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School sanctioning policies that allow for external intervention into and closure of low-performing schools have become central components of the current educational accountability movement. Recent studies indicate that these policies compel principals and teachers to alter school and classroom practices in ways that target resources toward efforts to improve schoolwide test scores.

The present study extends this research by examining whether and how school sanctioning policies compel principals and teachers in urban high schools to address the failure that students experience in academic courses and on standardized tests.

Using qualitative case study methods, we followed principals and teachers in two urban high schools placed under district sanctions as they sought to make sense of and respond to both their schools’ failure, as measured by …