Search

The No Child Left Behind Act imposes sanctions on schools if the fraction of each of five racial groups of students demonstrating proficiency on a high stakes exam falls below a statewide pass rate. This system places pressure on school administrators to redirect educational resources from groups of students most likely to demonstrate proficiency towards those who are marginally below proficient. Using statewide observations of 3rd and 4th grade math tests, this paper demonstrates that students of successful racial groups at schools likely to be sanctioned gain less academically over their subsequent test year than comparable peers at passing schools. This effect is stronger at schools more likely to suffer from NCLB sanctions and is robust to nonrandom sample selection. (Contains 6 tables, 13 notes, and a bibliography.) [Paper presented at the NCLB: Emerging Findings Research Conference at the Urban Institute, Washington, D.C., Aug 12, 2009.]

This discussion paper represents one of the National Association for College Admission Counseling's (NACAC's) first post-Testing Commission steps in advancing the knowledge base and dialogue about test preparation. It describes various types of test preparation programs and summarizes the existing academic research on the effects of test preparation on standardized test scores. The paper also presents newly published data collected by the author in cooperation with NACAC and its members about how colleges are currently using test scores in the process of making admission decisions. The purposes of this report are to (1) describe and summarize formal and informal methods of admission test preparation; (2) synthesize and summarize existing academic research on the effects of admission test preparation; (3) arrive at conclusions about the effectiveness of test preparation for admission testing; and (4) suggest future research needs in this area. The report concludes with recommendations to admission officers and high school counselors for implementing policies and training that can account for the effects of test preparation in the college admission process. Appended are summaries of SAT Coaching Studies. (Contains 6 tables, 6 figures, 12 footnotes, and bibliographies on coaching studies and coaching reviews.)

There has been a resurgence in research that investigates the efficacy of early investments as a means of reducing gaps in academic performance. However, the strongest evidence for these effects comes from experimental evaluations of small, highly enriched programs. We add to this literature by assessing the extent to which a large-scale public program, Texas's targeted pre-Kindergarten (pre-K), affects scores on math and reading achievement tests, the likelihood of being retained in grade, and the probability that a student receives special education services. We find that having participated in Texas's targeted pre-K program is associated with increased scores on the math and reading sections of the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills (TAAS), reductions in the likelihood of being retained in grade, and reductions in the probability of receiving special education services. We also find that participating pre-K increases mathematics scores for students who take the Spanish version of the TAAS tests. These results show that even modest, public pre-K program implemented at scale can have important effects on students' educational achievement.

At open-access two-year public colleges, the goal of the traditional assessment and placement process is to match incoming students to the developmental or college-level courses for which they have adequate preparation; the process presumably increases underprepared students' chances of short- and long-term success in college while maintaining the academic quality and rigor of college-level courses. However, the traditional process may be limited in its ability to achieve these aims due to poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards of college readiness. To understand current approaches that seek to improve the process, we conducted a scan of assessment and placement policies and practices at open-access two-year colleges in Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. We describe the variety of approaches that systems and colleges employed to ameliorate poor course placement accuracy and inconsistent standards associated with the traditional process. Taking a broad view of the extent of these approaches, we find that most colleges we studied adopted a "measured" approach that addressed a single limitation without attending to other limitations that contribute to the same overall problem of poor course placement accuracy or inconsistent standards. Much less common were "comprehensive" approaches that attended to multiple limitations of the process; these approaches were likely to result from changes to developmental education as a whole. Drawing from the study's findings, we also discuss how colleges can overcome barriers to reform in order to implement approaches that hold promise for improved course placement accuracy, more consistent standards of college readiness, and, potentially, greater long-term academic success of community college students. Data Collection Process is appended. (Contains 3 tables and 3 footnotes.)

There are many ways to use student test scores to evaluate schools. This paper defines and examines different estimators, including regression-based value-added indicators, average gains, and successive cohort differences in achievement levels. Given that regression-based indicators are theoretically preferred but not always feasible, we consider whether simpler alternatives provide acceptable approximations. We argue that average gain indicators potentially can provide useful information, but differences across successive cohorts, such as grade trends, which are commonly cited in the popular press and used in the Safe Harbor provision of federal school accountability laws, are flawed and can be misleading when used for school accountability or program evaluation. (Contains 5 tables, 2 figures and 7 endnotes.)

