Philadelphia’s Renaissance Schools at 18 Months
Ω Can chronically low-performing schools dramatically improve in a short period of time? That was the question that the Renaissance Schools Initiative – Philadelphia’s approach to the turnaround school reform model – sought to answer when it was implemented in 2009. Eighteen months into the Initiative, as the School District of Philadelphia and the School Reform Commission deliberate its future against the backdrop of severe budget cuts, Research for Action (RFA) has released results of its evaluation of the Renaissance Schools. RFA’s research represents an exhaustive study of sch... more »
The Human Side of Portfolio School District Reform
Ω This study examines the politics of portfolio school district reform, with a primary focus on the issues surrounding high school closures. The authors take an in-depth look at how school closure policies have played out in four urban districts—New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Oakland—and offer a political assessment of what worked or failed and why. The political analyses, case studies, cross-district comparisons, and analysis frameworks may help education leaders anticipate and better address the challenges of closing schools within their own communities. Ω
Middle School Teacher Support Lowers Risk for Early Alcohol Use
Ω Anxiety, depression, stress and social support can predict early alcohol and illicit drug use in youth, according to a study from Carolyn McCarty, PhD, of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, and researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle University. Middle school students from the sixth to the eighth grade who felt more emotional support from teachers reported a delay in alcohol and other illicit substance initiation. Those who reported higher levels of separation anxiety from their parents were also at decreased risk for early alcohol use. The study, “Emotio... more »
Getting in rhythm helps children grasp fractions
Ω Tapping out a beat may help children learn difficult fraction concepts, according to new findings due to be published in the journal Educational Studies in Mathematics. An innovative curriculum uses rhythm to teach fractions at a California school where students in a music-based program scored significantly higher on math tests than their peers who received regular instruction. "Academic Music" is a hands-on curriculum that uses music notation, clapping, drumming and chanting to introduce third-grade students to fractions. The program, co-designed by San Francisco State Universi... more »
High school math teachers show gender bias
Ω Do some high school teachers think math is harder for girls than boys? The authors of a new study say yes. Researchers looked at student grades, test scores and how teachers rated their students' abilities. They found that while on average teachers rate minority students lower than their white male counterparts, these differences disappear once grades are taken into account. (Those findings are consistent with decades of research on the minority gap in math achievement.) The new research, however, found bias against white girls that can't be explained by their academic performanc... more »
Sleeping after processing new info most effective, new study shows
Ω Nodding off in class may not be such a bad idea after all. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that going to sleep shortly after learning new material is most beneficial for recall, Titled "Memory for Semantically Related and Unrelated Declarative Information: The Benefit of Sleep, the Cost of Wake," the study was published March 22 in PLOS One. Notre Dame Psychologist Jessica Payne and colleagues studied 207 students who habitually slept for at least six hours per night. Participants were randomly assigned to study declarative, semantically related or unrelated ... more »
Strategies for Student Behavior and Teacher Coaching
Ω Learning from Charter School Management Organizations: Strategies for Student Behavior and Teacher Coaching is the final report from The National Study of CMO Effectiveness, a four-year study designed to assess the impact of CMOs on student achievement and identify CMO structures and practices that are most effective in raising achievement. This report provides an in-depth look at two promising practices that exhibit a strong association with impacts: high expectations for student behavior and intensive teacher coaching. Researchers from CRPE and Mathematica identified CMOs that ... more »
Untapped Potential: The Status of Middle School Science Education in California
Ω Untapped Potential: The Status of Middle School Science Education in California finds that the state’s middle schools have the potential to provide students with high quality science education, but significant challenges limit opportunities for science learning, leaving that potential unfulfilled. The report’s findings are based on the results of a statewide study of science education conducted in 2010 and 2011 among teachers, principals and school district leaders in California, as well as analysis of secondary data in selected school districts. The study was commissioned by the... more »
How teacher turnover harms student achievement
Ω This study estimates the effects of teacher turnover on over 850,000 New York City 4th and 5th grade student observations over eight years. The results indicate that students in grade-levels with higher turnover score lower in both ELA and math and that this effect is particularly strong in schools with more low-performing and black students. Moreover, the results suggest that there is a disruptive effect of turnover beyond changing the distribution in teacher quality. Related article Ω
Middle School Science Professional Development Program Evaluated
Ω The 2006-11 Regional Educational Laboratory West at WestEd has concluded a rigorous experimental study of the effects of the Making Sense of ScienceTM Force and Motion professional development program. The program is designed to improve teachers’ pedagogical and science content knowledge. The study, Effects of Making Sense of SCIENCETM professional development on the achievement of middle school students, including English language learners, found that grade 8 teachers who received the professional development had greater content knowledge about force and motion and confidence in... more »
10,000 Teachers Share Views on the Teaching Profession
Ω - *Primary Sources 2012: America’s Teachers on the Teaching Profession*is a survey of more than 10,000 public school teachers from every state, urban and rural districts and who are representative of novice and experienced professionals at all grade levels and in all specialties. - The survey was conducted online in July 2011 by research firm Harrison Group Inc. - *Primary Sources 2012* is the second report from Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to survey America’s teachers on their views and opinions. The first report, *Primary Sources: A... more »
Competing for School Improvement Dollars - State Grant-Making Strategies
Ω In 2009 the Obama administration announced a focused commitment to turn around 5,000 of the United States’ chronically lowest-performing public schools as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA. This commitment came with $3 billion in funding for the School Improvement Grant program, or SIG, along with new guidelines to ensure that federal dollars are effectively invested at the district and school level. While states have welcomed the increased funding, the revamped SIG program is sometimes criticized for being overly prescriptive. The administration narrowe... more »
