Education Research Report:
THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
School-based kitchen gardens are getting an A+
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
Grow it, try it, and you just might like it is a motto many schools are embracing to encourage children to eat more fruits and vegetables. Through community-based kitchen garden programs, particularly those with dedicated cooking components, schools are successfully introducing students to healthier foods. In a new study released in the March/April 2013 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, researchers found that growing and then cooking the foods that kids grew increased their willingness to try new foods. A group of investigators from the University of Melbou... more »
ADHD symptoms persist for most young children despite treatment
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
A study published in the March 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that 9 out of 10 young children with moderate to severe attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) continue to experience serious to severe symptoms and impairment long after their original diagnoses, and in many cases, despite treatment. The study, a federally funded multi-center study led by investigators at Johns Hopkins Children's Center, is the largest long-term analysis to date of preschoolers with ADHD, according to the researchers, and sheds much-ne... more »
Test-taking May Improve Learning in People of All Ages
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
Older adults who haven’t been in school for a while are as capable of learning from tests as younger adults and college students, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. No matter their age or if they work or go to college full time, people appear to learn more when tested on material, rather than simply rereading or restudying information, according to research published online in the APA journal Psychology and Aging®. "The use of testing as a way to learn new information has been thoroughly examined in young students. This research builds on... more »
The Effects of Texas's Targeted Pre-Kindergarten Program on Academic Performance
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
This paper assesses the extent to which a large-scale public program, Texas's targeted pre-Kindergarten (pre-K), affects scores on math and reading achievement tests, the likelihood of being retained in grade, and the probability that a student receives special education services. The researchers find that having participated in Texas's targeted pre-K program is associated with increased scores on the math and reading sections of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), reductions in the likelihood of being retained in grade, and reductions in the probability of receiving s... more »
New Teachers' Early Results Predictive Of Long-Term Success
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
This paper employs data from New York City to explores the extent to which measures of teacher effectiveness during the first two years reliably predicts future performance. The findings suggest that early career experiences may provide useful insights regarding future performance and offer opportunities to better understand how to improve teacher effectiveness. The paper presents evidence not only about the predictive power of early value-added scores, but also on the limitations and imprecision of those predictions. Related article
Postsecondary Education and Labor Market Outcomes in the U.S.
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
In this paper, the authors seek to provide a fairly comprehensive and up-to-date snapshot of the most important postsecondary education and labor market outcomes in the U.S. using two nationally representative sources of data: The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and The National Educational Longitudinal Survey (NELS). This national overview can serve as an important benchmark for the growing literature using administrative state level data to explore educational outcomes. Postsecondary educational attainment has risen modestly over the past two decades, with g... more »
North Carolina’s Early College High Schools & College Preparedness
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
Early College High Schools are small, innovative public schools that offer students the opportunity to earn both a high school diploma and two years of college credit in four or five years free-of-charge. The model has been replicated more than 230 times in 28 states and the District of Columbia. This working paper studies 33 Early Colleges in North Carolina to measure their effect on student progression through the mathematics and science pipelines each of which consist of three college-preparatory courses. The pipeline concept stresses the importance of when a student takes a co... more »
Evaluating teachers -- A snapshot
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind waiver requirements have prompted states to make major changes to teacher evaluation policies. This report offers state-by-state data that shows how often states evaluate teachers, how many levels states use to rate teachers, and how much of a teacher's evaluation is based on student data: Only 12 states have received approval from the U.S. Department of Education on their teacher-evaluation systems. Among the issues slowing the approval process are the use of students' test scores in evaluating teachers and how to evaluate teachers of su... more »
Dual Enrollment Programs and Courses for High School Students
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
During the 2010-11 academic year, 53 percent of all institutions reported high school students took courses for college credit within or outside of dual enrollment programs. “Dual Enrollment Programs and Courses for High School Students at Postsecondary Institutions: 2010-11,” a First Look report from the Postsecondary Education Quick Information System (PEQIS) provides national data about enrollment in dual enrollment programs, eligibility requirements for participating in dual enrollment programs, the types of instructors in dual enrollment programs, and expenses paid by student... more »
Two reports on early childhood curricula: “no discernible effects”
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 3 days ago
Two reports summarize the research on early childhood curricula. Both programs have studies with designs that meet WWC standards, but the findings from those studies do not show a statistically significant or substantively important effect, either positive or negative. Because the WWC reviews are limited by the studies that have already been conducted, the WWC concludes that these programs have “no discernible effects,” given the current research that exists in the field. These two reports are: • The Creative Curriculum® for Preschool: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/interventionreport.a... more »
Estimating the effects of school principals on student achievement
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago
A recent paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research that attempts to estimate the effects of school principals on student achievement is ambitious in its scope but is undermined by serious methodological limitations, a new review released today concludes. Indeed, the reviewer, Margaret Terry Orr of the Bank Street College of Education in New York City, finds that the most salient lesson to be learned from the paper is that it’s simply impossible to accurately estimate principal effectiveness using student achievement data for performance evaluation decisions given limitatio... more »
Does Sorting Students Improve Scores?
