States and districts are increasingly incorporating measures of achievement growth into their school accountability systems, but there is little research on how these changes affect the public’s perceptions of school quality. We conduct a nationally representative online survey experiment to identify the effects of providing participants with information about their local school districts’ average achievement status and/or average achievement growth. In the control group, participants who live in higher status districts tend to grade their local schools more favorably. The provision of status information does not fundamentally alter this relationship. The provision of growth information, however, reshapes Americans’ views about educational performance. Once informed, participants’ evaluations of their local public schools better reflect the variation in district growth.
Status, Growth, and Perceptions of School Quality
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/v94e-5p22
EdWorkingPaper suggested citation:
Houston, David M., Michael B. Henderson, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West. (). Status, Growth, and Perceptions of School Quality. (EdWorkingPaper:
-238). Retrieved from
Annenberg Institute at Brown University: https://doi.org/10.26300/v94e-5p22Related Resources from the EdExchange
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