  urlLink The Mandate To Help Low-Performing Schools. ERIC Digest. This ERIC Digest is by Larry Lashway.
From the ERIC Digest: The twentieth anniversary of A Nation at Risk has inspired numerous retrospective looks at the last two decades of school reform. The verdict is usually the same: noteworthy progress, but lots of unfinished business. High on the to-do list is the stubborn problem of low-performing schools in which a majority of students persistently fail to meet academic standards. Despite repeated reform efforts, many of these institutions are not performing much better than they did in 1983.
While images of failed schools have long been a motivating force in educational reform, the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has created a new sense of urgency. Confronted with a steadily rising bar for achievement, schools that lag behind will lose students, autonomy, and perhaps even their right to exist. Moreover, educators and citizens are realizing that low-performing schools go hand in hand with the achievement gap. Many struggling schools serve largely minority populations whose test scores persistently fall below those of white students.
In an age when testing carries high stakes for students, the potential social consequences give the issue even greater significance. Turning around a school is a complex process in which clear cause-effect relationships are difficult to isolate, but the recent interest has generated some useful research and thoughtful analysis. This Digest explores some of the key insights from that literature. 
