TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rouse,Cecilia Elena
AU  - Hannaway,Jane
AU  - Goldhaber,Dan
AU  - Figlio,David
TI  - Feeling the Florida Heat? How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13681
PY  - 2007
Y2  - December 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13681
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13681.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Cecilia E. Rouse
Industrial Relations Section
Firestone Library
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544-1013
Tel: 609/258-6478
Fax: 609/258-0549
E-Mail: rouse@princeton.edu

Jane Hannaway
The Urban Institute
2100 M St., NW
Washington, DC 20037
E-Mail: JHannawa@ui.urban.org

Dan Goldhaber
University of Washington
E-Mail: dgoldhab@u.washington.edu

David N. Figlio
Institute for Policy Research
Northwestern University
2040 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
Tel: 847-467-1503
Fax: 847-491-9916
E-Mail: figlio@northwestern.edu
AB  - While numerous recent authors have studied the effects of school accountability systems on student test performance and school "gaming" of accountability incentives, there has been little attention paid to substantive changes in instructional policies and practices resulting from school accountability.  The lack of research is primarily due to the unavailability of appropriate data to carry out such an analysis.  This paper brings to bear new evidence from a remarkable five-year survey conducted of a census of public schools in Florida, coupled with detailed administrative data on student performance.  We show that schools facing accountability pressure changed their instructional practices in meaningful ways.  In addition, we present medium-run evidence of the effects of school accountability on student test scores, and find that a significant portion of these test score gains can likely be attributed to the changes in school policies and practices that we uncover in our surveys.
ER  -