Education Research Report:
THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
FIT KIDS FINISH FIRST IN THE CLASSROOM
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
Fit kids aren’t only first picked for kickball. New research from Michigan State University shows middle school students in the best physical shape outscore their classmates on standardized tests and take home better report cards. Published in the *Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness*, it’s the first study linking children’s fitness to both improved scores on objective tests and better grades, which rely on subjective decisions by teachers. The study also is among the first to examine how academic performance relates to all aspects of physical fitness – including body ... more »
Among low-income schools, traditional public schools show higher achievement scores than charters
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) recently released Report Cards for a majority of public and charter schools in the state. Public schools comprise 95% (1,772 schools) of the total data set, charter schools comprise 5% (101) of the total. The Report Cards represent a compilation of three years of data intended to provide a standard of measure for school, student, and teacher performance. Forward Institute is conducting an extensive study on the effects of Wisconsin 2011 Act 32 on high poverty vs. low poverty school students, to be completed in January 2013. For... more »
New NAEP Report Relates Vocabulary Skills to Reading Comprehension
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
* National- and State-Level Data Available for Grades 4, 8, and 12* The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report card focuses on how well students are able to use words to gain meaning from the passages they read. Although previous NAEP reading assessments included vocabulary questions, the 2009 assessment was redesigned to provide a new, systematic way of more fully measuring and reporting how students’ understanding of word meanings in the context of the passage impacts reading comprehension. Today’s report, Vocabulary Results from the 2009 and 2011 NAEP Re... more »
Charter Schools Under-Enroll Students With Special Needs, New Review Finds
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
Several recent reports, including one from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, have found that charter schools generally under-enroll special education students when compared to conventional public schools. A new report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education, however, asserts that charter schools’ special education rates are much closer to those of district public schools than is described by these other recent reports. A review of that new report concludes that, even though it was touted as reaching different conclusions – more favorable to charter schools – than ... more »
Using Student Test Scores to Measure Principal Performance
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Expansion of the use of student test score data to measure teacher performance has fueled recent policy interest in using those data to measure the effects of school administrators as well. However, little research has considered the capacity of student performance data to uncover principal effects. Filling this gap, this article identifies multiple conceptual approaches for capturing the contributions of principals to student test score growth, develops empirical models to reflect these approaches, examines the properties of these models, and compares the results of the models empiricall... more »
Ensuring Educational Technology Meets the Needs of Students Today
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Born in Another Time - The Report of the NASBE Study Group on the Role of Technology in Schools and Communities Summary and Recommendations Innovative technologies—from smartphones and smart TVs to iPads and even Leap Pads for preschoolers— have launched our children into a digital age, a period in which the average teenager texts 60 times every day, a large majority of teens have a social networking site, and the combined use of media by students averages 6.5 to nearly 10 hours daily, much of it in a multi-tasking environment. This generation of students truly has been born in a ... more »
Math Assessment Accommodations for English Language Learners
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
WestEd's Regional Educational Laboratory West (REL West) examined the effect of linguistic modification on middle school students' ability to show what they know and can do on mathematics assessments. Linguistic modification involves reducing the complexity of the English used in a test in ways that support clarity without simplifying or significantly altering the targeted construct assessed. This can help ensure that math tests more accurately measure students' math understanding. This study resulted in a report prepared by REL West staff. Research Questions The primary research...more »
No Clear Path to Mathematics Learning
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
New research examining the course-taking patterns of some 24,000 students in 24 California unified school districts finds that students already doing well in mathematics in the 7th grade are more likely to take advanced math courses in high school and achieve proficiency on the California Standards Test (CST) in algebra. But for the many students who struggle with math in grade 7, there is no clear path to learning and achievement in this critical content area. Conducted by a team of researchers at WestEd and SRI International and released today by the Center for the Future of Tea... more »
Effectiveness of Four Supplemental Reading Comprehension Interventions
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
This article presents evidence from a large-scale randomized controlled trial of the effects of four supplemental reading comprehension curricula (Project CRISS, ReadAbout, Read for Real, and Reading for Knowledge) on students’ understanding of informational text. Across 2 school years, the study included 10 school districts, more than 200 schools, and more than 10,000 fifth-grade students. Schools interested in implementing 1 of the 4 supplemental curricula were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups or to a control group. The impact analyses in the study's first year revea...more »
Effective Reading Programs for Spanish-Dominant English Language Learners (ELLs) in the Elementary Grades
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
