Education Research Report 1-19-12

Education Research Report:

Elementary & Secondary Math & Science Education - Leading Indicators

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 8 minutes ago

Ω The United States remains the global leader in supporting science and technology (S&T) research and development, but only by a slim margin that could soon be overtaken by rapidly increasing Asian investments in knowledge-intensive economies. So suggest trends released in a new report by the National Science Board (NSB), the policymaking body for the National Science Foundation (NSF), on the overall status of the science, engineering and technology workforce, education efforts and economic activity in the United States and abroad. "This information clearly shows we must re-examine...more »

Bias, Bullying and Homophobia in Grades K-6

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 21 hours ago

Ω * "Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States" First National Study to Look at Homophobia, Gender Nonconformity in Elementary Schools Gender Nonconforming Students at Particular Risk for Bullying, Many Teachers Unprepared to Address Issues of Gender Expression, LGBT Families* The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) today released a new report on school climate, biased remarks and bullying, Playgrounds and Prejudice: Elementary School Climate in the United States. The report, based on national surveys of 1,065 elementary school students... more »

Annual National Rankings of Charter School Laws

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS) has released its annual ranking of state charter school laws across the country. The report, and the NAPCS model charter school law it is based upon, is meant to be a useful tool to assist in passing laws that support the creation of more high-quality schools. Following one of the most positive years for state charter school legislation in recent memory, there were numerous changes in this edition’s rankings. Sixteen states saw their charter school law scores increase, 22 states’ overall scores remained the same, and four st... more »

4 decade analysis finds technology enhances educational experience

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω Technology has grown by leaps and bounds, yet are computers helping students progress in their learning? Absolutely, says a 40-year retrospective on the impact of technology in classrooms. Published in the journal Review of Educational Research, the findings gathered by Concordia University researchers suggest that technology delivers content and supports student achievement. Expanded from a doctoral thesis by Rana Tamim, the study’s first author, the research brought together data from 60,000 elementary school, high school, and post-secondary students. It compared achievement in...more »

Physical Activity Program Leads to Better Behavior for Children with ADHD

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω While children who suffer from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) struggle with hyperactive-impulses and have trouble maintaining attention, a recent study found that a structured physical activity program may help to improve their muscular capacities, motor skills, behavior assessments, and the ability to process information. This study, "A Physical Activity Program Improves Behavior and Cognitive Functions in Children with ADHD: An Exploratory Study," was released in the recent issue of the Journal of Attention Disorders (published by SAGE). Authors Claudia Verret,... more »

Junk food in schools doesn't cause weight gain among children

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω While the percentage of obese children in the United States tripled between the early 1970s and the late 2000s, a new study suggests that—at least for middle school students—weight gain has nothing to do with the candy, soda, chips, and other junk food they can purchase at school. "We were really surprised by that result and, in fact, we held back from publishing our study for roughly two years because we kept looking for a connection that just wasn't there," said Jennifer Van Hook, a Professor of Sociology and Demography at Pennsylvania State University and lead author of the s... more »

Academic Achievement in Public and Catholic Schools

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω This article examines two critical questions related to equality of educational opportunity. First, does the academic advantage that was observed in Catholic high schools more than two decades ago continue to hold for contemporary students in Catholic middle schools? Second, how closely do different school sectors adhere to the common school ideal? Answers to these questions are central to efforts to reduce educational inequalities. The study reported here relies on data from sixth- and eighth-grade students in the Chicago School Study, a longitudinal survey of Chicago public s... more »

The Geography of Inequality: Why Separate Means Unequal in American Public Schools

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 day ago

Ω Persistent school segregation means not only that children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds attend different schools but also that their schools are unequal in performance. This study documents the extent of disparities nationally in school performance between schools attended by whites and Asians compared with those attended by blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans. It further examines the geography of school inequality in two ways. First, it analyzes the segregation of students between different types of school profiles based on racial composition, poverty, and met... more »

Contracts in the classroom

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

Ω While contracts are an indispensable tool in the modern workplace, a new study has found that they may also be very effective in contemporary classrooms. According to a new article published in SAGE Open, courses in which students design their own course based on a contract lead to both higher grades and higher student satisfaction than traditional points-based courses. The article, "Use of Contract Grading to Improve Grades among College Freshmen in Introductory Psychology," details this study. Researchers Dana Lindemann and Colin Harbke assigned a total of 40 college freshmen e... more »

Decade of Research Points to Five Must-Haves for Effective Principals

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 2 days ago

Ω School leadership doesn't just happen. Effective principals employ five key practices, according to The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning, a Wallace Foundation Perspective that distills lessons from school leadership projects and major research studies supported by the foundation since 2000. "After more than a decade of investment in school leadership, we can confirm the empirical link between school leadership and improved student achievement. We hope that this Wallace Perspective can contribute a new and deeper understanding of effectiv... more »

Private Education Management Organizations Continue to Grow – But Results are Mixed

