Feeling the Florida Heat?: How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure

This paper examines the effect of accountability policy on school practices and student outcomes with remarkably comprehensive and detailed data that include a multi-wave five-year survey of the census of public schools in Florida and administrative data on individual student performance over time. The authors show that low-performing schools facing accountability pressure changed their instructional practices in meaningful ways. In addition, they present medium-run evidence school accountability promotes improved 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 uncovered in these surveys.