To increase student learning and achievement, more and more states are pursuing reforms in "both" early care and education (ECE) programs and the K-12 education system. Many states are implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to promote all students' readiness for college and careers, while engaging in reforms prompted by the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge (RTTT-ELC) grant competition to expand children's access to high-quality programs for early learning. Ideally, these initiatives would support and reinforce each other's goals and approaches to education--especially across the birth-to-grade 3 continuum, when research shows children acquire critical skills for academic success. Well-aligned ECE and K-12 reforms and policies would enable states to develop common expectations on what children need to know and be able to do as they transition from early childhood programs to the primary grades. Unfortunately, in most cases, aligning reforms in the early learning and K-12 systems is challenging. Typically, these efforts are led by different state entities and policymakers with limited knowledge of one another's goals and strategies. ECE and K-12 leaders also tend to have different approaches to teaching and learning and even different beliefs about the objectives. As policymakers who have the responsibility for the well-being and education of children of all ages, governors are uniquely situated to bring state agencies together and develop a coordinated strategy to align ECE and K-12 policies so they better serve all children, starting at birth. Doing so requires leaders from both systems to analyze what their respective goals, approaches, and reform strategies have in common and how they differ. This process can help governors, their staff, and other state policy leaders develop concrete action steps that promote greater alignment of ECE and K-12 reforms in key areas: (1) Leadership and Governance; (2) Learning Standards; (3) Child Assessments; (4) Accountability; (5) Teacher/Leader Preparation and Professional Development; and (6) Resource Allocation and Reallocation. (Contains 23 endnotes and 4 resources.)

As a research and technical assistance organization, CNA Education would be the last to deny the importance of good data and the first to applaud efforts to improve the quality and scope of the data available. Solid data are critical to CNA's mission to further general understanding of the efficacy of specific education reform initiatives and to address the needs of their district-level and state-level customers and constituents for a clearer assessment of their own specific efforts and of the available options for improving their education outcomes. The three papers in this collection ("The State Data Analysis Gap: A Threat to Education Reform" by Arthur Sheekey and Michael Allen; "Getting State Education Data Right: What We Can Learn from Tennessee" by Kyle Southern and Joe Jones; and "The Equitable Distribution of Effective Teachers: Can States Meet the Research Challenges Required for Success?" by Michael Allen) make the strong case, however, that the availability of good data is not all that policymakers and educators need for their decisions. In addition, they need to understand the limitations of their data and how to use and interpret them appropriately. And they must ask--and answer to their satisfaction--a number of conceptual and technical questions that have implications for the validity, interpretation, and very meaning of the data they seek to use.

There is a widespread consensus among practitioners, researchers, and policy makers that current teacher evaluation systems in most school districts do little to help teachers improve or to support personnel decision making. For this reason, new approaches to teacher evaluation are being developed and tested. There is also a growing consensus that evidence of teachers' contributions to student learning should be a component of teacher evaluation systems, along with evidence about the quality of teachers' practice. "Value-added models" (VAMs) for examining gains in student test scores from one year to the next are promoted as tools to accomplish this goal. Policy makers can benefit from research about what these models can and cannot do, as well as from research about the effects of other approaches to teacher evaluation. This background paper addresses both of these important concerns. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables and 29 endnotes.)

Like most everyone, schools have been forced to tighten their belts to survive in today's economic downturn. School leaders have been cutting budgets for afterschool activities, classroom equipment, and staff, all in an era of increasing academic expectations. It is little surprise, then, that facilities issues have been relegated to the bottom of the to-do list. However, the enormous costs and burdens of outmoded facilities arrangements represent an immense opportunity for the nation's school systems. In this paper, the author explores the causes of the nation's $300 billion funding shortfall in K-12 facilities and offers concrete recommendations to address this troubling trend. The author posits that public-private partnerships are a promising avenue for tapping the resources needed to address capital needs, but that current financial conditions in K-12 scare off potential investors. By overhauling facilities financing and exploring innovative approaches, policymakers can create the space for private investors to support school facilities. Helping schools better meet their facilities needs, the author argues, entails: (1) Holding educators and schools accountable for academic "and" financial performance; (2) Loosening regulations that limit the reach of charter schools and other nontraditional programs; and (3) Creating more opportunities for schools to take advantage of nontraditional financing options. Enacting such measures, the author asserts, will allow for a more stable and investor-friendly system for financing facilities. He explains, "Once established, uniformity, liquidity, and stability can foster increased partnerships between public and private parties, bringing more resources into the sector and allowing educators more time to tend to their profession." (Contains 6 figures and 9 endnotes.)

