Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, August 22, 2020

THIS WEEK Education Research Report

Education Research Report


THIS WEEK 
Education Research Report




Affirmative action incentivizes high schoolers to perform better
California voters will be asked to approve a return to affirmative action on Nov. 3 with Proposition 16, which would restore the right of the state's colleges and universities to consider race, ethnicity and gender in admission decisions. Affirmative action is a contentious issue across the globe, hotly debated in countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Nigeria and Brazil, as well as in the
Students experiencing homelessness are largely invisible
in school reopening plans Full report Twitter The COVID-19 crisis is exacerbating the challenges students experiencing homelessness face (link is external) , as well as causing the number of youth who are homeless to grow. Education continues to be one of the most important components of their journey to break the cycle of poverty and reach economic independence, health, and well-being. Yet these

AUG 20

Prescription Opioid Misuse and Use of Alcohol and Other Substances Among High School Students
Complete report Adolescence is an important period of risk for substance use initiation and substance use–related adverse outcomes. To examine youth substance use trends and patterns, CDC analyzed data from the 2009–2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. This report presents estimated prevalence of current (i.e., previous 30-days) marijuana use, prescription opioid misuse, alcohol use, and binge drinki
Free and Compulsory School Age Requirements
The age requirements states set for free and compulsory education bookend critical years in the learning continuum. By requiring early entry, states can work to ensure students have access to the supports and structures needed to develop a strong educational foundation; and by requiring attendance through the teen years, states can curb potential dropout rates and encourage a skilled workforce. T

AUG 19

Increasing graduation rates of students of color with more faculty of color
A new analysis published in Public Administration found that student graduation rates improve as more faculty employed by a college or university share sex and race/ethnic identities with students. The analysis focuses on the concept of intersectionality, which seeks to understand how aspects of a person's social and political identities--such as gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, and physi
How Do Proficient and Less Proficient Students Differ in Their Composition Processes?
This study evaluates how higher- vs. lower-scoring middle-school students differ in their composition processes when writing persuasive essays from source materials. The authors examined differences on four individual process features–time taken before beginning to write, typing speed, total time spent, and number of words started. Next, they examined differences for four aggregated process measu

AUG 18

School flu vaccine program reduces community-wide influenza hospitalizations
A city-wide school influenza vaccine intervention was associated with a decrease in influenza-associated hospitalizations for all age groups and a decrease in school absence rates among students in seasons with an effective influenza vaccine, according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Jade Benjamin-Chung of University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues. Seasonal influen
Smartphones are lowering student's grades
The ease of finding information on the internet is hurting students' long-term retention and resulting in lower grades on exams, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study. The study, published in the journal Educational Psychology , found that smartphones seem to be the culprit. Students who received higher homework but lower exam scores -- a half to a full letter grade lower on exams

AUG 17

High schoolers' accuracy in classification of their peers
Adolescents transitioning into high school encounter a large number of unfamiliar peers, who they quickly label into groups by using an individual's appearance as their guide. But how do visible queues of high school cliques correlate with what youth say about themselves? Are adolescents that are stereotyped by peers as jocks actually more sports-oriented, populars more well-liked, and loners mor
School Segregation: The Crucial Role of Neighborhood Factors
The authors of this study develop a novel strategy to identify the relative importance of school and neighborhood factors in determining school segregation. Using detailed student enrollment and residential location data, their research design compares differences in student composition between adjacent Census blocks served by different schools to analogous differences between those schools. Thei
The Effect of Job Displacement on College Enrollment
Displaced workers suffer large and persistent earnings losses. These losses can be mitigated by returning to school, yet the extent to which such workers enroll in post-secondary education in response to displacement is poorly understood. Using employer-employee-student matched administrative data from Ohio, this study provides the first direct evidence of workers’ enrollment responses following
No detectable effect of the 4-day week on academic achievement
Motivated by potential financial savings, 4-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 24 states as of 2019. The consequences of the 4-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This article uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal

AUG 14

Students’ retention, persistence, attainment, withdrawal, stopout, and transfer rates
New Web Tables from the National Center for Education Statistics provide the most recent national statistics on students’ who first began postsecondary education in the 2011–12 year. These tables provide information about the cohort as of 2017, six years after they first started their postsecondary education. Tables across the four reports contain detailed information on students’ characteristics
https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2020075
This First Look report presents findings about young children’s care and education before kindergarten, including participation rates in weekly nonparental care arrangements, how well these arrangements cover work 

Education Research Report