Education Research Report:
THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Can High Schools Reduce College Enrollment Gaps With a New Counseling Model?
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
Despite planning college, disadvantaged students are less likely to enroll in college, particularly 4-year colleges. Beyond cost and academic achievement, previous research finds that a lack of college-related social resources poses barriers. However, little research investigates whether schools can help. This study examines whether, how, and for whom a new counseling model aimed at providing college-related social resources may improve college enrollment. Following nearly all seniors in Chicago Public Schools from senior year through the fall after high school, the authors find ... more »
The (Mis)Alignment Between Mathematics Instructional Content and Student Knowledge in Kindergarten
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
Kindergarten mathematics skills are important for subsequent achievement, yet mathematics is underemphasized in kindergarten classrooms. Using nationally representative data, this study explored the relationship between students’ school-entry math skills, classroom content coverage, and end-of-kindergarten math achievement. Although the vast majority of children entered kindergarten having mastered basic counting and able to recognize simple geometric shapes, their teachers reported spending the most mathematics time—typically about 13 days per month—on this content. On average, e... more »
Voucher students realize substantial achievement gains after moving to the public sector
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
Few school choice evaluations consider students who leave such programs, and fewer still consider the effects of leaving these programs as policy-relevant outcomes. Using a representative sample of students from the citywide voucher program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this study analyzes more than 1,000 students who leave the program during a 4-year period. Low-performing voucher students tend to move from the voucher sector into lower performing and less effective public schools than the typical public school student attends, whereas high-performing students transfer to better publi... more »
Success for All: No effect on reading achievement in grades 3 through 5
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
This study evaluates the impact of Success for All literacy instruction in grades 3 through 5 using data from the same cluster randomized trial used to evaluate effects in the earlier grades (K–2). In contrast to the early benefits, there is no effect on reading achievement in the later grades, either overall or for students and schools with high or low baseline reading achievement. This suggests that the impact of Success for All—including established long-term positive effects—may depend on early exposure. As a result, educators may experience difficulty replicating the typical... more »
The Effects of NCLB on School Resources and Practices
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
A number of studies have examined the impact of school accountability policies, including No Child Left Behind (NCLB), on student achievement. However, there is relatively little evidence on how school accountability reforms and NCLB, in particular, have influenced education policies and practices. This study examines the effects of NCLB on multiple district, school, and teacher traits using district-year financial data and pooled cross sections of teacher and principal surveys. It concludes that NCLB increased per-pupil spending by nearly $600, which was funded primarily through... more »
Do Low-SES Students Benefit from Dual Enrollment?
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 hours ago
Dual enrollment in high school is viewed by many as one mechanism for widening college admission and completion of low-income students. However, little evidence demonstrates that these students discretely benefit from dual enrollment and whether these programs narrow attainment gaps vis-à-vis students from middle-class or affluent family backgrounds. Using the National Longitudinal Study of 1988 (N= 8,800), this study finds significant benefits in boosting rates of college degree attainment for low-income students while holding weaker effects for peers from more affluent backgrou... more »
GPA May Be Contagious in High-School Social Networks
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
High school students whose friends' average grade point average (GPA) is greater than their own have a tendency to increase their own GPA over the course of a year, according to research published February 13 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Hiroki Sayama from Binghamton University and his collaborators from Maine-Endwell High School in Endwell, New York, including four high school student researchers. Previous studies have shown that a student's social network can influence obesity, emotional state and other cognitive traits and behavior. However, this is the first to exami...more »
Waivers slow progress in some states in holding schools accountable for how many students they graduate from high school
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
An extensive analysis by the Alliance for Excellent Education shows that recent progress in holding schools accountable for how many students they graduate from high school—the ultimate goal of K–12 education—may be slowed in some states based on waivers recently granted under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The Alliance’s findings are contained in a new report, *The Effect of ESEA Waiver Plans on High School Graduation Rate Accountability*, which includes a review of approved waiver plans submitted by thirty... more »
ADHD symptoms persist for most young children despite treatment
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Nine out of 10 young children with moderate to severe attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) continue to experience serious, often severe symptoms and impairment long after their original diagnoses and, in many cases, despite treatment, according to a federally funded multi-center study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. The study, published online Feb. 11 in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, is the largest long-term analysis to date of preschoolers with ADHD, the investigators say, and sheds much-needed light on th... more »
Negative stereotypes about boys hinder their academic achievement
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Negative stereotypes about boys may hinder their achievement, while assuring them that girls and boys are equally academic may help them achieve. From a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe adults think so, too. Even at these very young ages, boys' performance on an academic task is affected by messages that suggest that girls will do better than they will. Those are the conclusions of new research published in the journal Child Development and conducted at the University of Kent. The research sought to determine the causes of boy...more »
Teaching teens that people can change reduces aggression in school
