School accountability is the primary method the United States public education system uses to monitor the quality of local and state education systems and promote positive educational outcomes. The current accountability system under the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA) grants states the autonomy to design their own policies and metrics for school and district performance. Researchers and educators have raised concerns about these accountability systems, including their approach to identifying schools and districts that need improvement, their potential harmful consequences, and their lack of attention to the structural causes of educational inequities. School is only one system-albeit an impactful, important one-within a student's social ecology. Schools with lower performance are often situated within contexts that perpetuate inequities and limit their ability to respond to the barriers their students face.Using two sources of publicly available education data that report various student-, school-, and district-level characteristics (MI School Data and Civil Rights Data Collection), I conducted an exploratory study of schools in 12 public school districts that-as of September 2021-had a partnership agreement with the Michigan Department of Education (i.e., were the focus of state-level intervention under the current Michigan school accountability system). Specifically, I used multilevel modeling to examine school- and district-level measured indicators of structural factors (e.g., school staff-to-student ratios; district finances) and student achievement (e.g., test scores) and disciplinary (e.g., suspensions) outcomes and their relations over time in schools in these 12 school districts relative to a matched comparison sample. I also incorporated an explicit focus on equity by examining the extent to which these relationships differed across student subgroups by race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability status.My primary aims were to examine the extent to which: (1) partnership district schools differed from matched comparison district schools on student outcomes over time; (2) proxies for structural factors (e.g., enrollment, financial status) impacted student outcomes; and (3) partnership district schools differed from matched comparison district schools in terms of equity.℗ For my first aim, I found that partnership district schools had worse average academic outcomes than matched comparison district schools, but the differences between the schools were stable throughout the years of data included in my study. Given the stability of these differences, comprehensive school reform or community-level supports might be the best approach to address deeply rooted barriers faced by schools. For my second aim, I found that several structural factors (e.g., student mobility, the enrollment of historically marginalized students) accounted for academic outcomes over and above school accountability metrics. Given the potential consequences schools face if they do not meet the specific goals outlined in the agreements, it is important to consider how data on these structural factors could be leveraged to identify areas to best support schools or to account for factors outside of a school's control. Less clear patterns emerged for disciplinary outcomes, which might be an important area for future research and consideration. For my third aim, I was only able to examine differences across student subgroups for one outcome (math growth percentiles). I found that all student subgroups except Latine students had worse math growth percentiles in partnership district schools compared to matched comparison district schools, but few structural factors emerged as statistically significant to explain these differences. Overall, my findings suggest specific areas of promise for Michigan and other states to better align their school accountability systems with ESSA's goals of providing an equitable, holistic education.
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