THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Moral vs. Performance Character Development in Urban Adolescents
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago
This study compared the effects of emphasizing moral character development or performance character development at three high-performing, high-poverty urban middle schools. Performance character consists of the qualities that allow individuals to regulate their thoughts and actions in ways that support achievement in a particular endeavor. Moral character consists of the qualities relevant to striving for ethical behavior in one’s relationships with other individuals and communities. Using a quasi-experimental research design, the authors found that early adolescents attending a... more »
Laws help limit junk foods in schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
District policies and state laws help reduce the availability of sugar- and fat-laden foods and beverages in elementary schools, according to a study published online in *JAMA Pediatrics.* Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago looked at the association between established policies and laws and the availability of candy, baked goods, ice cream, chips, sugar-sweetened beverages, and soda sold outside the school meal program. More than 1,800 elementary schools in 45 states responded to surveys during the 2008-2009 and 2010-2011 school years. The researchers found that ... more »
Is Starting College and Not Finishing Really That Bad?
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
In this report, The Hamilton Project examines whether starting college is worth it for students who fail to complete a degree. Their "startling" finding is that it is: these students’ lifetime earnings are roughly $100,000 higher (in present value) than that of their peers who ended their education after high school. Measured by the rate of return, getting some college is an investment with a return that exceeds the historical return on practically any conventional investment, including stocks, bonds, and real estate. (Of course, the return to some college is considerably smaller t... more »
High school graduation requirements are out of sync with Common Core
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago
A new report from Change the Equation (CTEq) and the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) Center for Public Education (CPE) examines the connection between state graduation requirements and Common Core State Standards in math. The report, “Out of Sync: Many Common Core states have yet to define a Common Core-worthy diploma,” found that of the 45 states that have voluntarily adopted Common Core, only 11 have aligned their graduation requirements in mathematics with those standards. CPE and CTEq have compared states’ high school graduation requirements in math to the Common Co... more »
Reading to children: a head-start in life
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
This article examines the effect of parental reading to children early in life on the child’s reading skills using the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). In addition to reading skills at age four to five, reading skills at later ages (up to age 10 to 11) are also examined. At most ages, more than one reading skill measure is observed, which allows for checking the consistency of results when using different measures. The raw data used in the study show patterns indicating a clear association between reading to children more frequently and higher early reading scores.... more »
Information and Student Achievement: Evidence from a Cellular Phone Experiment
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
This paper describes a field experiment in Oklahoma City Public Schools in which students were provided with free cellular phones and daily information about the link between human capital and future outcomes via text message. Students' reported beliefs about the relationship between education and outcomes were influenced by treatment. Treatment students also report being more focused and working harder in school. However, there were no measureable changes in attendance, behavioral incidents, or test scores. The patterns in the data appear most consistent with a model in which s... more »
Strategic Involuntary Teacher Transfers and Teacher Performance: Examining Equity and Efficiency
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
Despite claims that school districts need flexibility in teacher assignment to allocate teachers more equitably across schools and improve district performance, the power to involuntarily transfer teachers across schools remains hotly contested. Little research has examined involuntary transfer policies or their effects on schools, teachers, or students. This article uses administrative data from Miami-Dade County Public Schools to investigate the implementation and effects of the district's involuntary transfer policy, including which schools transferred and received teachers, which te... more »
How much do teachers vary in performance improvement during their first five years of teaching
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago
Educational policymakers struggle to find ways to improve the quality of the teacher workforce. The early career period represents a unique opportunity to identify struggling teachers, examine the likelihood of future improvement, and make strategic pre-tenure investments in improvement as well as dismissals to increase teaching quality. To date, only a little is known about the dynamics of teacher performance in the first five years. This paper asks how much teachers vary in performance improvement during their first five years of teaching and to what extent initial job performance pr... more »
New Study Looks at Discrimination African-American Adolescents Face in Schools
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Nearly 60 years after the Supreme Court outlawed racial segregation in public schools, African-American adolescents of all socioeconomic backgrounds continue to face instances of racial discrimination in the classroom. A new study sheds light on that and points to the need for students of color to rely on personal and cultural assets to succeed academically. The study “African American Adolescents’ Academic Persistence: A Strengths-Based Approach,” was published online May 24 in the *Journal of Youth and Adolescence.* “This study is unique in that it is a socioeconomically divers... more »
Advances in student achievement since the passage of the 1993 Education Reform Act in Massachusetts
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Mass Insight Education has released a summative report reviewing student achievement during the twenty years since the passage of the 1993 Education Reform Act in Massachusetts, which set to transform public education across the state. The anniversary report highlights the significant progress the state has made as a result of the landmark legislation and also provides a call to action to address the challenges that remain - specifically in raising student achievement for underserved populations and in increasing college success rates for all Massachusetts students. - *Statewi... more »
