A new report from the Washington-based Center on Education Policy tracks how four states taking part in a federal pilot program are using their added flexibility under the No Child Left Behind Act.
The “Differentiated Accountability Pilot Program,” launched by the U.S. Department of Education in 2008, allows nine states to vary the intensity and type of intervention they use with struggling schools under NCLB and focus their resources on those with the greatest needs. The CEP’s study focuses on Georgia, Maryland, New York, and Ohio that took advantage of flexibility under the program to help low-performing schools.
The report finds that those states have moved away from the labels used under the law for schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress and have factored in the reasons for some schools’ failures.
Researchers also learned that the states are putting more focus on ensuring that schools and districts use data to inform instruction and other decisions, and have created opportunities for on-site monitoring of some of their most academically needy schools.
