The Rhode to Turnaround: The Impact of Waivers to No Child Left Behind on School Performance

Abstract

Using data from Rhode Island, and deploying a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design, this study capitalizes on a natural experiment in which schools, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, were sorted into performance categories based on a continuous performance measure. The lowest performing schools were then mandated to implement interventions. We find that schools implementing fewer interventions perform no differently than comparable schools without such requirements. Additionally, schools just required to implement more interventions performed worse than comparable schools implementing fewer. Finally, we find differences in the probability of student mobility from lower performing schools.

Peeking Into the Black Box of School Turnaround: A Formal Test of Mediators and Suppressors

“…Studies evaluating the effects of school turnaround have increased in recent years, but results vary from positive (Carlson & Lavertu, 2018; Dee, 2012; Sun et al, 2017) to negative (Dickey-Griffith, 2013; Dougherty & Weiner, 2017; Henry & Harbatkin, 2018), to mixed or null (Dee & Dizon-Ross, 2019; Heissel & Ladd, 2017; Strunk, Marsh, Hashim, Bush-Mecenas, & Weinstein, 2016; Zimmer et al, 2017). Overall, these studies suggest that turnaround interventions can potentially improve school performance, but there is not enough large-scale, quantitative evidence to identify mediating mechanisms that explain these effects.…”

“…fueled by sustained policy interest in school reform, a growing body of research estimates the effects of turnaround on persistently low-performing schools, but existing studies report mixed results (Dickey-Griffith, 2013; Dougherty & Weiner, 2017; Gill et al, 2007; Harris & Larsen, 2016; Henry & Harbatkin, 2018; Schueler et al, 2017; Zimmer et al, 2017). As new school reform plans are being implemented across the nation under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), there is an urgent need to better understand why some prior reforms succeeded in improving school performance while others failed.…”

The Relationship Between School Turnaround and Student Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis

“…Another factor shaping negative or null findings relates to implementation quality. Dougherty and Weiner (2019) find suggestive evidence that state turnaround model in Rhode Island may have detrimentally affected student academic learning, particularly in schools where they were required to implement more interventions than those implementing fewer. They suggest that the context and coherence of implementation likely contribute to whether turnaround is effective, which is reinforced by other studies that also find a null or negative relationship with test scores (Bross et al, 2016; Dragoset et al, 2017; Hemelt & Jacob, 2017; Sherrod & Dawkins-Law, 2013; Strunk, Marsh, Hashim, Bush-Mecenas, & Weinstein, 2016).…”

“…Given that different factors shape the decision to close a charter school compared with a traditional public school, we also exclude studies examining the effect of charter school closure on student outcomes (e.g., Carlson & Lavertu, 2016; Chingos & West, 2015). Finally, it should be noted that our definition allows for turnaround to occur in the context of school improvement efforts conducted under NCLB waivers (Bonilla & Dee, 2020; Dee & Dizon-Ross, 2019; Dougherty & Weiner, 2019; Hemelt & Jacob, 2017) as well as state takeover of low-performing schools (Schueler et al, 2017; Zimmer et al, 2017).…”

The Changing Federal Role in School Accountability

“…A recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that many states did not effectively implement the waiver‐based reforms, and had difficulty monitoring districts and schools (Nowicki, ). Recent evaluations of Priority and Focus school reforms in several different states found that the efforts had no impact on student performance levels or achievement gaps (Bonilla & Dee, ; Dee & Dizon‐Ross, ; Dougherty & Weiner, ; Hemelt & Jacob, ). And the broader research on school turnaround efforts is not particularly encouraging either.…”