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
This paper examines schools' decisions to sort students into different classes and how those sorting processes impact student achievement. There are two potential effects that result from schools creating homogeneous classes--a "tracking effect," which allows teachers to direct their focus to a more narrow range of students, and a peer effect, which causes a particular student's achievement to be influenced by the quality of peers in his classroom. In schools with homogeneous sorting, both the tracking effect and the peer effect should benefit high performing students. However, the effec... more »
Sex Education Requiremennts and Teen Pregnancy
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
This brief from the Guttmacher Institute summarizes state-level sex and HIV education policies, as well as specific content requirements, based on a review of state laws, regulations and other legally binding policies. HIGHLIGHTS: General Requirements: Sex Education and HIV Education 22 states and the District of Columbia mandate sex education. 20 states and the District of Columbia mandate both sex education and HIV education. 2 states only mandate sex education. 33 states and the District of Columbia mandate HIV education; of these states, 13 mandate only HIV education. 27 s... more »
Setting passing standards for readiness
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Performance standards are a powerful way to communicate K–12 student achievement (e.g., proficiency) and are the cornerstone of standards-based reform. As education reform shifts the focus to college and career readiness, approaches for setting performance standards need to be revised. The focus on assessing student readiness can move performance standards toward an increasingly empirical grounding, leading to more meaningful and understandable standards for student achievement and better guideposts for instructional improvement. This article, Evidence-Based Standard Setting Esta...more »
K-1 At-Risk Summer School: Promising Results
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
This study examined the impact of a summer literacy program on kindergarten and first-grade students who were at moderate risk for reading difficulties in one Pacific Northwest school district. Study authors randomly assigned students to either receive an invitation to attend the summer school intervention or to serve as a comparison group where summer school attendance was not offered. The study assessed the effectiveness of the summer literacy program by comparing the achievement of the students in the intervention and comparison conditions. Application of multiple regression mod... more »
Guiding Healthier Behavior While Preserving Choices
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
School Lunches: Hanks, A. S., Just, D. R., & Wansink, B. (2013). Smarter Lunchrooms can Address New School Lunchroom Guidelines and Childhood Obesity. Journal of Pediatrics, 162: 867-9 Recently, the USDA passed regulations designed to make school lunches more nutritious. Schools participating in the National School Lunch Program are required to increase whole grain offerings, cap the fat of milk at 1% for white and non-fat for flavored, and ensure that students take either a fruit or a vegetable with their purchased lunch. Unfortunately, forcing behavior jeopardizes the potential t... more »
Preventive intervention helps children who show aggression at an early age
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Fast Track is a preventive intervention designed to help children who show aggression at an early age. The intervention addresses kids’ social-cognitive processes in several ways, including social-skill training groups, parent groups, and classroom curricula. In this study, the researchers investigated the processes underlying this intervention’s success. A total of 891 kindergarteners who were at high risk for adolescent antisocial behavior were randomly assigned to receive either the Fast Track intervention or a control program. The data revealed that children in the interventio... more »
First grade math skills set foundation for later math ability
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
* Study identifies fundamental skills needed for math functioning in adult life* Children who failed to acquire a basic math skill in first grade scored far behind their peers by seventh grade on a test of the mathematical abilities needed to function in adult life, according to researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health. The basic math skill, number system knowledge, is the ability to relate a quantity to the numerical symbol that represents it, and to manipulate quantities and make calculations. This skill is the basis for all other mathematics abilities, includin... more »
Action video games boost reading skills
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Much to the chagrin of parents who think their kids should spend less time playing video games and more time studying, time spent playing action video games can actually make dyslexic children read better. In fact, 12 hours of video game play did more for reading skills than is normally achieved with a year of spontaneous reading development or demanding traditional reading treatments. The evidence, appearing in the Cell Press journal *Current Biology* on February 28, follows from earlier work by the same team linking dyslexia to early problems with visual attention rather than lan... more »
Evaluating aerobics in academic performance
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Although the long-term consequences of childhood obesity are well documented, some school districts have reduced physical education classes to devote more time to the 3 Rs in education—reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, there is new evidence that leaving out an important fourth R—aerobics—could actually be counterproductive for increasing test scores. A new study scheduled for publication in *The Journal of Pediatrics*studied the associations between aerobic fitness, body mass index (BMI), and passing scores on standardized math and reading tests. Dr. Robert R. Rauner and co... more »