Vladimir Kogan and Zachary Peskowitz, assistant professors, Department of Political Science, along with Stéphane Lavertu, assistant professor, John Glenn School of Public Affairs, are authors of a new study finding that a major overhaul of federal education policy enacted with the goal of improving public education and closing the achievement gap between student subgroups may have backfired —undermining public support for a large number of local schools instead. The study is forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science.

At issue is a performance metric put in place by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001, indicating whether or not schools make “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) toward meeting federal policy goals in math and English. Since the early 2000s, most states have included the AYP measure on their annual report cards. Schools that failed to make AYP for multiple years faced sanctions and were required to inform parents of their status and to allow their students to transfer to other schools.

“In our study,” said Kogan “we estimated the impact of federal performance measures in local school tax referenda in Ohio from 2003 to 2012. We found that school districts’ AYP status significantly affected their ability to raise local tax revenues. Districts that failed to make AYP in any given year were 10 percent less likely to successfully pass a local levy.”

The problem, according to Kogan, is that the federal AYP calculation does not account for significant differences in knowledge between students before they ever set foot in a classroom. Over the years, education researchers have found that poor and minority students begin school well behind their peers. Even if such students had effective teachers and attended excellent schools, perhaps learning more during the year than their wealthy peers, they often failed to reach the AYP performance benchmark. 

“In Ohio, we found that 70 percent of school districts deemed to be “failing” by the federal government were actually average or above average, in terms of how much their students were learning in the classroom,” explained Kogan. “The students were making significant gains, but not enough to receive a favorable AYP designation, and these districts suffered financially when it came time for voters to pass tax levies. It seems parents and voters took account of the federal designation but did not really appreciate its limitations.”

The findings are particularly timely and important, because NCLB is up for reauthorization in the current legislative session. Congressional leaders have signaled that they wish to retain the requirement that states publish report cards for local schools and districts, although they have indicated that they will allow states to replace the AYP designation with their own.

“The results of our study should serve as a cautionary tale to lawmakers, providing an example of how well-meaning reforms can produce unintended consequences and potentially exacerbate the very problems they are designed to fix,” said Kogan. “Lawmakers need to exercise great care in designing these metrics, to ensure that they accurately capture differences in school quality,” said Kogan.