The Impacts of No Child Left Behind on School-Level Decision Making: A National Examination

• In Event: Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: The Politics of Federal Initiatives and Policies

Abstract

Although the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has been implemented since 2002, its impacts on school performance and practice have rarely been examined empirically. This study complements the existing studies by examining the trends of and NCLB’s impact on states’, districts’, principals’, and teachers’ influences in school decisions between 1993-94 and 2007-08. Using the nationally representative and longitudinal Schools and Staffing Survey data, this study takes advantage of the richness of the data and the differences in the presence and strength of prior state accountability systems to isolate NCLB effects. This study adds empirical evidence to the knowledge base with regard to the federal law’s impacts on school level decision-making.

Authors

• Jiangang Xia, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

• Jianping Shen, Western Michigan University

• Xingyuan Gao, Western Michigan University