Early Elementary Performance and Attendance in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten
Ω This study looks at attendance in the early grades of elementary school. In particular, The researchers focus on students enrolled in Pre-Kindergarten (PreK) and Kindergarten (K). The researchers follow these young students over several years to determine their pattern of chronic absence (CA), defined as missing more than one-ninth of days enrolled, and their later attendance and academic outcomes. The researchers found that students who are CA in both PreK and K often continue to be CA in later years, e.g. one-half of them will be CA the following year. They are also more likely... more »
Watching Harry Potter Films Enhances Creativity in Children
Ω Researchers from Lancaster University have discovered that youngsters who watch films like Harry Potter improve their imagination and creativity. This is the first attempt to study whether there any educational benefits in exposing children to magical content like witches and wizards, Santa Claus, the Easter bunny and the tooth fairy. Watching Harry Potter films could make young children more creative, say researchers at Lancaster University in the UK. The study examined if there was a link between magical thinking and creativity in preschool children – and it found that there wa... more »
U.S. Education Reform and National Security
Ω Overview The United States' failure to educate its students leaves them unprepared to compete and threatens the country's ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role, finds a new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)–sponsored Independent Task Force report on U.S. Education Reform and National Security. "Educational failure puts the United States' future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk," warns the Task Force, chaired by *Joel I. Klein*, former head of New York City public schools, and *Condoleezza Rice*, former U.S. secre... more »
Literature-Based Character Education Program in Elementary Schools Ineffective
Ω The 2006-11 Regional Educational Laboratory West at WestEd has concluded a randomized controlled trial in California that evaluated Lessons in Character, a character education program designed to integrate easily into a schools’ existing English language arts curriculum. The study, Lessons in Character Impact Evaluation, found no effect of the program on the academic achievement, social competence, or problem behavior of students who participated in the program, compared to students who did not participate. Lessons in Character is a supplementary literature-based language arts ... more »
Teachers, parents trump peers in keeping teens engaged in school
Ω Teachers and parents matter more than peers in keeping adolescents engaged in school, according to a new study that counters the widespread belief that peers matter most in the lives of adolescents. "We were surprised to find that most adolescents continue to be influenced greatly by their teachers and parents when it comes to school engagement," said Ming-Te Wang, the lead author of the study, the Maryland Adolescent Development in Context Study, and a faculty research fellow at University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. "Even though this is a stage when young people ...more »
Examining Why Women Students Abandon Math and Science Majors
Ω Back when Roxanne Hughes was teaching high school science and coaching track, she noticed an inherent difference between boys and girls — both in the classroom and on the field. Boys, it seemed, were supremely more confident. Girls tended to doubt their own abilities. “Even when I was coaching, I noticed that a boy could spend the season on the bench and still think he could get a college scholarship,” she recalled, “while a girl who was an MVP (most valuable player) might think she couldn’t get one.” Hughes, who recently earned a doctorate in educational policy from Florida Sta... more »
Teachers’ effectiveness rises during first four years of career,
Ω * The most dramatic gains occur in chemistry and physics* The Effects of Experience and Attrition for Novice High-School Science and Mathematics Teachers in the March 2 issue of Science demonstrates that while teacher effectiveness rises during the first four years of a teacher’s career in all subjects, the gains are most dramatic in chemistry and physics. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Georgia State University studied results from North Carolina’s exemplary program of end-of-course exams (which was recently cut due to budget considerations... more »
Diagnosis of ADHD on the Rise
Ω * Ten million American children diagnosed with ADHD during doctors’ visits* The number of American children leaving doctors’ offices with an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnosis has risen 66 percent in 10 years, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. Over this same timeframe, specialists, instead of primary care physicians, have begun treating an increasing number of these young patients, the study found. The study, which will be published in the March/April issue of the journal Academic Pediatrics, analyzed ADHD trends from 2000 to 2010 among childre... more »
'Look at me' toddlers eager to collaborate and learn
Ω *Attention-seeking children's development is fostered by favorable response* Parents should think twice before brushing off their child's calls to "look at me!" A Concordia study published in the journal Child Development is the first to show that toddlers' expectations of how their parent will respond to their needs and bids for attention relate to how eager they are to collaborate and learn. Collaboration in toddlers has been linked to the acquisition of social rules and norms later in childhood. Understanding what contributes to more collaboration can help improve conscience ... more »
More than Half of States Increased Graduation Rates
Ω Number of “Dropout Factory” Schools Declined by 23% Since 2002 Graduation Rate Topped 75% in 2009 with Tennessee and New York Leading the Progress With one in four U.S. public school students dropping out of high school before graduation, America continues to face a dropout epidemic. Dropping out makes it harder for these young people to succeed in life, our economy loses hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity and our communities suffer enormous social costs. The nation continues to make progress to end the dropout crisis, according to a report released today by Civic E... more »
Learning from the best school systems in East Asia
Ω As the economic centre of the world is shifting from West to East, so is the centre of high performance in school education. Four of the world’s five highest-performing systems are Hong Kong, Korea, Shanghai and Singapore, according to OECD’s 2009 PISA assessments of students. In Shanghai, the average 15-year old mathematics student is performing at a level two to three years above his or her counterpart in Australia, the USA and Europe. In recent years, Australia and many OECD countries have substantially increased education expenditure, often with disappointing results. Grattan... more »