This Week's Education Research Report
Long-Term Outcomes of College-Prep Programs
A program in Texas in 2010 provided payments to inner-city 11th and 12th grade students and their teachers for achieving passing scores on Advanced Placement exams. This study finds that the students involved were more likely to attend college, to remain beyond their first year, and to earn a college degree. They also were likelier to be employed and to earn higher wages than students not in the program. This evidence suggests that implementing college-prep programs in existing urban schools can improve the long-run prospects for disadvantaged students.
Knowledge, Tests, and Fadeout in Educational Interventions
Educational interventions are often evaluated and compared on the basis of their impacts on test scores. Decades of research have produced two empirical regularities: interventions in later grades tend to have smaller effects than the same interventions in earlier grades, and the test score impacts of early educational interventions almost universally “fade out” over time. This paper explores whether these empirical regularities are an artifact of the common practice of rescaling test scores in terms of a student’s position in a widening distribution of knowledge. If a standard d... more »
School Turnarounds: Evidence from the 2009 Stimulus
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) targeted substantial School Improvement Grants (SIGs) to the nation’s “persistently lowest achieving” public schools (i.e., up to $2 million per school annually over 3 years) but required schools accepting these awards to implement a federally prescribed school-reform model. Schools that met the “lowest-achieving” and “lack of progress” thresholds within their state had prioritized eligibility for these SIG-funded interventions. Using data from California, this study leverages these two discontinuous eligibility rules to i... more »
Required physical education in schools may ensure kids meet daily recommended physical activity levels
In a time period when many schools are eliminating their physical education classes even while childhood obesity and diabetes rates skyrocket in this country, a national study published today in the American Journal of Public Health finds that specific and required state PE time-related laws may be a crucial tool for ensuring that daily physical activity recommendations among children are met. Researchers examined whether or not public schools in states with specific and stringent physical education laws reported more weekly PE time in the most recent School Health Policies and P... more »
Early substance use linked to lower educational achievement
Researchers have found evidence that early drug and alcohol use is associated with lower levels of educational attainment. Studying male twins who served in the military during the Vietnam era, they found that those who began drinking or using drugs as young teens or who became dependent on alcohol, nicotine or marijuana, were less likely to finish college than those who didn't use alcohol or drugs until later in life and never became dependent. The study, by investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Health Care Sys... more »
Teaching Creativity to Children from a Galaxy Away
*Encouraging "expansive thinking" opens children to creative possibilities*Playing make-believe is more than a childhood pasttime. According to psychologists, it's also crucial to building creativity, giving a child the ability to consider alternative realities and perspectives. And this type of thinking is essential to future development, aiding interpersonal and problem-solving skills and the ability to invent new theories and concepts. That has been shown to be a component of future professional success in fields from the arts to the sciences and business. But can creativity be... more »
Head Impacts in Contact Sports May Reduce Learning in College Athletes
A new study suggests that head impacts experienced during contact sports such as football and hockey may worsen some college athletes' ability to acquire new information. The research is published in the May 16, 2012, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved college athletes at three Division I schools and compared 214 athletes in contact sports to 45 athletes in non-contact sports such as track, crew and Nordic skiing at the beginning and at the end of their seasons. The contact sport athletes wore special helmets t... more »
School Board Case Studies
*School Board Case Studies* takes a close look at school boards and how the local business community can make them more accountable, effective, and focused on the needs of students. This 13-city case study highlights both rural and urban districts with diverse school boards and the extent to which the business community has played a role in school governance. School boards can be responsible for everything from approving performance evaluation systems, hiring district leadership, and negotiating union contracts, to developing and enforcing budgets. Their decisions have consequence... more »
The Importance of Being in School: A Report on Absenteeism in the Nation’s Public Schools
Students need to attend school daily to succeed. The good news of this report is that being in school leads to succeeding in school. Achievement, especially in math, is very sensitive to attendance, and absence of even two weeks during one school year matters. Attendance also strongly affects standardized test scores and graduation and dropout rates. Educators and policymakers cannot truly understand achievement gaps or efforts to close them without considering chronic absenteeism. Chronic absenteeism is not the same as truancy or average daily attendance – the attendance rate sch... more »
Charter Schools: How Many Bucks for the Desired Bang?
