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THAT’S NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR: THREE ESSAYS ON THE (UN)INTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF CALIFORNIA’S DUAL-ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM
by
Andrew Josef McEachin
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(URBAN EDUCATION POLICY)
August 2012
Copyright 2012 Andrew Josef McEachin
Object Description
| Title | That's not what I asked for: three essays on the (un)intended consequences of California's dual-accountability system |
| Author | McEachin, Andrew Josef |
| Author email | mceachin@usc.edu;mceachin.uva@gmail.com |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Education |
| School | Rossier School of Education |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-06-05 |
| Date submitted | 2012-07-24 |
| Date approved | 2012-07-24 |
| Restricted until | 2012-07-24 |
| Date published | 2012-07-24 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Brewer, Dominic J. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Strunk, Katharine O. Ridder, Geert |
| Abstract | The research in this dissertation analyzes three important aspects of educational accountability policies: capacity, unintended consequences, and design considerations. The results in this dissertation have implications for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). The 2012 congressional proposals for the reauthorization of ESEA, as well as the administration’s blueprint and NCLB waiver program, indicate that schools and districts will continue to operate in an era of accountability and high-stakes testing (United States Department of Education, 2011). However, the results in this dissertation indicate that there is significant room for improvement in the current design of educational accountability systems. ❧ The analyses in Chapter 2 focus on a rarely discussed portion of the NCLB accountability system. States are required to provide low-performing districts technical assistance in hopes of raising student achievement. The results from this study demonstrate that the capacity-building intervention that California implemented in response to the NCLB requirements led to small increases in students’ math achievement. This is an important finding since the early work in educational accountability stressed the need to provide appropriate capacity-building opportunities for low-performing schools and districts (Clune, 1993a, 1993b; O'Day & Smith, 1993; Smith & O'Day, 1991). Although I do not have evidence for the long-term benefits of this intervention, the results indicate that more research into DAIT-like interventions is worthwhile. ❧ The analysis in Chapter 3 focuses on the tensions that exist in California’s dual-accountability system, specifically with regards to algebra enrollment for 8th grade students. As noted in the conclusion of the Chapter, the results have important implications on a number of fronts. The paper adds yet another example of an unintended consequence generated by an incentive structure within an educational accountability system. The paper also demonstrates the need for stronger alignment between the federal- and state-level accountability systems. Lastly, the paper also adds to a related literature on the algebra enrollment patterns for 8th grade students, as well as the possible benefits of early algebra exposure on students’ high school math outcomes. ❧ The final analysis presented in Chapter 4, uses a congressional proposal for the reauthorization of ESEA as a policy-analysis case-study to demonstrate the need to flesh out the possible (un)intended consequences of educational policies using existing data sources. The results from this analysis have both specific and general policy implications. Specifically, the results demonstrate that the authors of the Harkin-Enzi plan need to be more careful about the design of accountability systems. As shown in the chapter, the large amount of flexibility in the current proposal can lead to dramatically different results. Generally, the results in the chapter show how researchers and policy-makers can work together to use existing data sources to marshal evidence for the possible (un)intended consequences of educational policies. The results from this dissertation provide a number of recommendations for the reauthorization of ESEA. I close this dissertation with a discussion of six broad recommendations that may lead to a more informed, fair, and valid accountability system. |
| Keyword | education policy; accountability; economics of education |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Rights | McEachin, Andrew Josef |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-McEachinAn-974.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | THAT’S NOT WHAT I ASKED FOR: THREE ESSAYS ON THE (UN)INTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF CALIFORNIA’S DUAL-ACCOUNTABILITY SYSTEM by Andrew Josef McEachin A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (URBAN EDUCATION POLICY) August 2012 Copyright 2012 Andrew Josef McEachin |
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