as far back as the early 1900s. Today, teacher quality is again at the top of the reform agenda for America’s public schools. Consensus over the substance of reform, however, has not yet been achieved. Before introducing the articles in this double issue and discussing their individual and combined value for the study of educational politics, this article provides a brief history of the politics surrounding teacher and administrator preparation, unpacks the arguments behind the two national reform agendas for America’s teachers (professionalization and deregulation), and parses out a quality problem within a political discourse that stresses teacher shortages.

Are Parents Informed Consumers: Evidence From the Florida McKay Scholarship Program

Information was gathered from parents participating in the Florida McKay voucher program for students with disabilities. Based on survey responses, parents collect information on class size, academic quality, quality of teachers, special education, and curriculum. Education and income of parents was related to participation with parents at higher levels of both participating at higher rates. Racial and ethnic status did not appear to be a factor in information gathering, but it is a factor in selection of schools, as evidenced by more than 60% of African American and Hispanic respondents using the McKay scholarship to attend private religious schools. The data also indicate that parents of students using the McKay voucher are more satisfied with the school their child attends and with the information and information sources they used than are public school parents.

Tensions across Federalism, Localism, and Professional Autonomy: Social Media and Stakeholder Response to Increased Accountability.

Drawing upon research on federalism, localism, and professional autonomy, this article explores how educational stakeholders used social media to discuss and organize against the implementation of Differentiated Accountability in a large Florida school district. The results showed that the stakeholders used social media to engage in sense making and organizing against district policy changes. The authors also find that opposition stemmed from a sense among the commenters that aspects of the policy violated broadly accepted norms of professional autonomy. Strain across the groups ultimately detracted from the fundamental objective of raising student achievement.

Schools as Intergovernmental Partners: Administrator Perceptions of Expanded Programming for Children

The article provides an analysis of the pressures being placed on schools to become more active in intergovernmental programming and explores the challenges these new programs pose to educational administrators as determined by in-depth interviews with a small sample of school principals and district superintendents. Data from the interviews suggest that some programming areas are being accommodated smoothly within existing school structures; that technical problems emerging from jurisdictional disputes are not impeding implementation, and that public acceptance of expanded roles for schools is high. However, the data also suggest that as the programs become full-scale and expand into more controversial areas, and as the demand for additional facilities grows, jurisdictional conflict may increase, educator tolerance for nontraditional services may be tested, and community acceptance may stratify along class lines.