Feeling the Florida Heat?: How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure (Working Paper)
Author(s): Cecilia Elena Rouse, Jane Hannaway, Dan Goldhaber, and David Figlio

This paper examines the effect of accountability policy on school practices and student outcomes with remarkably comprehensive and detailed data that include a multi-wave five-year survey of the census of public schools in Florida and administrative data on individual student performance over time. The authors show that low-performing schools facing accountability pressure changed their instructional practices in meaningful ways. In addition, they present medium-run evidence school accountability promotes improved student test scores, and find that a significant portion of these test score gains can likely be attributed to the changes in school policies and practices uncovered in these surveys. November

Posted: November, 2007

Availability: PDF