THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
YESTERDAY
The Effect of Grade Placement on English Language Learners’ Academic Achievement
Many English Language Learners (ELLs) migrate to the United States at older ages and administrators must choose a grade in which to place these new entrants as soon as they register for school. This study estimates the effect of grade placement on the short-term academic performance of ELLs who enroll in the Miami-Dade County Public School system between the ages of 7 and 12 using a district polic
JUL 11
School environment predicts school engagement through academic motivation
This longitudinal study adopted a multidimensional perspective to examine the relationships between middle school students' perceptions of the school environment (structure support, provision of choice, teaching for relevance, teacher and peer emotional support), achievement motivation (academic self-concept and subjective task value), and school engagement (behavioral, emotional, and cognitive en
Private Schools Not Always Better Internationally
This report. Who Chooses Which Private Education? Theory and International Evidence”, CEPR Discussion Paper 9513., finds evidence in the 2009 PISA survey (OECD 2012) that private schools indeed do not everywhere deliver better schooling outcomes. Figure 1. Country-specific differences between private and government school students’ average PISA test scores (in mathematics, reading, and science), p
State Track Records in Academic Performance/Improvement Analysed
Common Core standards have the potential to dramatically raise the rigor of instruction – and the level of achievement – in schools across the country. But these standards will also demand more of our students and teachers than ever before. While there is much work to be done in all states to lift all students to the college- and career-ready level, a new analysis shows that the stretch is far big
JUL 10
How Districts Enable and Support High-Performing Schools
This report features three effective school districts in North Carolina. The districts vary in terms of the types of students they serve, where they are located, and the number of schools they oversee. The districts include: * Catawba County, a rural district serving a student population of more than 17,000 students, around half of which were income eligible for free or reduced-price school lunche
School Districts’ Early Efforts to Develop Effective Principals: What $75 Million Buys
Over the last half dozen years, principals have been increasingly recognized as a linchpin for successful school improvement – yet less is known about how districts can develop a pipeline of highly-qualified candidates.A new independent evaluation report details how six urban school districts are beginning to build larger pools of strong principal candidates at a time when many policymakers view t
Charter Schools and the Road to College Readiness: The Effects on College Preparation, Attendance and Choice
What is the study about? This study examined whether attending a Boston charter school affected students’ high school and college outcomes. The study compared charter school students who were admitted via a random admission lottery and attended one of the six study charter schools to students who applied but were not admitted via lottery and instead attended another public school in Massachusetts.
JUL 09
School policies reduce student drinking – if they’re perceived to be enforced
University of Washington professor of social work Richard Catalano and colleagues studied whether anti-alcohol policies in public and private schools in Washington state and Australia’s Victoria state were effective for eighth- and ninth-graders.What they found was that each school’s particular policy mattered less than the students’ perceived enforcement of it. So, even if a school had a suspensi
Read Naturally®: potentially positive effects on general reading achievement for beginning readers
Read Naturally® is a supplemental reading program that aims to improve the reading fluency, accuracy, and comprehension skills of elementary and middle school students using a combination of texts, audio CDs, and computer software. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) found that the Read Naturally® program has no discernible effects on alphabetics and comprehension, mixed effects on reading fluency, and
Characteristics of Private Schools in the United States
Results From the 2011–12 Private School Universe SurveyIn the fall of 2011, there were 30,861 private schools in the United States, enrolling 4,494,845 students, and employing 420,880 full-time-equivalent teachers. Ninety-six percent of all private schools were coeducational, while 2 percent enrolled all girls and 2 percent enrolled all boys. Of the 305,842 2010-11 private high school graduates, 6
Despite Common Core’s Call for Increased State Standards, 26 States Lower Proficiency Bar
Recently, states’ definitions of what makes a student proficient in math and reading have been changing—in some cases for the better, in others for the worse. In a new Education Next article, “Despite Common Core, States Still Lack Common Standards,” authors Paul Peterson and Peter Kaplan find that even though 37 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) received a waiver from the U.S. Department
JUL 08
Novice Teachers’ Career Intentions and Decisions: the Impact of Preservice Preparation and Early Career Support
A rationale for providing high-quality support during teachers’ early years is to develop further the skills teachers acquire during preparation and to help overcome weaknesses that might lead them to abandon the profession. Yet, almost no consideration has been given to potential interactions between preservice preparation and induction support received. This study utilizes survey and administrat
Online & Face-to-Face Professional Development Equally Effective in the Context of Curriculum Implementation
This study employed a randomized experiment to examine differences in teacher and student learning from professional development (PD) in two modalities: online and face-to-face. The study explored whether there are differences in teacher knowledge and beliefs, teacher classroom practice, and student learning outcomes related to PD modality. Comparison of classroom practice and student learning out
JUL 03
Indicators Of School Crime And Safety, 2012
This report presents data on crime and safety at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, and principals. This annual report, a joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), provides detailed statistical information on the nature of crime in schools. This report contains 21 indicators of crime at school from a number of sources
