This Week's Education Research Report 10-27-12 #SOSCHAT #EDCHAT #P2

Education Research Report:

THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT

Autism early intervention found to normalize brain activity in children as young as 18 months

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 17 hours ago

An intensive early intervention therapy that is effective for improving cognition and language skills among very young children with autism also normalizes their brain activity, decreases their autism symptoms and improves their social skills, a nationwide study has found. The researchers said the study is the first to demonstrate that an autism early intervention program can normalize brain activity. "We know that infant brains are quite malleable and previously demonstrated that this therapy capitalizes on the potential of learning that an infant brain has in order to limit auti... more »

We Need To Better Identify Talented Students from Low Income and Disadvantaged Backgrounds

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 18 hours ago

Greater accountability, better trained teachers, expanded access to supplemental programs and the removal of policy barriers are among the recommendations a newly released report offers to reverse the nation's neglect of its high-potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Unlocking Emergent Talent: Supporting High Achievement of Low-Income, High-Ability Students, released by the National Association for Gifted Children, offers a set of priority recommendations that emerged out of a two day National Summit on Low-Income, High-Ability Learners that brought together more than... more »

Charter School Grants Aren't Adequately Monitored

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

*U.S. Department of Education Office of the Inspector General’s FINAL AUDIT REPORT of The Office of Innovation and Improvement’s Oversight and Monitoring of the Charter Schools Program’s Planning and Implementation Grants * The objectives of this audit were to determine whether the U.S. Department of Education (Department), Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) (1) had effective oversight and monitoring to ensure grantees of the Charter Schools Program’s State Educational Agency (SEA) Planning and Implementation Grant (SEA grant) and the Charter School Program non-SEA Plannin... more »

Michigan: Higher Standards=Lower Graduation Rates

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

*The class of 2011, the first group of students exposed to the Michigan Merit Curriculum (MMC) for their entire high school careers, saw mixed results.* The introduction of the MMC reduced graduation rates slightly for students who entered high school with weak academic skills. For those who entered with strong skills, there was no effect of the MMC on high school completion rates. Performance on standardized tests rose slightly for students who entered high school with strong skills. The impact on test scores was small or negative for those who entered high school with weak skil... more »

Principals’ Contributions to Student Achievement Growth

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

* Analysis of Texas data shows that students gain between two and seven months of additional learning in schools with effective principals* While it is widely believed that good school principals have a positive impact on student achievement, there has been little systematic research to date on the effect of strong school leadership. Now a new study, “School Leaders Matter,” has found that highly effective principals raise the achievement of a typical student in their schools by between 0.05 and 0.21 standard deviations, the equivalent of between two and seven months of additional ... more »

School Improvement Grants

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

This report is an examination of the implementation of School Improvement Grants (SIG) authorized under Title I section 1003(g) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and supplemented by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. “School Improvement Grants: Analyses of State Applications and Eligible and Awarded Schools” uses publicly-available data from State Education Agency (SEA) Web sites, SEA SIG applications, and the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core of Data to examine the following: (1) the SIG related policies and practices that ...more »

Education Savings Accounts

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago

School choice policies are increasing at a rapid rate, with conventional voucher plans now joined by neovouchers plans funded through donor tax credits as well as plans to fund private schooling through personal tax credits for parents. Into this mix, we can now add Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, the name given by Arizona lawmakers when they adopted the nation’s first Education Savings Account (ESA) plan in 2012. A recent report, The Way of the Future: Education Savings Accounts for Every American Family, promotes these ESAs as well-designed to bring Milton Friedman’s concept of... more »

High schools with athletic trainers have more diagnosed concussions, fewer overall injuries

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

High schools with athletic trainers have lower overall injury rates, according to a new study, "A Comparative Analysis of Injury Rates and Patterns Among Girls' Soccer and Basketball Players," presented Oct. 22 at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. In addition, athletes at schools with athletic trainers are more likely to be diagnosed with a concussion. Researchers reviewed national sports injury data on girls' high school soccer and basketball programs with athletic trainers, between the fall of 2006 and the spring of 2009, ... more »

New guidelines to prevent cheerleading injuries

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

Over the past few decades, cheerleading has evolved from leading the crowd in cheers at football games to a competitive, year-round sport featuring complex acrobatic stunts performed by a growing number of athletes – and as a result the number and severity of injuries from cheerleading has also surged. In a new policy statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urges coaches, parents and school officials to follow injury-prevention guidelines, develop emergency plans and ensure cheerleading programs have access to the same level of qualified coaches, medical care and injury... more »

Excessive daytime sleepiness common in high school students

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

New research shows that high school students experience excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), with most students sleeping fewer than 7 hours per night. Researchers from West Virginia University surveyed 141 high school students, of which 28.4% were either obese or overweight. Overall, 39% of the students surveyed experienced EDS with an Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) of >10, and were more likely to report perception of inadequate or nonrefreshing sleep than those with ESS < 10. However, the duration of sleep was less than 7 hours per night in both groups. There was no difference in ... more »

The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

How schooling affects cognitive skills is a fundamental question for studies of human capital and labor markets. While scores on cognitive ability tests are positively associated with schooling, it has proven difficult to ascertain whether this relationship is causal. Moreover, the effect of schooling is difficult to separate from the confounding factors of age at test date, relative age within a classroom, season of birth, and cohort effects. In this paper, the authors exploit conditionally random variation in the assigned test date for a battery of cognitive tests which almost ... more »

The Gender Gap in Mathematics: Evidence from Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

The authors of this study establish the presence of a gender gap in mathematics across many low- and middle-income countries using detailed, comparable test score data. Examining micro level data on school performance linked to household demographics the authors note that first, the gender gap appears to increase with age. Indeed, the gap nearly doubles when comparing 4th grade and 8th grade test scores. Second, the authors test whether commonly proposed explanations such as parental background and investments, unobserved ability, and classroom environment (including teacher gende... more »

Flu's Deadly Danger & the Benefits of School Vaccinations

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

New data being presented at IDWeek 2012TM shows the fatal risk that influenza poses even for children without underlying health conditions and the effectiveness of school-based vaccination programs in protecting student populations. Together, these findings support the crucial public health message that families should take the flu virus seriously every year. One study viewed influenza from an epidemiological perspective, analyzing U.S. pediatric influenza-associated deaths over an eight-year period and finding that 43 percent of the deaths occurred in children with no health cond... more »

Cyberbullying Only Rarely the Sole Factor Identified in Teen Suicides

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

Cyberbullying -- the use of the Internet, phones or other technologies to repeatedly harass or mistreat peers -- is often linked with teen suicide in media reports. However, new research presented on Oct. 20, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans, shows that the reality is more complex. Most teen suicide victims are bullied both online and in school, and many suicide victims also suffer from depression. For the abstract, "Cyberbullying and Suicide: A Retrospective Analysis of 41 Cases," researchers searched the Internet for re... more »

Lack of Sleep Tied to Teen Sports Injuries

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago

Adolescent athletes who slept eight or more hours each night were 68 percent less likely to be injured than athletes who regularly slept less, according to an abstract presented Oct. 21, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in New Orleans. For the abstract, "Lack of Sleep is Associated with Increased Risk of Injury in Adolescent Athletes," researchers asked middle and high school athletes (grades 7 to 12) enrolled at the Harvard-Westlake School in Studio City, Calif., to answer questions about the number of sports they played and the time t... more »