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Lessons From the Classroom Level: Federal and State Accountability in Rhode Island.

Executive Summary In the winter and spring of 2007-08, the Center on Education Policy (CEP) expanded its ongoing research on the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) by conducting case studies of six schools in Rhode Island. 1 Our purpose was to learn more about the influence of NCLB and related state accountability policies on curriculum, instruction, and student achievement. The schools studied used a variety of instructional practices and included a mix of urban, suburban, and rural schools, as well as elementary, middle, and high schools. This study takes a more in-depth look at classroom practices than most other studies of NCLB, including CEP's previous survey-and interview-based research. In this study of Rhode Island schools, we not only interviewed school administrators, teachers, students, and parents, but we also conducted formal classroom observations that documented the time spent on various types of instructional practices and teacher-student interactions in the six schools. These case studies show how administrators and teachers in different schools have responded to federal and state accountability policies designed to raise student achievement. Key findings from the six case study schools include the following: The high-performing schools in the study (those that had already met state schoolwide performance targets for 2011) and their school districts seemed to have the greatest alignment between curriculum and state standards. Since the implementation of NCLB, all the schools studied had taken steps to align curriculum with state content standards, but some appeared to have done a better job with this task. Some of the higher-performing schools and districts had administrators and teachers who were directly involved in state-level discussions about the development of state standards and the New England Common Assessment Program (NECAP) tests, which are used for NCLB accountability in Rhode Island. The schools that were struggling to align curriculum and standards either had atypical, nontradi-tional curriculum or lacked sufficient direction, leadership, or funding at the district level. Many teachers and administrators in case study schools acknowledged the pressure to " teach to the test " by focusing curriculum on specific content or skills included on the state test. In addition , most schools have incorporated some form of test preparation, such as drilling students on skills likely to be tested, using items released by the state as practice tests, and discussing test-taking strategies with students. This trend mirrors findings from a body of research which indicates that …