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Teenagers from all walks of life who believe people can't change react more aggressively to a peer conflict than those who think people can change. And teaching them that people have the potential to change can reduce these aggressive reactions. Those are the findings of a new study published in the journal Child Development. The research was conducted at the University of Texas at Austin, Emory University, and Stanford University. Prior research has shown that children who grow up in hostile environments, such as high-violence neighborhoods, are more likely to interpret even mino... more »
Early music lessons boost brain development
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
A study published last month in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that musical training before the age of seven has a significant effect on the development of the brain, showing that those who began early had stronger connections between motor regions – the parts of the brain that help you plan and carry out movements. This research was carried out by students in the laboratory of Concordia University psychology professor Virginia Penhune, and in collaboration with Robert J. Zatorre, a researcher at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University. The stu... more »
Online Bullying As Harmful As Physical Bullying
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Children who are bullied online or by mobile phone are just as likely to skip school or consider suicide as kids who are physically bullied, according to a study led by a Michigan State University criminologist. The findings, published in the International Criminal Justice Review, suggest parents, school officials and policymakers should consider bullying experiences both on and offline when creating anti-bullying policies and procedures. "We should not ignore one form of bullying for the sake of the other," said Thomas Holt, associate professor of criminal justice. "The results su... more »
Cities Struggling to Find Productive Uses for Closed Schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
School districts in Philadelphia and big cities across much of America are struggling to find productive new uses for hundreds of school buildings closed due to declines in enrollment and school-age population, according to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts. The report, Shuttered Public Schools: The Struggle to Bring Old Buildings New Life, examines the school disposition process in Philadelphia and 11 other cities that have significant inventories of decommissioned schools: Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, St. Lou... more »
New WWC Reports on Math and Literacy Programs
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Reports released by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) this week review the existing research on two programs: *Investigations in Number, Data, and Space®* and* LANGUAGE!®*. * Investigations in Number, Data, and Space® *is an activity-based K–5 math curriculum designed to help students understand number and operations, geometry, data, measurement, and early algebra. Based on the research evidence, the WWC found Investigations in Number, Data, and Space® to have potentially positive effects on mathematics achievement for elementary school students. To read the full WWC report, go to ... more »
Charter School Report Provides Little Basis for Advocacy
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
The overall research base is now clear that the charter school sector largely mirrors the conventional public school sector in terms of students’ test scores. This is again confirmed by a recent analysis of charter schools in Michigan. A new review of that study points to some limitations but concludes that it employs solid analytic methods and relies on a large, impressive dataset. Charter School Performance in Michigan was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by professor Andrew Maul of the University of Colorado Boulder. Maul’s scholarly work focuses on measurem... more »
Substitute Teachers are a Large Presence in American Schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago
According to a 2009-2010 report from the U.S. Department of Education based on data from surveys of 57,000 schools, U.S. teachers take off an average of 9.4 days each or 5% of regular school days, during a typical 180-day school year, and substitute teachers are called to fill in for absent teachers. This means that the average public school student has substitute teachers for more than six months of his or her school career. In a new analysis, “No Substitute for a Teacher,” June Kronholz discusses recent research on teacher absences and the impact that the reliance on substitutes ... more »
Professional communities and teacher collaboration foster greater mathematics achievemen
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago
Scholars have not adequately assessed how organizational cultures in schools differentially influence students’ mathematics achievement by race and socioeconomic status (SES). We focus on what we term collective pedagogical teacher culture, highlighting the role of professional communities and teacher collaboration in influencing mathematics achievement. This study illustrates that schools where teachers perceive the presence of professional communities and teacher collaboration foster greater mathematics achievement throughout elementary school. Furthermore, achievement gaps by ... more »
Birthdays, Schooling, and Crime: New Evidence on the Dropout-Crime Nexus
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago
This report, based on administrative data for five cohorts of public school children in North Carolina demonstrates that those born just after the cut date for starting school (and therefore among the the oldest students in the class, are likely to outperform those born just before in reading and math in middle school, and are less likely to be involved in juvenile delinquency. On the other hand, those born after the cut date are more likely to drop out of high school before graduation. quite possibly because they have longer exposure to the legal possibility of dropping out. The... more »
Can Breakfast Make Kids Smarter?
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
New research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing has found that children who regularly have breakfast on a near-daily basis had significantly higher full scale, verbal, and performance IQ test scores. In one of the first studies to examine IQ and breakfast consumption, researchers examined data from 1,269 children six years old in China, where breakfast is highly valued, and concluded that children who did not eat breakfast regularly had 5.58 points lower verbal, 2.50 points lower performance, and 4.6 points lower total IQ scores than children who often or always... more »
Examining the Relationships Among Classroom Goal Structure, Achievement Goal Orientation, Motivation and Self-regulated Learning for Ethnically Diverse Learners
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
The purpose of this study was to explore the learning strategies used by ethnically diverse learners and to investigate the relationships among the constructsof classroom goal structure, achievement goal orientation, motivation and self-regulated learning in an ethnically diverse population of fourth and fifth grade learners (n=396). Goal setting, environmental restructuring, and seeking assistance from adults were described most frequently by this sample of African American and Hispanic elementary students. Correlational analyses revealed moderate positive relationships among the ... more »