| Chapter 1: | Story of the Research |
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History tells us that local school districts generally downplay policies set forth by the state or federal government, thereby essentially making the policies ineffective. However, federal legislation enacted under the auspices of NCLB has changed this historical response. In setting standards and requiring examinations, NCLB holds school districts accountable for student achievement and for annual gains in achievement as defined by AYP.
Sipple et al. (2004) defined two ways to look at government involvement in local schools: low impact and high impact. With low-impact involvement, schools conformed by changing organizational forms but not necessarily changing true practice in the classroom. An example of this would be a state-required change in curriculum writing format or a change in child accounting practices. Both of these changes could be implemented easily to satisfy the state’s requirements and would have little or no impact on teaching children in the classroom. High-impact involvement occurs when the governmental agency sets a target for student achievement and institutes sanctions toward the school if students fail to reach the target. These sanctions could include loss of funding, changes to curriculum, or even takeover.
What about the effect of low-impact and high-impact governmental involvement on individual teachers? Does governmental involvement affect their autonomy? At first glance, it would seem that both scenarios would leave the individual teacher with a high level of autonomy. In a low-impact environment, teachers essentially get to maintain the status quo. Any changes are generally symbolic and may result in nothing more than a change in the appearance of the paperwork that comes from the central office. Theoretically, high-impact environments could accommodate high levels of individual autonomy because the government sets the achievement target but does not require any specific instructional methodology to meet said standard.