The Magnitude of Student Sorting Within Schools
The authors of this study use administrative data from three large urban school districts to describe student sorting within schools. Students are linked to each of their teachers and students’ classmates are identified.
There are differences in the average achievement levels, racial composition, and socioeconomic composition of classrooms within schools. This sorting occurs even in self-contained elementary school classrooms and is much larger than would be expected were students assigned to classrooms randomly.
Much of the racial and socioeconomic sorting is accounted for by differences in achievement, particularly at the high school level. Classrooms with the most low-achieving, minority, and poor students are more likely to have novice teachers.
Sorting students by achievement level exposes minority and poor students to lower quality teachers and less resourced classmates.
Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2012
A joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics, this annual reportexamines crime occurring in school as well as on the way to and from school. This report presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population from an array of sources--the National Crime Victimization Survey, the School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the School Survey on Crime and Safety and the School and Staffing Survey. Data on crime away from school are also presented to place school crime in the context of
Teachers Spend $1.6 Billion of Their Own Money on Educational Products for their Classrooms
The National School Supply and Equipment Association (NSSEA) has just released the 2013 NSSEA Retail Market Awareness Study estimating that public school teachers spent $3.2 billion in educational products in the 2012-2013 school year, $1.6 billion of it from their own pockets. This study reports on teachers' knowledge of parent-teacher stores, including their spending patterns, funding sources, shopping preferences, and factors that influence their purchasing decisions.
Other highlights:
- On average, teachers surveyed said they spent a total of $268 on school supplies in the 2012-2013