THIS WEEK'S EDUCATION RESEARCH REPORT
How Asian American 'tiger mothers' motivate their children
An article titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior," published in The Wall Street Journal in 2011, has continued to provoke a cultural debate among parents after self-proclaimed 'tiger mother' Amy Chua asserted that Asian American parenting methods produce more successful children. Researchers at Stanford University delved deeper into Chua's 'tiger mother' approach, and their research s
Death by a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage
Journey for Justice has just issued a new report Death by a Thousand Cuts: Racism, School Closures, and Public School Sabotage. It’s well researched and heavily footnoted, but more than that, it is a powerful, moving piece of social and political commentary: The move toward the expansion of charter schools, and away from public schools, in communities of color has been staggeringly swift, and it
MAY 15
MOOCs Not Yet Meeting High Expectations, New Study Finds
The rollout of MOOCs, or massive open online courses, three years ago by some of the country’s leading universities triggered predictions that bricks-and-mortar campuses would soon be obsolete and that learning would be forever changed.Well, maybe—but not any time soon, according to one of the first comprehensive studies of MOOCs from the perspective of institutions, released on May 15 by researc
Many schools not meeting ideal tap water access criteria
According to new research from the American Journal of Public Health, many schools are not providing tap water that meets excellent water access criteria.Researchers conducted phone interviews at 240 California public schools. School administrators were asked various questions regarding the free water sources at their schools addressing five criteria: water sources in four of five key school loca
ASCD Releases Data Reports for Student Success in All 50 States
ASCD has released new ASCD Whole Child Snapshots highlighting how well each state—and the nation—is meeting the comprehensive needs of its children. The snapshots feature data aligned with the five tenets of ASCD’s Whole Child Initiative—healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. Together, the data provide a fuller picture of child well-being that extends beyond standardized test scores. T
Many schools in England are neglecting students’ health and wellbeing
Education policy shouldn’t focus solely on academic attainmentMany schools in England are neglecting – and may be actively harming - students’ health and wellbeing, warn experts in an editorial published on bmj.com today. Professor Chris Bonell at the Institute of Education and colleagues argue that education policy shouldn’t focus solely on academic attainment.Education policy in England “increa
MAY 14
Classroom activities and off-task behavior in elementary school children
Maintaining focused attention in the classroom is considered an important factor for successful learning. Loss of instructional time due to off-task behavior is recognized as a significant challenge by both researchers and practitioners. However, there has been little research into the factors contributing to off-task behavior. This paper reports results from the first large-scale study investiga
Expanded school schedules offer many advantages
Time for Teachers: Leveraging Time to Strengthen Instruction and Empower Teachers examines 17 high-performing and fast-improving schools around the country that have taken advantage of expanded school schedules to provide students with more time for engaging academic and enrichment classes and teachers with more time to collaborate with colleagues, analyze students data, create new lesson plans,
Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship: Very limited impact
What is the study about?The study examined the impact of the Kalamazoo Promise Scholarship on high school students’ academic and behavioral outcomes. Depending on how long the student had attended Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS), the scholarship would cover up to 100 percent of tuition and fees for attending any public college or university in the state of Michigan. The authors hypothesized that th
The Role of Parent and Peers in the Academic Achievement of Latino Adolescents
The achievement gap between Latino and White youth is well documented. This is of particular concern as children enter middle school because of the decline in school engagement and achievement noted in many students. The impact parent and peer beliefs and behaviors have on academic achievement, engagement, and achievement values of Latino middle school youth have received less attention than in Wh
"Smart" drugs pose special risks to the developing brain of young people
Over a million American students misuse prescription drugs or take illegal stimulants to increase their attention span, memory, and capacity to stay awake. Such "smart drugs" become more and more popular due to peer pressure, stricter academic requirements, and the tight job market. But young people who misuse them risk long-term impairments to brain function, warn Kimberly Urban at the
MAY 13
Preschool Teacher Depression Linked to Behavioral Problems in Children
Depression in preschool teachers is associated with behavioral problems ranging from aggression to sadness in children under the teachers’ care, new research suggests.The study identified one contributing factor to this link: a poor-quality atmosphere in the child care setting that exists as a result of the teacher’s depressive symptoms. In this study, “teacher” refers to both classroom instructor
2013 State Preschool Yearbook
The 2013 Yearbook examines the 2012-2013 school year as well as documenting a decade of progress since the first Yearbook collected data on the 2001-2002 school year.Key Findings: - Twenty-eight percent of America’s 4-year-olds were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program in the 2012-2013 school year, a percentage which has been unchanged for two years.- The total number of children enrolled