Do charter schools live up to their supporters’ claim that they deliver a better education for less money? While previous research has focused on the first half of that claim – education quality -- a new report published by the National Education Policy Center examines the second half – what charters spend. Schools operated by major charter management organizations (CMOs) generally spend more than surrounding public schools, according to Spending by the Major Charter Management Organizations: Comparing Charter School & Local Public District Financial Resources in New York, Ohio an... more »
Playful Games Promote Reading Development
Short but intense training sessions in the form of structured language games from the age of four can stimulate children's early language development and may also make it easier for children to learn to read. This is found in a current research project at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Previous research has shown that children's reading development can be stimulated with structured and playful language games from the age of six. In a current three-year study, researchers at the University of Gothenburg are exploring the effects of having children as young as four participat... more »
Youth with Autism Face Barriers to Employment and Education After High School
Compared with youth with other disabilities, young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) face a disproportionately difficult time navigating work and educational opportunities after high school, finds a new study by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Thirty-five percent of the youth with ASDs had no engagement with employment or education in the first six years after high school,” Shattuck says. “Rates of involvement in all employment and education were lower for those with lower income.” The study, published... more »
Evaluation of Green Dot Charter High Schools Locke Transformation Project
The National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) conducted a multi-year evaluation of a major school reform project at Alain Leroy Locke High School, historically one of California’s lowest performing secondary schools. Beginning in 2007, Locke High School transitioned into a set of smaller, Green Dot Charter High Schools, subsequently referred to as Green Dot Locke (GDL) in this report. Based on 9th grade students who entered GDL in 2007 and 2008 respectively, CRESST used a range of student outcomes to monitor progress of the GDL transforma... more »
Pay-to-play sports keeping lower-income kids out of the game
br> *Nearly 1 in 5 lower-income parents report costs forced their children to cut back on sports, according to U-M's National Poll on Children's Health* In an era of tight funding, school districts across the country are cutting their athletic budgets. Many schools are implementing athletic participation fees to cover the cost of school sports. But those fees have forced kids in lower-income families to the sidelines, according to a new poll that found nearly one in five lower-income parents report their children are participating less in school sports. The University of Michigan C... more »
Searching for the reality of virtual schools
This study, from the Center for Public Education, focuses on what we know and don't know about online K-12 education. *Main findings* • Online courses and schools enroll a small fraction of the 52 million public school students, but they are rapidly gaining ground. In 2009-10, elementary and secondary students took approximately 1.8 million courses online. In addition, about 250,000 students were enrolled full-time in virtual schools in 2010-11, up from 200,000 the year before. • The development, management and staffing of online courses and schools is supported by both public a... more »
Development and Implementation of Title III Accountability
Complete Report Related Article Title III, Section 3122(a), requires states to establish accountability systems to monitor state and district performance in supporting ELs’ English language proficiency development and mastery of challenging academic content. Under these accountability systems, states must set three performance objectives known as Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives (AMAOs), and then hold Title III–funded districts accountable for meeting those performance objectives every year. Title III districts that do not meet their AMAOs for two or four consecutive year... more »
World's Top Countries for Higher Education
New research into national education systems gives the first ranking of countries that are the 'best' at providing higher education. Research authors at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research,University of Melbourne, looked at the most recent data from 48 countries across 20 different measures. The range of measures is grouped under four headings: resources (investment by government and private sector), output (research and its impact, as well as the production of an educated workforce which meets labour market needs), connectivity (international networks ... more »
NJ: Statewide Report on Arts Education Finds Nearly Every Child Has Access to Arts Education, With Access Increasing Over Past Five Years
Nearly every child in New Jersey has access to arts education in their school, according to a survey released today from the New Jersey Arts Education Census Project. The survey is the most comprehensive assessment of arts education in New Jersey schools ever conducted and reflects data collected from 99 percent of New Jersey's public schools. The Census Project is part of a public-private partnership that includes the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, New Jersey Department of Education, Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, New Jersey Arts Education Partnership,... more »