For almost a quarter of a century — as far back as the 2001 passage of No Child Left Behind — states have been required under federal law to identify and focus intense support on their poorest-performing schools.
What that means, practically speaking, is that the most targeted and resource-heavy programs are poured into turning around the bottom 5% of schools in every state, including those with chronically bad graduation rates and those where certain subgroups of students languish below grade-level.
On its face, that’s not a bad priority — though being identified as such has historically meant being targeted with drastic policy changes, including state takeovers. But in many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic scrambled the traditional school landscape: Suddenly, math and reading scores plummeted across the board for students in every school, and chronic absenteeism soared. Four years later, the U.S. education system is still trying to claw its way back to pre-pandemic achievement levels.