Funding Structures and State Capacity for School Improvement under the Every Student Succeeds Act: Case Studies of Five States

Abstract

Under the Every Student Succeeds Act, the federal government allocates 7% of Title I funds, about $1 billion per year, for school improvement. States have substantial autonomy in allocating these funds, including which schools are identified for federal school improvement, what improvement strategies are used, and whether external intermediaries are involved. A growing area of research explores the private, often for-profit school improvement industry, but few studies track the finance and policy structures that funnel public funds to external K–12 intermediaries. In this study, we draw on document analysis and interview data to explore school improvement practices and finance policies in five case study states. We find that states use varied methods for identifying schools for improvement, and also vary in the extent to which they provide local autonomy to school districts. Some states, such as Texas and Tennessee, incentivize schools to adopt particular strategies or encourage partnering with an external intermediary. Texas provides a list of vetted external intermediaries they expect districts to work with (and support financially). Other states, such as California and New York, provide more state-led school improvement strategies through regional offices and give districts greater local autonomy. Findings point to possible benefits of local autonomy, while highlighting potential challenges associated with unregulated market-based reforms in education.

The Efficacy and Implementation of Michigan’s Partnership Model of School and District Turnaround: Mixed-Methods Evidence From the First 2 Years of Reform Implementation

“…Second, it devolves the responsibility of turnaround design from the federal government to state and local edu-cation agencies, requiring states to identify Comprehensive Support and Improvement (CSI) schools and then calling for local education agencies to work with stakeholders to implement an improvement plan. This policy design implicitly recognizes the importance of the district in leading and promoting school improvement, and several states have responded by elevating the district role (Dunn & Ambroso, 2019; Fullan, 2016; Hopkins et al, 2014; Karcher & Knight, 2021; Meyers, 2020). Importantly, this approach to turnaround differs from state takeovers of districts, which have shown some positive but on average null effects across the country (Schueler & Bleiberg, 2022; Schueler et al, 2017).…”

“…Second, the scope and quality of external supports and resources made available to turnaround schools and districts matter. Schools may be low-performing because they lack the resources needed to build the systems that undergird improvement (Karcher & Knight, 2021). Although early attempts at school reform focused largely on accountability, RTTT and SIG paired accountability with an influx of federal funding for states to support low-performing schools.…”