School mandated turnaround effort: schools performed worse

Using data from Rhode Island this study capitalizes on a natural experiment in which schools, in accordance with the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers, were sorted into performance categories based on a continuous performance measure. The lowest performing schools were then mandated to implement interventions.

Schools implementing few interventions perform no differently than comparable schools without such requirements. Schools required to implement more interventions performed worse than comparable schools implementing fewer.

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