THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
A small change in the cost of sending test scores to colleges can have a large impact on the number of schools to which students apply and consequently, students may end up attending more selective colleges, according to Small Differences that Matter: Mistakes in Applying to College (NBER Working Paper No. 19480) by Amanda Pallais. For years, students taking the ACT, a standard college-entrance ex
Academic Success of Hispanic Youth Improve as Ability to Speak English and Connect with non-Hispanics Grows
Hispanic teenagers who learn English well enough to engage in friendships and activities with members of mainstream U.S. culture are more likely to succeed in school and feel better about themselves and their futures, according to findings from “Cross-cultural Adaptation of Hispanic Youth: A Study of Communication Patterns, Functional Fitness, and Psychological Health,” published online today in t
JAN 22
Summary of Research on the Effectiveness of Math Professional Development Approaches
This study identified and screened 910 research studies in a comprehensive literature search for effectiveness studies of math professional development approaches. Of these 910 studies, 643 examined professional development approaches related to math in grades K-12 and were conducted in the United States. Of the 643 studies, 32 focused primarily on math professional development provided to teacher
Can student reading growth during the year be used to predict scores on an end-of-year standardized state assessment?
REL Southeast at Florida State University examined this question using archival data from nearly 800,000 students in grades 3-10 in Florida. The study compared student growth in reading comprehension over the school year to scores on the end-of-year Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT).Using archival data for 2009/10, the study analyzes a stratified random sample of 800,000 Florida student
JAN 21
Students remember more with personalized review, even after classes end
Struggling to remember information presented months earlier is a source of anxiety for students the world over. New research suggests that a computer-based individualized study schedule could be the solution. The study findings show that personalized review helped students remember significantly more material on a tests given at the end of the semester and a month later."Our research shows th
Report on Teacher Observation Fails to Seriously Address Challenges
The recent report Fixing Classroom Observations promises remedies for shortcomings in the classroom observations that are a key part of teacher evaluation. But the report itself comes up short, according to a new review. The report’s problems are several, writes reviewer Jennie Whitcomb, but they boil down to the fact that the proposed remedies are poorly grounded and unlikely to be very helpful.
JAN 16
Later school start times improve sleep and daytime functioning in adolescents
Julie Boergers, Ph.D., a psychologist and sleep expert from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center, recently led a study linking later school start times to improved sleep and mood in teens. The article, titled "Later School Start Time is Associated with Improved Sleep and Daytime Functioning in Adolescents," appears in the current issue of the Journal of Developmental & Behav
University Rankings Influence Number and Competitiveness of Applicants
How universities fare on reputational quality-of-life and academic rankings – such as those published by the Princeton Review or U.S. News & World Report – can have a measurable effect on the number of applications they – and their competitors – receive and on the academic competitiveness of the resulting freshman class, according to a new study.The study, “True for Your School? How Changing R
Do Disadvantaged Students Get Less Effective Teaching?
Newly emerging research is beginning to shed light on the extent to which disadvantaged students have access to effective teaching, based on value added measures. "Value added" is a teacher's contribution to students' learning gains. Because individual researchers have varied in their presentation of this evidence, it is challenging for practitioners to draw lessons from the data. This b
JAN 14
Improving academic content coverage in kindergarten
Little research has examined the relationship between academic content coverage in kindergarten and student achievement. Using nationally representative data, this study examines the association between reading and mathematics content coverage in kindergarten and student learning, both overall and for students who attended preschool, Head Start, or participated in other child care prior to kinderg
Research-based strategies help reduce underage drinking
Strategies recommended by the Surgeon General to reduce underage drinking have shown promise when put into practice, according to scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. These approaches include nighttime restrictions on young drivers and strict license suspension policies, interventions focused on partnerships betwee
Passing bowls family-style teaches day-care kids to respond to hunger cues
When children and child-care providers sit around a table together at mealtime, passing bowls and serving themselves, children learn to recognize when they are full better than they do when food is pre-plated for them, reports a new University of Illinois study of feeding practices of two- to five-year-old children in 118 child-care centers."Family-style meals give kids a chance to learn abou
School Drug Tests Don't Work, but 'Positive Climate' Might
School drug testing does not deter teenagers from smoking marijuana, but creating a "positive school climate" just might, according to research reported in the January issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.An estimated 20 percent of U.S. high schools have drug testing; some target students suspected of abusing drugs, but often schools randomly test students who are going o
JAN 13
Researchers Find Substantial Drop in Use of Affirmative Action in College Admissions
University of Washington researchers Grant H. Blume and Mark C. Long have produced the first empirical estimates using national-level data to show the extent to which levels of affirmative action in college admissions decisions changed during the period of 1992 to 2004. Blume and Long’s study, “Changes in Levels of Affirmative Action in College Admissions in Response to Statewide Bans and Judicial
Study Finds Persistent Resource Gap in North Carolina Public Schools
A new report from the Public School Forum of North Carolina shows a large and persistent resource gap for public schools between the highest and lowest wealth counties in the state. The 2013 Local School Finance Study found that in 2011-12, the state's ten highest-spending counties spent an average of $59,280 more per classroom than the lowest-spending counties. The large gap exists primarily beca
National Civics Teacher Survey: Information Literacy in High School Civics
Teaching students to use news and information media (“information literacy”) is an important aspect of civic education, especially now that news sources are rapidly changing and fragmenting along ideological lines. Information literacy is required in several state standards, and it is also frequently defined as an important “21st century skill.”[1]Civics and government courses are among the places
JAN 10
Black and Latino “hip-hop” students are disproportionately punished in urban schools