As more states have become engaged in kindergarten assessment efforts, early childhood educators and assessment experts have recommended developing such efforts within a coordinated assessment system that provides data about children's progress over time, (pre-k through grade 12), and is designed to address both educational policy and practice questions. Based on the review of current efforts, the Early Childhood Education State Assessment Collaborative's (ECEA) position on assessment of children at the start of formal schooling, typically kindergarten, is the following: Early child assessments conducted prior to, at the start of, and during kindergarten can be useful for a number of purposes "if done well." Kindergarten readiness assessments should be used to directly support children's development and academic achievement to improve educational outcomes. To do so, kindergarten readiness assessment efforts should adhere to the following principles: (1) Use multiple tools for multiple purposes; (2) Address multiple developmental domains and diverse cultural contexts; (3) Align with early learning guidelines and common core standards; (4) Collect information from multiple sources; (5) Implement in a systems-based approach; and (6) Avoid inappropriate use of assessment information, specifically including high-stakes decisions, labeling children, restricting kindergarten entry, and predicting children's future academic and life success. The rest of this paper will discuss the rationale of ECEA's position and important cautions for parents, teachers, administrators, and policymakers to consider when planning kindergarten assessment initiatives. A glossary is included. (Contains 1 table and 37 notes.)

Parental participation and cooperation in children's educational experiences is positively related to important student outcomes. It is becoming increasingly evident that context is a significant factor in understanding academic achievement, and the setting in which a child, family, and school is situated is among the salient contexts influencing performance. Although the family-school partnership research literature has increased over recent decades, it has been conducted primarily in urban and suburban settings. The goals of this paper are to (a) review the empirical literature on family involvement and family-school partnerships in rural schools, (b) provide a synthesis of the state of the science, and (c) point to a research agenda in this area. Eighteen studies were identified that met the criteria for this review. A critique of the research methods and analytical approaches is provided, along with a call for more research on the topic of family-school partnerships in rural settings, including rigorous and systematic studies pertaining to the effects of family-school involvement and partnerships in rural schools. (Contains 1 table and 1 footnote.)

Within a quarter century after the end of World War II (1945-1970), largely because of the support and investment it received from the State, the University of California had changed from two modest-size general campuses (Berkeley and Los Angeles) and the medical campus in San Francisco (UCSF), to a system of eight general campuses. California was at the pinnacle of its success-its economy strong and growing. Since then, however, the fiscal and political problems facing California have led to a steady erosion in funding support for the University of California, and now are leading to a debate regarding its future. If UC has in the past been an engine propelling the growth of California's economy, it would appear to be wise policy to place a high priority on repairing the damage which has been done to it, and will weaken its ability to serve students and the people of the State and nation. While most observers acknowledge that this is a desired goal, there is little agreement on how best to achieve it. Setting aside the limited numbers who would opt for the status quo, this paper discusses three scenarios for UC. The first is a return to the status quo ante; the second is a full move toward privatization; and the third is a hybrid approach. This last option would mean retaining some of the elements of the past partnership between the state and the university, and could be implemented without unrealistic costs to the State or UC, and allow for the continuing academic health of the university. This last option could be exercised by UC as a whole, by several of the campuses operating through UC, or by several campuses (presumably the same ones as discussed under the "privatization" option) becoming quasi-independent of the current system. It could even be exercised, with the approval of campus and UC officials, by schools, colleges or other intra-campus organizations. (Contains 11 endnotes.)

