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Leadership Gap Seen in Post-NCLB Changes in U.S. Teachers

Amid stepped-up school accountability pressures under the No Child Left Behind Act, many teachers appear to be adjusting how they do their jobs. But principals and district leaders are not necessarily in control of those instructional changes, a new study concludes.

Using data collected through surveys of math teachers, principals, and administrators in three states, a group of researchers at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based RAND Corp. examined educators’ responses to a series of questions about tests, their instruction, and their states’ accountability systems.

In the years following the passage of the NCLB law, teachers, on average, focused more attention on state content standards and seeking new teaching strategies, the researchers found. But when the data were analyzed for consistency within the same schools and districts, they found that educators’ responses varied more within individual schools than they did...