Which Students are Held Back When School Accountability Rules Change?
Abstract
In this project, I propose to investigate the effects of growth-based accountability rules on student retention practices further. My prior work establishes that a change to growth-based accountability rules causes a reduction in retention rates, particularly in the last grade offered by a school. However, which students are differentially promoted remains unknown. I propose to use restricted-access student-level data provided by the Texas Education Agency through the University of Houston’s Education Research Center to examine which students are most affected by the policy change. This research would provide a better understanding of the unintended consequences of the policy change, and would contribute to the literature exploring the interaction between school accountability rules, teacher and administrator incentives, and student experiences.