Using data from the 2008 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, we show that study time and academic conscientiousness were lower among students in humanities and social science majors than among students in science and engineering majors. Analytical and critical thinking experiences were no more evident among humanities and social sciences majors than among science and engineering majors. All three academically beneficial experiences were, however, strongly related to participation in class and interaction with instructors, and participation was more common among humanities and social sciences students than among science and engineering students. Bok's (2006) influential discussion of "underachievement" in undergraduate education focused on institutional performance. Our findings indicate that future discussions should take into account differences among disciplinary categories and majors as well. (Contains 4 tables and 13 footnotes.)

Stories abound about the staffing cuts that will have to be made currently, and in the next couple of years, as the ripple effects of the economic crisis impact local and state education budgets. Major budget cuts make teacher layoffs a near inevitability. This raises two very timely questions: what now determines which teachers are laid off, and is that policy best for students? A significant body of empirical research shows that the specific teachers to which students are assigned can have dramatic effects on their achievement. Research by economist Eric Hanushek (1992), for instance, estimates that the difference between having a very effective versus a very ineffective teacher can be as much as a full year's learning growth. So are the significant differences in teacher effectiveness part of the equation when making tough decisions about which teachers will lose their jobs? The research described in this paper suggests that the answer to this question is a definitive "no." Empirical analysis reflects what is hard-wired into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs): seniority is the most important factor when deciding which teachers are laid off. Not only does this seniority-driven system not consider teacher effectiveness, but it also results in substantially more teachers being laid off to achieve specific budget targets because senior teachers, whose jobs are protected, earn more than novice teachers. This research also tellingly finds that the novice teachers laid off are often more effective than the senior teachers left behind. Looking at Washington state data on teacher effectiveness and teacher layoffs, this research finds that current layoff policy could lead to students losing 2 to 4 months of learning in the year after the layoffs. (Contains 2 tables, 4 figures and 33 endnotes.)

Effectively meeting the needs of an increasingly diverse population of students presents challenges for educators across the United States, including the Texas and Southeast Comprehensive Center regions. Increasingly rigorous achievement expectations must be supported with flexible, accessible curricula, offering multiple pathways to success in order to secure opportunities for all children. Key points of this briefing paper include the following: (1) Multi-tier systems of support offer a research-based approach to addressing the myriad needs of youth struggling with school success; and (2) Application of the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can make curriculum and instruction both accessible and engaging for all learners, resulting in increased opportunities for learning success. The success of any public education reform effort will be tied, at least in part, to the ability to address appropriately the academic and social-behavior needs of diverse learners. By redefining the focus from one of "fixing students" to one of providing high-quality education that is responsive to individual needs (Riele, p. 141) the system will invariably improve experiences and outcomes for all students.

Nearly all states are grappling with the question of how to boost college attainment to meet workforce needs with the resources available. For many states, that task is complicated by the fact that the young adult population is projected neither to grow nor decline over the next several years. There is a significant opportunity, however, for states to increase degree attainment even in the face of those challenges. According to Lumina Foundation for Education, more than 22 percent of working-age adults in the U.S. (more than 37 million Americans) have attended college but have not earned a degree. A subset of this group--those who are close to having earned a degree but have not yet returned to college--offer a particularly rich opportunity for states to increase degree attainment. Also known as near-completers or ready adults, these potential students generally are a lower risk investment for states and institutions because these students have already demonstrated success in college. While the gains from serving these potential students are significant, to do so effectively requires a willingness to do business differently. Returning students face a host of challenges, but states and institutions serving them face challenges as well. Several states have been involved in significant efforts to reach this population, and many have experienced success. For the last several years, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) has led a Lumina Foundation-funded effort, Non-traditional No More: Policy Solutions for Adult Learners, which has worked closely with six states to identify their ready adults and reduce the barriers to success through comprehensive policy and practice changes at the state and institutional levels. This paper presents several promising state strategies for addressing the needs of ready adults. (Contains 1 figure.)