JUL 02
Poor planning skills found to contribute to income-achievement gap
Children from low-income families tend to do worse at school than their better-off peers. Now a new study of a large ethnically and socioeconomically diverse group of children from across the United States has identified poor planning skills as one reason for the income-achievement gap, which can emerge as early as kindergarten and continue through high school.The study, by researchers at Cornell
JUL 01
High Povert Does Not Always Mean Low Algebra Scores
The map shows the relationship between the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunches and Algebra I scores in Missouri school districts. The dark-shaded areas are those in which a higher percentage of students receiving such lunches is associated with lower end-of-course algebra scores. This statistically significant relationship is not found in lighter-shaded areas. Distric
Head Start children and parents show robust gains in new intervention
An eight-week intervention involving 141 preschoolers in a Head Start program and their parents produced significant improvements in the children's behavior and brain functions supporting attention and reduced levels of parental stress that, in turn, improved the families' quality of life.The findings -- from the first phase of a long-term research project by University of Oregon neuroscientists t
More challenging standards-based exams reduce graduation and increase incarceration rates
This study evaluates the effects of high school exit exams on high school graduation, incarceration, employment and wages. The authors find relatively modest effects of high school exit exams except on incarceration. Exams assessing academic skills below the high school level have little effect. More challenging standards-based exams reduce graduation and increase incarceration rates. About half t
JUN 28
New NAEP Report Compares Today’s Student Performance With That of 40 Years Ago
Long-term trend assessment shows improvementfor black and Hispanic students since the 1970sToday’s 9-and 13-year-old students scored higher in reading and mathematics than their counterparts did 40 years ago according to The Nation’s Report Card: Trends in Academic Progress 2012, a long-term trend assessment designed to track changes in the achievement of students ages 9, 13 and 17 since the 1970s
JUN 27
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, s
Indicators of School Crime and Safety, 2012
A joint effort by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and National Center for Education Statistics, this annual report examines 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
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
JUN 25
Language Intervention Levels Playing Field for English Language Learners
A new approach to teaching pre-kindergarten could take a bite out of the achievement gap and level the playing field for America’s growing population of English language learners, according to a recently published study by researchers at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development.“We are excited that we have helped teachers develop ways of teaching that result in such remarkab
Spatial Training Boosts Math Skills
Training young children in spatial reasoning can improve their math performance, according to a groundbreaking study from Michigan State University education scholars.The researchers trained 6- to 8-year-olds in mental rotation, a spatial ability, and found their scores on addition and subtraction problems improved significantly. The mental rotation training involved imagining how two halves of an
Kids’ Reading Success Boosted by Long-Term Individualized Instruction
Students who consistently receive individualized reading instruction from first through third grade become better readers than those who don’t, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.These findings come after a three-year study that followed several hundred Floridian students, who received varying amounts of individualiz
Study finds improvement in the overall performance of charter schools since 2009
"Gains" include slower declines than traditional public schools71% (math)-75% (reading) of charter schools aren't doing any better than traditional public schools31% of charter schools significantly weaker in math"Gains" fueled by closing of the worst charter schoolsA new, independent national study finds improvement in the overall performance of charter schools, driven in part by the presence of
Value of education rises in crisis but investment in this area is falling
The jobs gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early has continued to widen during the crisis. A good education is the best insurance against a lack of work experience, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.Unemployment rates are nearly three times higher among people without an upper secondary education (13% on average across OECD co
Let’s Begin with the Letter People® has no discernible effects on oral language or phonological processing
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has an updated report on the preschool literacy programs Let’s Begin with the Letter People®.Let’s Begin with the Letter People® is an early childhood literacy curriculum that uses 26 thematic units (each of which covers a letter of the alphabet) to develop children’s language and early literacy skills. A major focus of the program is phonological awareness, incl
Doors to Discovery™ has potentially positive effects on oral language and print knowledge
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has released an updated report on a preschool literacy programs, Doors to Discovery.Doors to Discovery™ is a preschool literacy curriculum that uses eight thematic units of activities to help children build fundamental early literacy skills in oral language, phonological awareness, concepts of print, alphabet knowledge, writing, and comprehension. The eight thema
How School and District Leaders Support Classroom Teachers’ Work With English Language Learners
This study examines the ways in which school and district leaders create systems of support for classroom teachers who work with linguistically diverse students. The authors attempt to uncover the intentional supports leaders put in place for classroom teachers and how this may be part of a broader teaching and learning effort. Through a qualitative case study of four districts serving different p