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This chapter concerns school improvement. It argues that, until recently, school improvement policies have either been created on little robust evidence at all, or have simply been based on the correlates of the kinds of school effectiveness studies described in the previous chapter. This is a very misleading approach because high- and low-attaining schools might differ in a range of ways that are unrelated to whether their results are better or worse. This includes their type (such as academy or community school), their location, and even their décor (potted plants for example). School improvement policies have also been influenced by highly vocal single studies, and developers acting as agents selling their wares via conferences and similar. Teacher action research is widely used but is not really research let alone action research as originally devised. As such, none of these are appropriate for advising national or local policy on improving schools.

This chapter investigates the social and political dynamics that the increased enrollment of white and multiracial middle- and upper-middle-class families brought about within a historically working-class, African American school community. Drawing from the experiences and perspectives of “long-timer” teachers and parents at the school, the chapter shows how the notion of school “improvement” was socially constructed and contested, as not all parents and teachers saw the movement of the middle class (and particularly the white middle-class) into the school as uniformly positive. The findings illustrate the limits of using test scores and student demographics as sole markers of “good schools,” as a reliance on these commonly-used symbols of school success can devalue or mask positive characteristics of urban schools that may not be captured in these dominant measures. The research highlights the importance of understanding the sociocultural and historical contexts of school communities in urban school reform and evaluation efforts.

This chapter continues the examination of accountability policies in Alexandria, focusing on federal efforts to improve the city’s educational achievement through No Child Left Behind and the School Improvement Grant program. These federal efforts resulted in a local push for proficiency and prompted significant reforms at a number of underperforming schools while placing enormous pressure on school officials. Their efforts, especially those of Superintendent Rebecca Perry, to respond to the demands of federal accountability policies were constrained, however, by, among other factors, poor federal guidance, poverty, and language barriers confronting their students. The federal criteria also conflicted with the community expectations of what T.C. Williams High School represented: a common public high school for all Alexandria’s youth. The chapter argues that inflexible accountability mechanisms built into NCLB and the school transformation process made it more difficult for Alexandria to address the real causes of student achievement gaps.

The prior chapters emphasize that cognitive skills have strong effects on long-run economic growth – but do not tell directly the economic value of any improvements in educational outcomes. This chapter uses the previously estimated growth models to project the economic impact of different scenarios of school improvements. An important aspect highlighted by the projections is not only the time path of economic gains but also the dynamic nature of human capital and growth. The analysis indicates the present value of country-specific gains from various improvement scenarios including a 25-point gain on PISA scores, bringing each country to the level of Finland, and bringing all up to minimum proficiency. Additionally, this chapter shows the difference in long-run projections that come from neoclassical growth models as opposed to endogenous growth models along with the sensitivity of the projections to key growth parameters.

This chapter examines the administration of Louis “Bill” Honig, who was on California's State Board of Education in the 1970s. Before Honig's administration, the California Department of Education (CDE) had been focusing on programs in early childhood, school finance, and school improvement, curriculum was practically off the map, and the state issued “frameworks” that were intended to describe the goal of K–12 curriculum in all subject matters. Honig and his colleagues, on the other hand, wanted to change testing, curriculum, teacher education, school organization, and parent and community involvement across all grade levels and all subjects. This chapter then examines the teaching system in place in California during late 1970s, and what changes and adjustments were attempted at the time.