The Effects of National Standards-Based Reforms on Academically Vulnerable Students
Bleiberg, Joshua
0000-0003-0291-3244
:
2020-06-16
Abstract
Standards-based reform describes a triumvirate of education policies: standards, assessments, and school accountability. I begin with an examination of the Common Core State Standards (CC). I exploit variation in the timing of state implementation of the CC to identify its effect on students overall and on academically vulnerable groups. I find that the CC has a positive effect on math scores in 4th and 8th grade, but not in reading. The CC had a large positive effect on economically advantaged students, but no detectable effect on economically disadvantaged students. I then examine No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which scaled up state efforts and mandated that all states adopt both standardized assessments and school accountability systems. I examine the differential effects of NCLB across populations of academically vulnerable students and school types. I also test whether school sanctions or changes to instruction spending mediate the effects of NCLB. NCLB appears to have increased achievement overall and for all academically vulnerable groups. The positive effect of NCLB did not vary across academically vulnerable students and did not influence the size of achievement gaps. Finally, I study the NCLB Waivers, which released states from many of the school accountability requirements while maintaining the testing rules. I analyze the effect of the waivers on students throughout the country and on academically vulnerable students. I find no evidence of an average effect on student achievement. Analysis of heterogeneity suggests that the waivers were associated with a decrease in the size of racial achievement gaps.