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago

Ω * New report shows 778,000 students attend schools operated by private education management organizations – more than 40 percent of all students in charter schools* *A mere 27 percent of U.S. online schools run by for-profit companies achieved Adequate Yearly Progress * Across the nation, almost 300 private companies referred to as “education management organizations” are taking a big bite out of the public school apple. According to a new report, EMOs now operate 35 percent of all public charter schools, and these schools account for more than 40 percent of all charter school stu... more »

Creating Teacher Incentives for School Excellence and Equity

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago

Ω Do teachers think like salesmen or assembly line workers? Does a financial reward tied to a production goal or sales target motivate teachers to teach better, and do students benefit from these financial incentives? The answer is that few or no gains come from such teacher incentives. This is because pay-for-performance schemes don’t respond to what teachers care most about, but other incentives might be much more successful, according to Creating Teacher Incentives for School Excellence and Equity, issued today by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC) at the University of C... more »

Revisiting the Age-Old Question: Does Money Matter in Education?

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago

Ω This policy brief revisits the long and storied literature on whether money matters in providing a quality education. Increasingly, political rhetoric adheres to the unfounded certainty that money doesn’t make a difference in education, and that reduced funding is unlikely to harm educational quality. Such proclamations have even been used to justify large cuts to education budgets over the past few years. These positions, however, have little basis in the empirical research on the relationship between funding and school quality. The brief, discusses selected major studies on thr... more »

Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 5 days ago

Ω Preparing for Change, a National Perspective on Common Core State Standards Implementation Planning. The early stages of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) initiative were largely occupied with debates over the merits of the standards and the feasibility of their adoption by the states. As the movement has matured, the focus of attention has shifted toward issues related to practical implementation, such as the readiness of teachers to actually enact the new standards in the classroom. To gauge state progress toward implementing the CCSS, Education First and the Editorial Pro... more »

Most studies of charter schools use unsophisticated methods that tell us little

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 6 days ago

Ω Some two decades into the grand national experiment with charter schools, how much do we really know about them? Not all that much. And not nearly as much as we easily could, say researchers from the University of California, San Diego Division of Social Sciences. Writing in the journal Science, UC San Diego educational economist Julian Betts and Richard Atkinson, president emeritus of the University of California and former director of the National Science Foundation, find that most studies of charter schools "use unsophisticated methods that tell us little about causal effects.... more »

Quality Counts 2012

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 6 days ago

Ω *Maryland Ranks First for Fourth Straight Year* *Special Theme Explores American Education from a Global Perspective Grades and Highlights Reports Issued for All 50 States and D.C.* The nation and many states face continuing challenges in delivering a high-quality education to all students, according to Quality Counts 2012, the 16th edition of Education Week's annual examination of issues and challenges facing America's public schools. In addition to the in-depth package of articles on this year's theme, Quality Counts 2012 offers fresh data and analysis from the EPE Research... more »

State Reports Profiling First-Year Progress Under Race to the Top

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago

Ω The U.S. Department of Education has released state-specific reports profiling first-year progress on comprehensive education reform under Race to the Top. The reports document reform efforts underway in Delaware, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Tennessee, the 12 grantees that secured Race to the Top funding in 2010 through the competition's first two phases. State Reports StateReport*Delaware*Year 1 Report [image: download files] PDF (2.35M)*District of Columbia*Year 1 Report [image: download files] PDF (... more »

National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K–12

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago

Ω The goal of the National Sexuality Education Standards: Core Content and Skills, K–12 is to provide clear, consistent and straightforward guidance on the essential minimum, core content for sexuality education that is developmentally and age-appropriate for students in grades K–12. The development of these standards is a result of an ongoing initiative, the Future of Sex Education (FoSE). Forty individuals from the fields of health education, sexuality education, public health, public policy, philanthropy and advocacy convened for a two-day meeting in December 2008 to create a st... more »

Barriers to Outdoor Activity for Children in Child Care Centers

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago

Ω Three-fourths of preschool-age children in the United States attend child care, and many are not getting enough outdoor physical activity, which may be due in part to parental and societal values about injury prevention and kindergarten readiness. The study, “Societal Values and Policies May Curtail Preschool Children’s Physical Activity in Child Care Centers,” will be published in the February 2012 Pediatrics and published online Jan. 4. A team led by Kristen Copeland, MD, division of General and Community Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and a Robert ... more »

‘Tiger mothers’ should tame parenting approach

Jonathan Kantrowitz at Education Research Report - 1 week ago

Ω The Eastern view of parenting, as defined by best-selling author and self-described “tiger mother” Amy Chua, is that children should be pushed to excel at all costs. Parents needn’t worry about their happiness, she argues, only their success. But now a Michigan State University scholar is refuting that theory. In her research, Desiree Baolian Qin – who, like Chua, is a Chinese mother – found that high-achieving Chinese students were more depressed and anxious than their white counterparts. And contrary to the tiger mother philosophy, Qin said, a child’s happiness is vitally impor... more »