AEFP Conference Session—Redesigning State Policies for Accountability and Support in Four States

In this paper session, SCOPE's Elizabeth Leisy Stosich and Soung Bae will talk about a comparative case study of educational leaders in four states—California, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Vermont—that have made early progress in redesigning their accountability systems. The study aims to understand and explain how state educational leaders define the challenge presented by accountability policy and the solutions they identify to address these problems.

Preliminary findings suggest that leaders in these four states all framed the problem presented by the existing accountability system differently, including as a problem of student learning, resource allocation, data, or incoherence between instruction and assessment. These differences in problem framing were related to the policy solutions they identified. Despite these differences, educational leaders in all four states described engaging in extensive stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, educational leaders in all four states described communication about the policy problem and solution as important for dispelling early policy misconceptions and garnering support for policy adoption and implementation. Our preliminary findings suggest that attention to the framing process may support state educational leaders in redesigning state accountability policy under ESSA.

For the room location of this session, please refer to AEFP's 42nd Annual Conference website.