Date Thesis Awarded

5-2014

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

Government

Advisor

Paul Manna

Committee Members

Jaime Settle

Peter McHenry

Abstract

Under the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) provision of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), schools that consistently failed to reach state-designed levels of proficiency were required to implement at least one reform from a slate of federally prescribed options. Although much work in the education and political science community has investigated the federal and state impact of NCLB, little work has been done on local governance. This paper will be the first to look for a relationship between state-level factors and local NCLB implementation. It addresses the following question: Are there state-level factors that influence the types of reforms implemented in struggling schools? This study provides insight into how state dynamics influence education reform. First, my evidence provides support to my hypothesis that interest groups matter in the implementation of local reform. Second, I find little support for the impact of bureaucratic capacity on local reform.

Recommended Citation

Kelley, Keenan, "Fixing failing schools: How states and localities implement federal reforms" (2014). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 80.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/80