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Schools utilize an array of strategies to match curricula and instruction to students’ heterogeneous skills. While generations of scholars have debated “tracking” and its consequences, the literature fails to account for diversity of school-level sorting practices. In this paper we draw upon the work of Sorenson (1970) to articulate and develop empirical measures of five distinct dimensions of school cross-classroom tracking systems: (1) the degree of course differentiation, (2) the extent to which sorting practices generate skills-homogeneous classrooms, (3) the rate at which students enroll in advanced courses, (4) the extent to which students move between tracks over time, and (5) the relation between track assignments across subject areas. Analyses of longitudinal administrative data following 24,000 8th graders enrolled in 23 middle schools through the 10th grade indicate that these dimensions of tracking are empirically separable and have divergent effects on student achievement and the production of inequality.

State and federal accountability policies are predicated on the ability to estimate valid and reliable measures of school impacts on student learning. The typical spring-to-spring testing window potentially conflates the amount of learning that occurs during the school year with learning that occurs during the summer. We use a unique dataset to explore the potential for students’ summer learning to bias school-level value-added models used in accountability policies and research on school quality. The results of this paper raise important questions about the design of performance-based education policies, as well as schools’ role in the production of students’ achievement.

We utilize state data of nearly 1.7 million students in Ohio to study a specific sector of online education: K–12 schools that deliver most, if not all, education online, lack a brick-and-mortar presence, and enroll students full-time. First, we explore e-school enrollment patterns and how these patterns vary by student subgroups and geography. Second, we evaluate the impact of e-schools on students’ learning, comparing student outcomes in e-schools to outcomes in two other schooling types, traditional charter schools and traditional public schools. Our results show that students and families appear to self-segregate in stark ways where low-income, lower achieving White students are more likely to choose e-schools while low-income, lower achieving minority students are more likely to opt into the traditional charter school sector. Our results also show that students in e-schools are performing worse on standardized assessments than their peers in traditional charter and traditional public schools. We close with policy recommendations and areas for future research.

Black and poor students are suspended from U.S. schools at higher rates than White and nonpoor students. While the existence of these disparities has been clear, the causes of the disparities have not. We use a novel data set to examine how and where discipline disparities arise. By comparing the punishments given to Black and White (or poor and nonpoor) students who fight one another, we address a selection challenge that has kept prior studies from identifying discrimination in student discipline. We find that Black and poor students are, in fact, punished more harshly than the students with whom they fight.

This article analyzes how the Obama administration used executive power to grant waivers from federal education policies and assesses whether they used this power differently than previous administrations and in other sectors (e.g., health or welfare). The executive use of waivers to shape state policy is not a new trend. However, we find that recent education waivers differ in purpose and specificity from past education waivers, as well as waivers in other social policy arenas, and that the Obama administration is using this executive power to further its policy objectives in ways that often circumvent congressional intent. As the executive branch continues to utilize waivers as a policy lever, this research has important implications for the future of federal involvement in educational policy and provides critical background for Congress’s reaction to waivers in the recently reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Between 2003 and 2013, the proportion of California eighth graders enrolled in algebra or a more advanced course nearly doubled to 65%. In this article, we consider the organizational processes that accompanied this curricular intensification. Facing a complex set of accountability, institutional, technical/functional, and internal political pressures, California schools responded to the algebra-for-all effort in diverse ways. While some schools detracked by enrolling all eighth graders in algebra, others “tracked up,” creating more advanced geometry opportunities while increasing algebra enrollments. These responses created a new differentiated course structure that is likely to benefit advantaged students. Consistent with the effectively maintained inequality hypothesis, we find that detracking occurred primarily in disadvantaged schools while “tracking up” occurred primarily in advantaged schools.

In recent decades, school choice policies predicated on student mobility have gained prominence as urban districts address chronically low-performing schools. However, scholars have highlighted equity concerns related to choice policies. The case of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans provides an opportunity to examine student mobility patterns in a choice-based district. This paper analyzes student mobility between and within the various sectors and school types using a multinomial framework. We find rates of student mobility in post-Katrina New Orleans to be similar to other traditional urban school districts. Overall, our results indicate that high-achieving students switch to high-quality schools whereas low-achieving students transfer to low-quality schools. It is clear some students are taking advantage of the ability to choose a high-quality educational option, although many students are still not. Policy implications, especially for education policy makers implementing or considering school choice policies, and areas for future research are discussed.

Executive leadership of the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) initiated a flexibility offering from No Child Left Behind. Our work explores specific design decisions made in these state-specific accountability systems as associated with state political environments, resources, and demographic characteristics. Our analysis, focused on 42 states with approved flexibility waivers, provides some evidence that design decisions are associated with prior education policies, political leanings, and financial resources within each state. Policymakers should also take note, as these results suggest that state political factors may influence how state policymakers will react in future negotiations with the USDOE.

The relatively low status of teaching as a profession is often given as a factor contributing to the difficulty of recruiting teachers, the middling performance of American students on international assessments, and the well-documented decline in the relative academic ability of teachers through the 1990s. Since the turn of the 21st century, however, a number of federal, state, and local teacher accountability policies have been implemented toward improving teacher quality over the objections of some who argue the policies will decrease quality. In this article, we analyze 25 years of data on the academic ability of teachers in New York State and document that since 1999 the academic ability of both individuals certified and those entering teaching has steadily increased. These gains are widespread and have resulted in a substantial narrowing of the differences in teacher academic ability between high- and low-poverty schools and between White and minority teachers. We interpret these gains as evidence that the status of teaching is improving.

One of the enduring problems in education is the persistence of achievement gaps between White, wealthy, native English-speaking students and their counterparts who are minority, lower-income, or English language learners. This study shows that one intensive technical assistance (TA) intervention—California’s District Assistance and Intervention Teams (DAITs)—implemented in conjunction with a high-stakes accountability policy improves the math and English performance of traditionally underserved students. Using a 6-year panel of student-level data from California, we find that the DAIT intervention significantly reduces achievement gaps between Black, Hispanic, and poor students and their White and wealthier peers. These results indicate that capacity-building TA helps to close achievement gaps in California’s lowest performing districts.

Forty-two states and the District of Columbia have recently received waivers to the school accountability requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). As the prospects for reauthorizing the Act in the near term are dim, these new accountability systems will be law for at least several years. Drawing on a four-part framework from the measurement literature, we describe and critique the approved waiver accountability plans, comparing them to the NCLB accountability rules. We find a mixed bag—some states have made large improvements and others have not. Overall we conclude that states missed opportunities to design more effective school accountability systems that might minimize negative unintended consequences of these policies. The article concludes with suggestions for state and federal policy in light of the available literature.

Over the past 30 years, in the mass media and educational stakeholder and research communities, there has been increased interest in urban education. A controversial report, A Nation At Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), fueled the current discussion about the underperformance of American schools, especially in urban areas. The attention of countless policies, billions of dollars, and innumerable person hours have been spent trying to fix urban schools. Since the Industrial Revolution, there has been a population boom in America’s urban cities. The majority of individuals now live in urban areas, and these areas have unique economic environmentsenvironments that have adverse effects on education. Considering that economic growth and prosperity are tied to the quality of education within a country (Hanushek & Kimko, 2000), special attention must be given to the unique economic environments that surround students, families, and other education stakeholders in urban areas.