Trends to Reform the American School Calendar
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Learning Time in America: Trends to Reform the American School Calendar, from the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) and the Education Commission of the States is an update to a July 2011 report of the same name. It provides a comprehensive overview of legislative and policy developments at the federal, state, and district levels to close achievement gaps and improve public school through expanding learning time over the two years since the release of the first report. The report also includes results from a national survey, commissioned by NCTL and administered in February...more »
Lessons from High Schools on Educating Students to Succeed in a Changing World
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
With the increasing national recognition that high schools need to better prepare students to navigate a changing world and the advent of the more complex Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards, a new report from the National Center on Time & Learning (NCTL) describes how five innovative high schools are rethinking - and in some cases expanding - how and when learning takes place to make sure students graduate with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Students at these high schools must not only master grade-level content and standards, but mus...more »
High School Graduation Rate Reaches Highest Point in 40 Years
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
A new national report from Education Week and the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center finds that the nation’s graduation rate has posted a solid gain for the third straight year, following a period of declines and stagnation. Amid this continuing turnaround, the nation’s graduation rate has risen to almost 75 percent, the highest level of high school completion since 1973. Although 1 million students will fail to graduate with the class of 2013, the report shows that the nation’s public schools will generate 96,000 fewer dropouts than the previous year. Nationwid... more »
Peer Pressure Starts in Childhood, Not with Teens
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Peer group influences affect children much earlier than researchers have suspected, finds a new University of Maryland-led study. The researchers say it provides a wake-up call to parents and educators to look out for undue group influences, cliquishness and biases that might set in early, the researchers say. The study appears in the May/June 2013 issue of *Child Development*, and is available online. The researchers say their work represents a new line of research – what they call "group dynamics of childhood." No prior research has investigated what children think about challeng... more »
Teacher collaboration, professional communities improve many elementary school students' math scores
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Many elementary students' math performance improves when their teachers collaborate, work in professional learning communities or do both, yet most students don't spend all of their elementary school years in these settings, a new study by UNC Charlotte researchers shows. The U.S. Department of Education funded the study, which the journal *Sociology of Education* recently published. As school districts work to improve math scores and narrow racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps, many schools may have overlooked the impact of teacher collaboration and professional community on ... more »
More Fresh Air in Classrooms Means Fewer Absences
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
If you suspect that opening windows to let in fresh air might be good for you, a new study by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has confirmed your hunch. Analyzing extensive data on ventilation rates collected from more than 150 classrooms in California over two years, the researchers found that bringing classroom ventilation rates up to the state-mandated standard may reduce student absences due to illness by approximately 3.4 percent. With this reduction in student absence, California’s school districts would gain $33 million annually in attendan... more »
Many Well-Prepared US High School Grads Don’t Enroll/Persist in College
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
Nearly one in five 2011 U.S. high school graduates who were prepared to succeed in first-year college coursework either never enrolled in college or didn’t return for a second year, according to national and state-specific reports from ACT entitled The Reality of College Readiness 2013. (State Reports here) The data show 19 percent of college-ready, ACT-tested 2011 graduates were not enrolled in a two- or four-year college a little more than a year later, in the fall of 2012, including 10 percent who had never enrolled. Those data are based on graduates who had achieved the ACT C... more »
High School Students Don't Need Another Test
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago
According to a recent report, U.S. high schools should start taking part in yet another standardized test, as a way to spur improvements in achievement. Specifically, the report contends that participating in a new international test will benefit U.S. middle class students. The report, from the advocacy organization America Achieves, is titled Middle Class or Middle of the Pack: What can we learn when benchmarking U.S. schools against the world’s best?. It contends that U.S. students are performing inadequately in the math and science portions of a prominent international assessmen... more »
The Impact of a Classroom-Based Guidance Program on Student Performance in Community College Math Classes
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 weeks ago
Passing through remedial and required math classes poses a significant barrier to success for many community college students. This study uses random assignment to investigate the impact of a “light-touch” intervention, where an individual visited math classes a few times during the semester, for a few minutes each time, to inform students about available services. Entire class sections, rather than individuals, were randomly assigned to program and control groups, reducing the administrative burden for the college of a randomized-controlled experiment. This study finds that the... more »
States Made Deep Cuts to Higher Education
Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 weeks ago
Public universities and colleges in nearly every state have seen their state funding decline sharply, according to a new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nationwide, states are on average spending 28 percent less this year than they did in 2008, a decrease of $2,353 per student. As a result, colleges and universities have had to raise tuition, make changes that undermine educational quality, or both. “Investment in higher education should be a priority,” said Phil Oliff, policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the report ... more »