Under waivers to the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government required states to identify schools where targeted subgroups of students have the lowest achievement and to implement reforms in these “Focus Schools.” In this study, we examine the Focus School reforms in the state of Kentucky. The reforms in this state are uniquely interesting for several reasons. One is that the state developed unusually explicit guidance for Focus Schools centered on a comprehensive school-planning process. Second, the state identified Focus Schools using a “super subgroup” measure that combined traditionally low-performing subgroups into an umbrella group. This design feature may have catalyzed broader whole-school reforms and attenuated the incentives to target reform efforts narrowly. Using regression discontinuity designs, we find that these reforms led to substantial improvements in school performance, raising math proficiency rates by 17 percent and reading proficiency rates by 9 percent.

中文翻译：

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NCLB豁免对学校改革的影响：肯塔基州重点学校的证据

根据对“不让任何一个孩子落后的法案”的豁免，联邦政府要求各州确定目标学生群体中成绩最低的学校，并在这些“重点学校”中进行改革。在这项研究中，我们研究了肯塔基州的重点学校改革。由于多种原因，这种状态下的改革非常有趣。一是该州以综合性的学校规划过程为中心，为焦点学校制定了异常明确的指导。其次，该州使用“超级子群”措施确定了重点学校，该措施将传统上表现不佳的子群合并为一个伞形群。这种设计特征可能催生了更广泛的全校改革，并削弱了以狭窄目标为目标的动力。使用回归不连续性设计