THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
Study Finds Secret to Cutting Sugary Drink Use by Teens
Student-run ‘Sodabriety’ effort also boosted water consumptionA new study shows that teenagers can be persuaded to cut back on sugary soft drinks – especially with a little help from their friends.A 30-day challenge encouraging teens to reduce sugar-sweetened drink use lowered their overall consumption substantially and increased by two-thirds the percentage of high-school students who shunned sug
MAR 26
Does School Board Leadership Matter?
Are the nation’s 90,000-plus school board members critical players in enhancing student learning? Are they part of the problem? Are they harmless bystanders?Among the key findings from this report:- Board members, by and large, possess accurate information about their districts when it comes to finance, teacher pay, collective bargaining, and class size. Whether they were knowledgeable from the ou
Kids’ books featuring animals with human traits lead to less learning of the natural world
A new study by University of Toronto researchers has found that kids’ books featuring animals with human characteristics not only lead to less factual learning but also influence children’s reasoning about animals.Researchers also found that young readers are more likely to attribute human behaviors and emotions to animals when exposed to books with anthropomorphized animals than books depicting a
MAR 25
Connections Between Teacher Perceptions of School Effectiveness and Student Outcomes in Low-Achieving Schools
This study focused on 75 low-achieving Idaho schools that used the state’s improvement services and took the EES in 2012. The EES, an annual survey developed by the Center on Educational Effectiveness, is used widely in the Northwest region and is similar to other teacher perceptual surveys used nationally. The study found that teachers’ perceptions of school improvement goals, processes, and supp
MAR 24
Four Years Later: Are Race to the Top States on Track?
A new report released today by the Center for American Progress provides an analysis of the U.S. Department of Education’s most recent evaluation data measuring the progress of the 12 states participating in Phases 1 and 2 of Race to the Top. Race to the Top, or RTT, is a competitive grant program designed to spur state-level education innovation to boost student achievement, close achievement gap
Report Finds Massachusetts Education System Needs Major Overhaul to Prepare Students to Compete in Global Economy
A comprehensive assessment of the Commonwealth’s education system sounds the alarm that student achievement has levelled off and the state risks falling behind global competitors who are outpacing the Commonwealth in educating a highly skilled workforce and informed, engaged citizens. The report, “The New Opportunity to Lead: A Vision for Education in Massachusetts in the Next 20 Years,” conclud
Does Classroom Time Matter? A Randomized Field Experiment in Economics
This study tests whether students in a hybrid format of introductory microeconomics, which met once per week, performed as well as students in a traditional lecture format of the same class, which met twice per week. The authors randomized 725 students at a large, urban public university into the two formats, and unlike past studies, had a very high participation rate of 96 percent. Two expe
The Impact of Developmental Education on Community College Persistence and Vertical Transfer
Developmental education has been cited as one of the most difficult issues facing community colleges. Despite the controversy and changes to educational policy regarding developmental education, there is a notable dearth of rigorous research measuring the effect of remediation on community college student outcomes. This study uses data from the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study
MAR 21
Survey of America's Public Schools Reveals Troubling Racial Disparities
The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released today the first comprehensive look at civil rights data from every public school in the country in nearly 15 years, the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) from the 2011-12 school year. This is the first time since 2000 that the Department has compiled data from all 97,000 of the nation's public schools and its 16,500 school
MAR 20
Georgia’s Educational Innovations Don't Meet Needs of Students from Immigrant Families,
Even as the children of immigrants represent a growing share of Georgia’s youth (ages 16-26), the state’s ambitious education reforms often fail to target this group of U.S.-born and foreign-born students — many of whom have lower high school graduation rates and face greater barriers to adult education and public college enrollment, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) report finds.In Education
MAR 19
AmeriCorps Program Demonstrates Significant Impact on Student Reading
A rigorous third-party evaluation of the nation's largest AmeriCorps tutoring program has found that elementary students tutored by AmeriCorps members achieved significantly higher literacy levels than students without such tutors, and that the impacts were statistically significant even among students at higher risk of academic failure.
Strategies for Teaching Common Core to Teens With Autism Show Promise
Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000148 EndHTML:0000014590 StartFragment:0000002929 EndFragment:0000014554 SourceURL:file:///Users/jdk/Desktop/h.doc Scientists at UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) report that high school students with autism can learn under Common Core State Standards (CCSS), boosting their prospects for college and employment. Newly published recommendations f
Community College Transfers as Likely to Earn a BA as Four-Year Students, Despite Credit Transfer Roadblocks
Without Restrictive Credit Transfer Policies, BA Attainment Would Rise from 46% to 54%Students who begin their postsecondary education at a community college and successfully transfer to a four-year college have BA graduation rates equal to similar students who begin at four-year colleges, according to new research published today. That rate would actually increase – to 54 percent from 46 percent
Grit, a disposition toward perseverance and passion for long-term goals, explains variance in novice teachers’ effectiveness and retention
Surprisingly little progress has been made in linking teacher effectiveness and retention to factors observable at the time of hire. The rigors of teaching, particularly in low-income school districts, suggest the importance of personal qualities that have so far been difficult to measure objectively. This study examines the predictive validity of personal qualities not typically collected by scho
Rise in Inexperienced Teachers in Public School Classrooms: Causes, Consequences, and Promising Responses
The high number of inexperienced teachers in public school classrooms is a largely unrecognized problem that undermines school stability, slows educational reform, and, new research suggests, hurts student achievement. These are among the findings of a report released today by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. “Beginners in the Classroom: What the Changing Demographics
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Progress Report
Forty-five states have signed on to the Common Core and most are busy implementing the standards, albeit with some political resistance. How is it going? Admittedly, the Common Core era is only in the early stages—new tests and accountability systems based on the standards are a couple of years away—but states have had three or four years under the standards. Sufficient time has elapsed to offer
Little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student
This year’s Brown Center Report on American Education updates a study on homework presented in the 2003 Brown Center Report. That study was conducted at a time when homework was on the covers of several popular magazines. The charge then was that the typical student’s homework load was getting out of control. The 2003 study examined the best evidence on students’ homework burden and found the cha
The Community College Route to the Bachelor’s Degree
It is well established that students who begin post-secondary education at a community college are less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree than otherwise similar undergraduates who begin at a 4-year school, but there is less consensus over the mechanisms generating this disparity. This study explores this issue using national longitudinal transcript data and propensity-score methods. Inferior aca