The relatively poor academic achievement of black and Hispanic students has been a national concern since the passage of the Elementary Secondary and Education Act (ESEA) in 1963. Frustrated with relatively slow progress in closing these educational gaps, the most recent reauthorization of the ESEA, the No Children Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) attempts to employ rigorous accountability standards to speed progress. At about the same time, Florida implemented a change in its A+ Plan for Education that focused on the educational gains of “low-performing” students. This paper examines whether either of these accountability systems improved the academic outcomes of black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students in Florida. Schools labeled as failing or near-failing in Florida’s system tend to boost performance of students in these subgroups, while schools presented with incentives under NCLB to improve subgroup performance appear to be much less likely to do so. However, Hispanics appear to benefit from the NCLB sub-grouping requirements if they attend schools with low accountability pressure under Florida’s grading system.
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Usage, posting and reprint of materials on the UI web site:
Most publications may be downloaded free of charge from the web site in PDF format. This information may be used and copies made for research, academic, policy or other non-commercial purposes. Proper attribution is required.
Copyright of the written materials contained within the Urban Institute website is owned or controlled by the Urban Institute. Posting UI research papers on other websites is permitted subject to prior approval from the Urban Institute—contact paffairs@urban.org.
If you are unable to access or print the PDF document please contact us or call the Publications Office at (202) 261-5687.
Latest Research
Browse by Topic:
PDF
Printer-friendly summary
