Redundancy and syntactic reduction in spontaneous speech

Federally mandated high-stakes testing and accountability policies are increasingly pervading districts and schools nationwide. The 2002 passage of NCLB has ushered in an era where states and localities are required to build state accountability systems on standards and high-stakes assessments. The prevailing theory of action behind accountability ratings and testing is that schools and students held accountable to these measures will automatically increase educational output. This dissertation is unique because it is amongst the first empirical studies to help understand longitudinal urban student progress and learning over time in an environment of accountability. It has begun to shed light on the ongoing debate about whether accountability policies actually improve student success or instead result in unintended deleterious effects.; The study utilizes a longitudinal dataset of 271,000 students to examine the effects of the "first-generation" Texas-style accountability system in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) from 1995-2002. Utilizing descriptive and multivariate regression analyses supplemented by qualitative interviews of over 160 HISD students and school staff, the dissertation finds that there is evidence that high-stakes testing that rewards or sanctions schools based on average student scores has created incentives for schools to game accountability systems in ways that have reduced educational opportunity for students. The analyses show that there were increases in student retention, student dropout/disappearance, and, ultimately, failure to advance to graduation, disproportionately affecting minority students. Additionally, the dissertation finds that student retention and disappearance rates increased high schools' average Reading and Math Exit TAAS scores and TEA accountability ratings, enabling HISD high schools to maintain a public appearance of success in an environment of high-stakes testing and accountability.