ABSTRACT
For researchers seeking to examine the effects of the school and district interventions spelled out in the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation, there is no better place to look than Philadelphia's public school system. The district, the nation's ninth largest with 174,000 pupils, has become a veritable research and development test-bed forjudging NCLBs effectiveness in improving urban schools. In Philadelphia's case, NCLB reinforced preexisting state legislation that widened state prerogatives to intervene in distressed districts. Unlike a number of other state and district leaders, Philadelphia's education leaders have embraced both the spirit and substance of the requirements and options laid out in NCLB. At a regional NCLB "summit" held in Philadelphia in April 2006, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings applauded the district's "great results" and "long-standing support for No Child Left Behind" (Snyder 2006).
