Jordan Posamentier, Robin Lake and Paul Hill:

State policy plays a critical role in determining whether and how well local education improvement strategies can be implemented. As states rework their education policies under ESSA, state and local leaders need a way to assess their current policy environment and identify the changes needed to encourage local innovation and problem solving.

To identify the legal and regulatory barriers to local autonomy, CRPE researched 14 states that already have one or more large cities pursuing local innovation strategies. We find that:

The accretion of state law over the years has constrained local education leaders’ ability to innovate, improve, and transform their schools.
States have set up command-and-control frameworks, viewing districts rather than schools as public education’s first responders, which is at odds with school-level efforts to address the particular needs of students and communities.