State Capacity for School Improvement: A First Look at Agency Resources

With the Obama/Duncan NCLB-waiver announcement imminent and support for state-run accountability systems swelling, this Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) report is especially timely. Using “budget forensics” for eight states—including California, New York, and Texas—analysts evaluated how these jurisdictions allocate funding, and inferred each state’s capacity to spearhead school-improvement initiatives. The upshot: State education agencies (SEAs) aren’t yet ready to take up the mantle of school improvement in toto—on this front, they lack both experience and funding. (Louisiana was the one outlier, as the state oversees NOLA’s Recovery School District.) While CRPE’s report reaches few actionable conclusions, it does raise a warning flag for policymakers re-crafting state accountability systems: Before states can get very far with school improvement, a solid foundation must be laid.