Education Research Report:
THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Teacher Evaluations Found to Improve Midcareer Effectiveness
A new study, “Can Teacher Evaluation Improve Teaching?”, shows that Cincinnati’s rigorous Teacher Evaluation System (TES) has had a direct and lasting effect on midcareer teachers’ performance. Students taught by a teacher in the years after she had been through the evaluation program scored 0.11 standard deviations higher in math, on average, than the students she taught in the years before her evaluation (as measured by end-of-year 4th through 8th grade state tests). This difference is equivalent to about 3 - 4 months of additional instruction or a gain of about 4.5 percentile po... more »
Shocking Suspension Rates in thousands of districts across the nation
The Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles has issued “Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion From School,” a nationwide report based on an analysis of Federal government suspension-related data from the 2009-10 school year for grades K-12. This first-ever breakdown of nearly 7,000 districts found that 17% of African American students nationwide received an out-of-school suspension compared to about 5% of White students. The comparable rate for Latinos was 7%. The data analyzed covered about 85% of the... more »
PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WHO CAN PAY ATTENTION MORE LIKELY TO FINISH COLLEGE
Young children who are able to pay attention and persist with a task have a 50 percent greater chance of completing college, according to a new study at Oregon State University. Tracking a group of 430 preschool-age children, the study gives compelling evidence that social and behavioral skills, such as paying attention, following directions and completing a task may be even more crucial than academic abilities. And the good news for parents and educators, the researchers said, is that attention and persistence skills are malleable and can be taught. The results were just publi... more »
Students: strong hearts and lungs = better grades
*Physically fit boys and girls scored higher on reading and math, research reveals* Having a healthy heart and lungs may be one of the most important factors for middle school students to make good grades in math and reading, according to findings presented at the American Psychological Association's 120th Annual Convention. "Cardiorespiratory fitness was the only factor that we consistently found to have an impact on both boys' and girls' grades on reading and math tests," said study co-author Trent A. Petrie, PhD, professor of psychology and director of the Center for Sport Psy... more »