This review synthesizes research on English reading outcomes of all types of programs for Spanish-dominant English language learners (ELLs) in elementary schools. It is divided into two major sections. One focuses on studies of language of instruction and one on reading approaches for ELLs holding constant language of instruction. A total of 13 qualifying studies met the inclusion criteria for language of instruction. Though the overall findings indicate a positive effect (effect size = .21) in favor of bilingual education, the largest and longest term evaluations, including the o... more »
First- Through Eighth-Grade Retention Rates for All 50 States
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
How many students repeat a grade each year? How do retention rates vary across states and over time? Despite extensive research on the predictors and consequences of grade retention, there is no systematic way to quantify state-level retention rates; even national estimates rely on imperfect proxy measures. This report presents a conceptually simple method—based on publicly available data that are routinely collected each year—that describes retention rates at the state and national levels. After describing and validating this method, the authors use it to report first- through ... more »
Why Superintendents Turn Over
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Although superintendent turnover can hinder district reform and improvement, research examining superintendent exits is scarce. This studyidentifies factors contributing to superintendent turnover in California by matching original superintendent and school board survey data with administrative data and information hand-collected from news sources on why superintendents left and where they went. Among 215 superintendents studied beginning in 2006, 45% exited within 3 years. Using a multinomial framework to separate retirements from other turnover, the authors find that factors suc... more »
Recruiting Effective Math Teachers: Evidence From New York City
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
For well over a decade school districts across the United States have struggled to recruit and retain effective mathematics teachers. In response to the need for qualified math teachers and the difficulty of directly recruiting individuals who have already completed the math content required for qualification, some districts, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and New York City, have developed alternative certification programs with a math immersion component to recruit otherwise well-qualified candidates who do not have undergraduate majors in math. This articl... more »
Behavior problems, not depression, linked to lower grades for depressed youths
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Behavior problems, not depression, are linked to lower grades for depressed adolescents, according to a study in the December issue of the *Journal of Health and Social Behavior. * "Behavior problems including attention issues, delinquency, and substance use are associated with diminished achievement, but depression is not," said the study's lead author Jane D. McLeod, a sociology professor and an associate dean at Indiana University. "Certainly, there are depressed youths who have trouble in school, but it's likely because they are also using substances, engaging in delinquent acti... more »
State Spending on K-12 Assessment Systems
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
In the coming years, states will need to make the most significant changes to their assessment systems in a decade as they implement the Common Core State Standards, a common framework for what students are expected to know that will replace existing standards in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The Common Core effort has prompted concerns about the cost of implementing the new standards and assessments, but there is little comprehensive up-to-date information on the costs of assessment systems currently in place throughout the country. This new report by Matthew Chingos of... more »
ENHANCING THE EFFICACY OF TEACHER INCENTIVES
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
In recent years, a number of U.S. states and school districts have implemented teacher financial-incentive plans, also known as merit pay, with the goal of increasing student achievement. Some past studies have shown that such reform attempts, which pay teachers bonuses after their students hit certain goals, have had limited effects on student achievement. In Enhancing the Efficacy of Teacher Incentives Through Loss Aversion: A Field Experiment (NBER Working Paper No. 18237), co-authors Ronald Fryer, Jr., Steven Levitt, John List, and Sally Sadoff find that using an alternative "l...more »
Speedy Process for Common Standards Adoption
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
[image: Speedy Process for Common Standards Adoption] by edweek.Learn about data visualization tools.
NYS charter schools may not under-enroll students with special needs
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
A fresh examination of special education enrollment patterns in New York State suggests that charter schools may be doing better at enrolling students with special needs than many believe. The issue arises in part from a federal General Accounting Office (GAO) report that said, at the national level, charter schools enroll fewer students with special needs than schools run by districts. In the aggregate that may be true; but new research comparing New York State’s district-run schools with charter schools finds important variations in the enrollment patterns of students with specia... more »
NEW JERSEY CHARTER PUBLIC SCHOOLS SIGNIFICANTLY OUTPERFORM THEIR DISTRICT SCHOOL PEERS
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
A new report released today by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) found that students in New Jersey charter public schools on average make larger learning gains in both reading and mathematics compared to their traditional district school peers. New Jersey charter school students on average gain an additional two months of learning per year in reading and an additional three months of learning per year in math compared to their district school counterparts. CREDO at Stanford University is the nation’s foremost independent analyst of charter s... more »
Current expenditures per pupil for public education
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
This report presents state-level data on revenues by source and expenditures by function for public elementary and secondary education for school year 2009-10. Current expenditures per pupil for public elementary and secondary education were $10,652 on a national level in FY 10. Adjusting for inflation, per pupil state and local revenues decreased by 1 percent or more in 35 states and increased by 1 percent or more in 9 states from FY 09 to FY 10. Per pupil current expenditures decreased by 1 percent or more in 16 states and increased by 1 percent or more in 23 states from FY 09 to... more »