In an increasingly fast-changing, complex and diverse world, social and emotional skills are becoming ever more important. In this paper we present an overview of literature on social and emotional skills, describing the nature and structure of these skills, their development, malleability and factors that influence them, their cross-cultural comparability and their relevance for a wide range of educational, economic and life outcomes. The paper also represents a conceptual framework for the OECD's new Study on Social and Emotional Skills, an international survey that assesses 10- and 15-year-old students in a number of cities and countries around the world. We focus on the underlying skills within and outside of the widely researched Big Five model that are found to be more predictive and policy relevant. We examine the relationships of these skills with a variety of indicators of individual and societal wellbeing such as education, employment and income, health, and personal well-being. The paper discusses the structure of child's social and emotional skills and the developmental trajectories of these skills across a lifetime. It presents the evidence of malleability of these skills as well as their relevance across a wide range of cultural contexts.

Resilience refers to the capacity of individuals to prosper despite encountering adverse circumstances. This paper defines academic resilience as the ability of 15-year-old students from disadvantaged backgrounds to perform at a certain level in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in reading, mathematics and science that enables them to play an active role in their communities and prepares them to make the most of lifelong-learning opportunities. Using data from the most recent PISA cycles, this paper explores changes in the share of resilient students over time (2006-2015); highlights the importance of school environments and resources in mitigating the risk of low achievement for disadvantaged students; and identifies school-level factors that are associated with the likelihood of academic resilience among socio-economically disadvantaged students. Analyses reveal that several countries were able to increase the share of resilient students over time, reflecting improvements in the average performance of students, or a weaker relationship between socio-economic status and performance. In the vast majority of education systems examined, the likelihood of academic resilience among disadvantaged students is lower in schools where students report a negative classroom climate. The paper concludes by exploring school policies and practices that are associated with a positive classroom climate. [This work was supported by a contribution to the PISA programme of work from Vodafone Germany Foundation.]

Value-added models in education research allow researchers to explore how a wide variety of policies and measured school inputs affect the academic performance of students. Researchers typically quantify the impacts of such interventions in terms of "effect sizes", i.e., the estimated effect of a one standard deviation change in the variable divided by the standard deviation of test scores in the relevant population of students. Effect size estimates based on administrative databases typically are quite small. Research has shown that high quality teachers have large effects on student learning but that measures of teacher qualifications seem to matter little, leading some observers to conclude that, even though effectively choosing teachers can make an important difference in student outcomes, attempting to differentiate teacher candidates based on pre-employment credentials is of little value. This illustrates how the perception that many educational interventions have small effect sizes, as traditionally measured, are having important consequences for policy. In this paper we focus on two issues pertaining to how effect sizes are measured. First, we argue that model coefficients should be compared to the standard deviation of gain scores, not the standard deviation of scores, in calculating most effect sizes. The second issue concerns the need to account for test measurement error. The standard deviation of observed scores in the denominator of the effect-size measure reflects such measurement error as well as the dispersion in the true academic achievement of students, thus overstating variability in achievement. It is the size of an estimated effect relative to the dispersion in the true achievement or the gain in true achievement that is of interest. Adjusting effect-size estimates to account for these considerations is straightforward if one knows the extent of test measurement error. Technical reports provided by test vendors typically only provide information regarding the measurement error associated with the test instrument. However, there are a number of other factors, including variation in scores associated with students having particularly good or bad days, which can result in test scores not accurately reflecting true academic achievement. Using the covariance structure of student test scores across grades in New York City from 1999 to 2007, we estimate the overall extent of test measurement error and how measurement error varies across students. Our estimation strategy follows from two key assumptions: (1) there is no persistence (correlation) in each student's test measurement error across grades; (2) there is at least some persistence in learning across grades with the degree of persistence constant across grades. Employing the covariance structure of test scores for NYC students and alternative models characterizing the growth in academic achievement, we find estimates of the overall extent of test measurement error to be quite robust. Returning to the analysis of effect sizes, our effect-size estimates based on the dispersion in gain scores net of test measurement error are four times larger than effect sizes typically measured. To illustrate the importance of this difference, we consider results from a recent paper analyzing how various attributes of teachers affect the test-score gains of their students (Boyd et al., in press). Many of the estimated effects appear small when compared to the standard deviation of student achievement--that is effect sizes of less than 0.05. However, when measurement error is taken into account, the associated effect sizes often are about 0.16. Furthermore, when teacher attributes are considered jointly, based on the teacher attribute combinations commonly observed, the overall effect of teacher attributes is roughly half a standard deviation of universe score gains--even larger when teaching experience is also allowed to vary. The bottom line is that there are important differences in teacher effectiveness that are systematically related to observed teacher attributes. Such effects are important from a policy perspective, and should be taken into account in the formulation and implementation of personnel policies. An appendix is included. (Contains 34 footnotes, 4 figures, and 9 tables.) ["Overview of Measuring Effect Sizes: The Effect of Measurement Error. Brief 2" (ED508284) was based on this report.]