Black and Latino “hip-hop” students are disproportionately punished in urban schools, finds a two-year study that sheds light on some of the unfair disciplinary practices newly targeted by the Obama administration.Muhammad Khalifa, a Michigan State University assistant professor of education, found that students who identified with hip-hop culture were often removed from school because of their cu
JAN 09
Quality Counts 2014
Education Week's 18th annual edition, Quality Counts 2014, once again includes a detailed Education Week Research Center examination of state-level education outcomes. This year's installment reflects reconsideration of the framework that has guided the research center's work in previous years.Recognizing that states, to a great degree, have moved ahead with elements of "standards-based refor
JAN 08
Study Shows ‘Readability’ Scores Are Largely Inaccurate
Teachers, parents and textbook companies use technical “readability” formulas to determine how difficult reading materials are and to set reading levels by age group. But new research from North Carolina State University shows that the readability formulas are usually inaccurate and offer little insight into which age groups will be able to read and understand a text.“Teachers often use readabilit
65 percent of schools in NCLB improvement were eased from those interventions under waivers
After years of arguing against No Child Left Behind (NCLB), over forty states are now taking a different approach to improving their low-performing schools. Armed with waivers from the federal law, these states are using school accountability systems based on relative, rather than absolute, measures of performance. As a result, school accountability today is dramatically different than it was a fe
Operational Authority, Support, and Monitoring of School Turnaround
Federal School Improvement Grants (SIG) support turnaround efforts in the nation’s lowest-performing schools. SIG emphasizes giving school leaders autonomy on matters such as staffing, calendars, and budgets, while also supporting and monitoring their progress. This evaluation brief, “Operational Authority, Support, and Monitoring of School Turnaround,” documents the implementation of policies and
JAN 07
Effects of grade skipping on adult STEM accomplishments among mathematically precocious youth
Using data from a 40-year longitudinal study, the authors of this study examined 3 related hypotheses about the effects of grade skipping on future educational and occupational outcomes in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). From a combined sample of 3,467 mathematically precocious students (top 1%), a combination of exact and propensity score matching was used to create bala
Gifted Children Are Getting Lost in the Shuffle
Gifted children are likely to be the next generation's innovators and leaders -- and yet, the exceptionally smart are often invisible in the classroom, lacking the curricula, teacher input and external motivation to reach full potential.This conclusion comes as the result of the largest scientific study of the profoundly gifted to date, a 30-year study conducted by researchers at Vanderbilt Univer
Report Examines Teach For America
Teach For America (TFA) is almost a quarter-century old. Since its launch, the program has experienced phenomenal growth, both in the numbers of participants and in the financial support it has received, and it has enjoyed extensive favorable publicity. Teach For America: A Return to the Evidence, a report authored by professors Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas and Su Jin Jez of Ca
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School districts throughout the United States are increasingly providing greater autonomy to local public (non-charter) school principals. In 2005–06, Chicago Public Schools initiated the Autonomous Management and Performance Schools program, granting academic, programmatic, and operational freedoms to select principals. This paper provides evidence on how school leaders used their new autonomy an
KIPP Schools Boost Student Achievement
The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) is an influential and rapidly growing nationwide network of charter schools serving primarily disadvantaged minority students. Prominent elements of KIPP's educational model include high expectations for student achievement and behavior, and a substantial increase in time in school. KIPP is being watched closely by policy makers and educators as a possible mod
JAN 06
Babies -- responding to 'baby talk' -- master more words
Common advice to new parents is that the more words babies hear the faster their vocabulary grows. Now new findings show that what spurs early language development isn't so much the quantity of words as the style of speech and social context in which speech occurs.Researchers at the University of Washington and University of Connecticut examined thousands of 30-second snippets of verbal exchanges
Can Intensive Early Childhood Intervention Programs Eliminate Income-Based Cognitive and Achievement Gaps?
How much of the income-basedgaps in cognitive ability and academic achievement could be closed by a two-year, center-based early childhood education intervention? Data from the Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP), which randomly assigned treatment to low birth weight children from both higher- and low-income families between ages one and three, shows much larger impacts among low- than hi
JAN 02
Study shows inflated praise can harm kids with low self-esteem
Parents and other adults heap the highest praise on children who are most likely to be hurt by the compliments, a new study finds.Researchers found that adults seem to naturally give more inflated praise to children with low self-esteem. But while children with high self-esteem seem to thrive with inflated praise, those with low self-esteem actually shrink from new challenges when adults go overbo
Comparing Reading Standards – Common Core and Connecticut - Grade 5
I have published a new study Comparing Reading Standards – Common Core and Connecticut - Grade 5Here are my key findings:Reading standards are of necessity less highly specific than math standards making comparisons more difficult. The fact that Connecticut has 3 different sets of standards also complicates analysis. But nothing in Connecticut’s standards can compare to such CCSS standards as“Comp
Estimating the Effect of Zero Tolerance Discipline Polices on Racial Disparities in School Discipline
This study estimates the effect of zero tolerance disciplinary policies on racial disparities in school discipline in an urban district. Capitalizing on a natural experiment, the abrupt expansion of zero tolerance discipline policies in a mid-sized urban school district, the study demonstrates that Black students in the district were disproportionately affected, with an additional 70 Black student
Examining Elementary Social Studies Marginalization
Utilizing data from the National Center for Education Statistics Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), a multilevel model (Hierarchical Linear Model) was developed to examine the association of teacher/classroom and state level indicators on reported elementary social studies instructional time. Findings indicated that state testing policy was a significant predictor of elementary teachers’ reported
Accountability and the Elimination of Bilingual Education Programs in New York City Schools
Although educational policies for emergent bilinguals in New York City schools have historically supported the provision of bilingual education, the past decade has borne witness to a dramatic loss of bilingual education programs in city schools. This study examines the factors that determine language education policies adopted by school principals, through qualitative research in 10 city schools