More than two-thirds of the 90 Michigan schools that reached the final stage of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act during the 2005-06 school year chose “turnaround specialists” as their strategy for improvement, according to the latest in a series of studies by the Washington-based Center on Education Policy examining the impact of the federal education law.
The study also found that the strategy of replacing principals in struggling schools largely fell out of favor during that school year. In addition, it found, about two-thirds of the schools under “restructuring,” the final stage of sanctions under the NCLB law, improved enough in 2005-06 to meet “adequate yearly progress” targets. But the extent to which school improvement efforts were responsible for the progress was unclear, since state and federal policies made it easier to reach the standards, according to the study.
“What Now? Lessons from Michigan About Restructuring Schools and Next Steps Under NCLB” is available from the Center on Education Policy.
