An Intentionally Slow Start: Lessons From the First Year of Implementation of a High-Autonomy Literacy Reform

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 2:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Navigating Educational Reforms: Intended and Unintended Consequences of Policy (Table 5)

Abstract

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding state policy through the lens of space, autonomy, scale, and cost. This paper then explores the trade-offs of these design choices with a mixed methods case study of the first year of California’s Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialists Grant (LCRSG), which funded schools to select new literacy expenditures of their own choice. I exploit its virtually sharp eligibility criteria in a regression discontinuity design to show that the first year of LCRSG had a null result on grade-3 academic achievement. This null result is explained by the qualitative finding that high-autonomy policy empowers communities to customize implementation to their needs but therefore requires slower implementation as districts identify those needs.

Author

• Sarah Novicoff, Stanford University