Improvements are needed in how classroom observations are measured for teacher evaluation
The federal government has spurred the creation of a new generation of teacher evaluation systems at the state level through more than $4 billion in Race to the Top funding to 19 states and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability waivers to 43 states. A majority of states have passed laws requiring the adoption of teacher evaluation systems that incorporate student achievement data, but only a
State tests used for VAM are not meaningfully associated with either the content or quality of instruction
Recent years have seen the convergence of two major policy streams in U.S. K–12 education: standards/accountability and teacher quality reforms. Work in these areas has led to the creation of multiple measures of teacher quality, including measures of their instructional alignment to standards/assessments, observational and student survey measures of pedagogical quality, and measures of teachers’
Adolescents who get six hours of sleep or less may face health and behavior issues
Adolescents who get six hours of sleep or less may face health and behavior issues, particularly those who get five hours of sleep per night on a regular basis, confirms FIU researcher and criminal justice professor Ryan C. Meldrum in his study that recently published in Preventive Medicine. "Studies typically examine the implications of getting anything less than eight hours of sleep at nig
Repeated reading was found to have potentially positive effects on reading comprehension
Download Full Report (298 KB) Report Summary Effectiveness Repeated reading was found to have potentially positive effects on reading comprehension and no discernible effects on alphabetics, reading fluency, and general reading achievement for students with learning disabilities. Program Description Repeated reading is an academic practice that aims to increase oral reading fluency. R
6 Reasons to Reject CCSS for K – Grade 3
Defending the Early Years has written a new report Common 6 Reasons to Reject the Common Core for K – Grade 3 and 6 Principles to Guide Policy). Excerpts below:1. Many of the Kindergarten – 3rd Grade CCSS are developmentally inappropriate, and are not based on well-researched child development knowledge about how young children learn. 1, 2 The CCSS for young children were developed by mapping b
MAY 12
College STEM: Active Learning Beats Lectures
A significantly greater number of students fail science, engineering and math courses that are taught lecture-style than fail in classes incorporating so-called active learning that expects them to participate in discussions and problem-solving beyond what they’ve memorized.Active learning also improves exam performance – in some cases enough to change grades by half a letter or more so a B-plus
School Finance Reforms and Spending, Academic Achievement, and Adult Outcomes
The school finance reforms (SFRs) that began in the early 1970s and accelerated in the 1980s caused some of the most dramatic changes in the structure of K-12 education spending in U.S. history. The authors of this study analyze the effects of these reforms on the level and distribution of school district spending, as well as their effects on subsequent educational and economic outcomes.
MAY 09
Frequently Reassigning Teachers Limits Their Improvement
Experienced teachers make a difference in student performance, but their experience matters most if they have continued to teach the same grade, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago researcher.Students whose teachers have not switched grades show greater improvement in test scores than students in similar classrooms with equally experienced teachers who switched grades
The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools
Published foro the sixth consecutive year, this year's What Kids Are Reading report, based on data for more than 9.8 million kids from 31,195 U.S. schools who read over 318 million books during the 2012–2013 school year, includes:- Top 20 books read overall and by gender for grades 1–12- Top 20 nonfiction books read overall and by gender for grades 1–12- A three-year look at reading trends for col
MAY 08
Tackling test anxiety may help prevent more severe problems
Showing students how to cope with test anxiety might also help them to handle their built-up angst and fretfulness about other issues. The results of a new study by Carl Weems of the University of New Orleans show that anxiety intervention programs that focus on academic matters fit well into the demands of the school routine, and do not carry the same stigma among youth as general anxiety progr
States Are Still Funding Higher Education Below Pre-Recession Levels
Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities PDF of this report (27pp.) Most states have begun in the past year to restore some of the cuts they made to higher education funding after the recession hit. Eight states, though, are still cutting, and in almost all states — including those that are have boosted their support — higher education funding remains well below pre-recession levels. The
MAY 07
The Nation’s Report Card: 2013 Mathematics and Reading at Grade 12: No progress since 2009
In 2013, more than 92,000 twelfth-graders were assessed in either reading or mathematics. The national sample of schools and students is drawn from across the country. The results from the assessed students are combined to provide accurate estimates of the overall performance of students in the nation and in the 13 states that volunteered to participate in the twelfth-grade state pilot program. Na
Suspension and Expulsion Rates in Oregon Urban School Districts
This Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Northwest study identifies how frequently students in six selected urban districts received exclusionary discipline during the 2011/12 school year, the most common reasons for such discipline, the percentage of stu