High Stakes Accountability

A volume in Research in Education Fiscal Policy and Practice
Edited by Jennifer King Rice, University of Maryland and Christopher Roellke, Vassar College
In this third volume of Research in Education Fiscal Policy and Practice, editors Jennifer King
Rice and Christopher Roellke have assembled a diversity of research studies focused on the
current policy environment of high stakes accountability and how this context has impacted
educators and students at multiple levels of the system. This effort to leverage student
performance through high stakes reform has accelerated and intensified considerably since the
2002 reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, commonly referred
to as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).In order for high stakes accountability reforms to realize their
stated aims, targeted schools must have or acquire the resources and capacity to meet prescribed
performance standards (Hess, 1999; Malen & Rice, 2005; Mintrop, 2003, 2004; Wong, et al.,
1999), yet little systematic research has been assembled to document the implications of high stakes accountability systems on the
resources and capacity of schools and school systems. This book aims to fill that gap.
With this in mind, authors were asked to pay specific attention to challenges school systems confront as a result of NCLB and other
high stakes reforms. The contributing authors were asked to think of policymakers and practitioners at local, state, and national levels
as the intended audiences for their work. Our contributors responded with a collection of studies examining the relationship between
high stakes reform and school district staffing, the recruitment and distribution of high quality teachers, curriculum making, and the
provision of supplemental educational services to children. Our book is organized into three sections. The first provides a framework
for assessing the impact of high stakes accountability policy on school capacity and also addresses implementation challenges at both
state and local levels. The second section focuses on the impact of federal and state
policymaking on teacher staffing and workplace conditions. The final section includes three
chapters that provide a range of critiques on federal policymaking, including legal challenges
to NCLB.