Performance-based Accountability Policies: Implications for School and Classroom Practices

This paper focuses on school- and classroom-level responses to performance-based accountability. While the ultimate outcome of interest of education accountability policies is student achievement, a focus on intermediary outcomes – such as school and classroom behavior – has important policy implications in its own right for reasons discussed below. This paper is one of six papers prepared for the U. S. Department of Education in response to Section 1503 of the No Child Left Behind legislation requiring that the U. S. Department of Education provide an interim report to Congress on the effects of the law.