Education Research Report
THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Shaping Professional Development to Promote the Diffusion of Instructional Expertise Among Teachers
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 hour ago
This study examines how high-quality professional development can promote the diffusion of effective teaching strategies among teachers through collaboration. Drawing on longitudinal and sociometric data from a study of writing professional development in 39 schools, this study shows that teachers’ participation in professional development is associated with providing more help to colleagues on instructional matters. Further, the influence of professional development on participants’ instructional practice diffuses through the network of helping. These findings suggest that in ad... more »
Reasons for Attending College Affect Students’ Academic Success
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 23 hours ago
Students not performing well academically? Look no further—the answer may be in their motivation for attending college in the first place. Researchers at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester found that student motivation for attending college is related to academic success. And, they uncover unique relationships that exist between the different types of student motivation—as conceptualized by Self-Determination Theory (SDT)—and academic achievement and persistence. Their study tracked the relationship between student motivation for attending college and the... more »
More Days in Classroom ≠ More Learning in Mexico
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 23 hours ago
As Mexico and other Latin American countries wrestle with improving the quality of education for primary school students, economists at the University of California, Riverside have found that extending the length of the school year in the region will do little to improve student performance on standardized tests. Such policies also have the unintended result of widening the achievement gap between students in impoverished communities and those who attend more affluent schools, the researchers also found. These findings have significant implications for policymakers in Mexico — and... more »
CA: New High School Graduation Standards May Deny Diplomas To Many
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
As four large California school districts—Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Oakland—implement ambitious new graduation standards designed to increase college readiness, evidence from San Diego suggests that they will need to undertake major interventions to ensure that students succeed. Otherwise the very students these reforms aim to help could be denied high school diplomas, according to a report released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), College Readiness as a Graduation Requirement: An Assessment of San Diego’s Challenges. The report looks at t... more »
Student Prosocial Behavior and Racial Composition in Urban Middle Schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
Encouraging student prosocial behavior (PSB) is a challenge for urban middle schools. The issue of student behavior is a racialized one, as Black students generally evince more negative behavioral outcomes than their White peers. This racial “behavior gap” may be conditional on the school environment. This study examines how one element of the school environment—racial composition—affects PSB, drawing on a sample that includes approximately 2,000 Black students and 1,400 White students in 11 urban middle schools in the Southeastern United States. Results of multilevel regression... more »
Teacher Preparation Programs Face More Scrutiny as Common Core Era Begins
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
*New analysis points to the importance of training and transparent assessments of teacher preparation programs as keys to improving quality* Teacher education has faced increasing criticism in recent years, sparked by uneven student achievement across the U.S. In a new analysis, Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), examines the extent to which teacher education has moved away from the rigors of specific training in favor of ambiguous personal and social goals that leave new teachers unprepared. “21st-Century Teacher Education: Ed schools don’t g... more »
"The Nation's Report Card: Economics 2012"
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
Economic literacy is vital for functioning effectively in today’s society. Both knowledge of economic concepts and ideas and the ability to apply basic economic analysis to solve everyday problems are necessary for an individual to function as a productive member of society—as a worker, a saver, an investor, a consumer, or an active citizen. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) monitors students’ attainment of these skills and knowledge with its twelfth-grade economics assessment. First administered in 2006, the NAEP economics assessment measures twelfth-graders’ ...more »
Troubling Patterns of Teacher Assignments Within Schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
Even within the same school, lower-achieving students often are taught by less-experienced teachers, as well as by teachers who received their degrees from less-competitive colleges, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the World Bank. The study, using data from one of the nation's largest school districts, also shows that student class assignments vary within schools by a teacher's gender and race. In a paper published in the April issue of *Sociology of Education*, the researchers present the results of a comprehensive analysi...more »
Claims on Mayoral Governance Don’t Stand Up to Scrutiny
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 4 days ago
A recent Center for American Progress report purports to find that school districts led by city mayors are raising student achievement while improving the districts’ fiscal health. A new review finds some useful information in the report, but says it is too flawed to rely on for policy guidance. The report, Mayoral Governance and Student Achievement: How Mayor-Led Districts are Improving School and Student Performance, by Kenneth K. Wong and Francis X. Shen, was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by Katrina E. Bulkley, Professor of Educational Leadership at Mon... more »
Priorities vs. Precedence in School Choice in Boston
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
School choice plans in many cities grant students higher priority for some (but not all) seats at their neighborhood schools. This paper demonstrates how the precedence order, i.e. the order in which different types of seats are filled by applicants, has quantitative effects on distributional objectives comparable to priorities in the deferred acceptance algorithm. While Boston's school choice plan gives priority to neighborhood applicants for half of each school's seats, the intended effect of this policy is lost because of the precedence order. Despite widely held impressions about th... more »
PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN EDUCATION: ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Schools seeking to boost parental involvement will need to tailor their approaches to match parents' differing views and concerns, according to a new report from Public Agenda. The report, "Ready, Willing and Able? Kansas City Parents Talk About How to Improve Schools and What They Can Do to Help," indicates that parental involvement means very different things to different parents, with some drawn to advocacy and school reform while others are more comfortable participating in time-honored tasks like helping with school clubs, sports and bake sales. While the research, underwritt... more »
The “Teacher Quality Gap” and Seniority Provisions in Collective Bargaining Agreements
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
For at least two decades, studies have demonstrated that the least experienced and credentialed teachers are concentrated in poor, minority, and low-performing schools. Some blame provisions in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) between teachers unions and school districts that favor senior teachers. Seniority preference rules, they say, exacerbate the “teacher quality gap” by allowing experienced teachers to transfer. Using data from Florida, the authors of this study analyze whether and how CBAs influence the distribution of teacher quality within school districts, paying ... more »
“Academic Redshirting” in Kindergarten
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
This study uses two nationally representative data sets to estimate the prevalence of kindergarten “redshirting”—the decision to delay a child’s school entry. We find that between 4% and 5.5% of children delay kindergarten, a lower number than typically reported in popular and academic accounts. Male, White, and high-SES children are most likely to delay kindergarten, and schools serving larger proportions of White and high-income children have far higher rates of delayed entry. Thher is no evidence that children with lower cognitive or social abilities at age 4 are more likely t... more »
Learning disabilities affect up to 10 percent of children
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Up to 10 per cent of the population are affected by specific learning disabilities (SLDs), such as dyslexia, dyscalculia and autism, translating to 2 or 3 pupils in every classroom according to a new study. The study – by academics at UCL and Goldsmiths - also indicates that children are frequently affected by more than one learning disability. The research, published today in Science, helps to clarify the underlying causes of learning disabilities and the best way to tailor individual teaching and learning for affected individuals and education professionals. Specific learning di... more »
Child's counting comprehension may depend on objects counted
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Concrete objects — such as toys, tiles and blocks — that students can touch and move around, called manipulatives, have been used to teach basic math skills since the 1980s. Use of manipulatives is based on the long-held belief that young children's thinking is strictly concrete in nature, so concrete objects are assumed to help them learn math concepts. However, new research from the University of Notre Dame suggests that not all manipulatives are equal. The types of manipulatives may make a difference in how effectively a child learns basic counting and other basic math concepts... more »
Early Investment in Families Helps Children Succeed in School
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
An innovative program that supports parents and teachers of public school pre-kindergarten students improves early academic achievement, according to a new study published in the April 15 online edition of Pediatrics. In a five-year study of 1,050 minority pre-kindergarten students from disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City, NYU Langone researchers found that ParentCorps, a family-focused, school-based program, led to better achievement test scores and overall school performance. Children from low-income families are ten times as likely as children from middle-class familie... more »
Teens’ Brains Are More Sensitive to Rewarding Feedback From Peers
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Teenagers are risk-takers — they’re more likely than children or adults to experiment with illicit substances, have unprotected sex, and drive recklessly. But research shows that teenagers have the knowledge and ability to make competent decisions about risk, just like adults. So what explains their risky behavior? In a new report, psychological scientists Laurence Steinberg and Jason Chein of Temple University and Dustin Albert of Duke University argue that some teens’ risky behavior reflects the unique effect of peer influence on the still-developing teenage brain. Their report ... more »
Making fruit easier to eat increases sales and consumption in school cafeterias
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Previous studies and surveys have shown that kids love to eat fruit in ready-to-eat bite-sized pieces, yet in most school settings, the fruit is served whole, which could be the cause that children are taking fruits but not eating them. Most people believe that children avoid fruit because of the taste and allure of alternative packaged snacks. A study by Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab researchers Brian Wansink, David Just, Andrew Hanks, and Laura Smith decided to get to the bottom of why children were avoiding their fruit. Could, perhaps, increasing the convenience of fr... more »
Teachers’ Online Use of Student Performance Data
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Testing of students and computer systems to store, manage, analyze, and report the resulting test data have grown hand-in-hand. Extant research on teacher use of electronically stored data are largely qualitative and focused on the conditions necessary (but not sufficient) for effective teacher data use. Absent from the research is objective information on how much and in what ways teachers use computer-based student test data, even when supposed precursors of usage are in place. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by analyzing the online activities of teachers in one mid-siz... more »
Advertising/Corporate Sponsorships in Public Schools Threaten Students’ Health
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
The financial squeeze caused by “The Great Recession,” and the economic doldrums that followed, placed significant pressure on school districts across the country. Schools and school districts, for years encouraged to engage in “school-business partnerships,” are pressed more and more to work with advertisers and corporate sponsors to replace lost revenue. In their quest for additional funding, many schools and school districts have allowed corporations to promote the consumption of sweetened beverages and foods of little or no nutritional value in school and in conjunction with sc... more »