Learning communities are a popular strategy that community colleges nationwide have embraced in support of developmental students. In a learning community, a cohort of students takes two or more courses linked by integrated themes and assignments that are developed through ongoing faculty collaboration. While the number of learning community programs continues to grow, rigorous studies measuring their effectiveness are limited. To address this need for evidence, the Learning Communities demonstration, launched in 2007, uses random assignment to test models of learning communities at six community colleges: Kingsborough Community College, Queensborough Community College, Hillsborough Community College, Merced College, Houston Community College System, and Community College of Baltimore County. The study is designed to determine: (1) how learning communities can be designed to address the needs of academically underprepared students; (2) the effects of learning communities on student achievement, as measured by test scores, credits earned, and grades; (3) the effects of learning communities on students' persistence in higher education; and (4) what learning communities cost and how these costs compare with the costs of standard college programs for students with low basic skills. Preliminary findings will be available in 2009. This working paper describes the study's design, including a summary of the theoretical and empirical research relevant to learning communities, descriptions of the sites and their learning community models, the random assignment procedures, and plans for data analysis. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure, and 67 notes.) [This paper was produced by the National Center for Postsecondary Research. It was written with the assistance of Oscar Cerna, Christine Sansone, and Michelle Ware.]

Title III of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires state education agencies to develop progress and attainment benchmarks for school districts, called annual measurable achievement objectives (AMAOs), for English language learners (ELLs). AMAOs must be based on annual assessments of English proficiency in the domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Conceptually, holding districts accountable for ELL student progress and attainment in English seems straightforward. However, the process for establishing AMAO criteria can be very complex, and current research on system accountability using ELL assessments is sparse at best. Because of this dearth of research, there has been little guidance available to inform states on how to appropriately establish AMAO policies. This paper attempts to fill that void by providing guidance and recommendations on how states might establish AMAO progress and English attainment policies. The first section of the paper provides guidance for AMAO 1--targeted annual increases in the number or percentage of children making progress in learning English. The second section provides guidance for AMAO 2--targeted annual increases in the number or percentage of children attaining English proficiency. The third section offers some alternative approaches to setting AMAO 1 criteria. The data used in this paper come from three member states of the World-class Instructional Design and Assessment (WIDA) Consortium over a 3-year period (2005-2007) across all grades (kindergarten to 12th grade). The WIDA Consortium was originally established with funding from a U.S. Department of Education Enhanced Assessment Grant and includes 17 states. The English language proficiency assessment used by WIDA Consortium states is ACCESS for ELLs[R] (Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State to State). This assessment is aligned with WIDA English proficiency standards and reflects the state-specific academic content standards of member states as required under NCLB. The AMAO recommendations made in this paper relate specifically to states using ACCESS for ELLs[R]; however, the methods, recommendations, and guidance offered are easily generalizable to other types of ELL assessment systems. (Contains 13 tables and 19 figures.) [The research reported in this paper was supported by the WIDA Consortium and by the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.]

Employment has long been held to be an important deterrent against poverty, and work is a core component of a range of federal efforts to improve the economic well-being of low-income families. However, recent trends in earnings and research both confirm that work alone is not sufficient to prevent poverty. While there is compelling evidence that additional years of schooling and advanced education credentials are associated with higher earnings, evaluations of education and basic skills training programs have yielded mixed results concerning their ability to increase earnings among low-income populations. This paper summarizes what is known from evaluations about the effectiveness of education acquisition to advance the earnings and careers of low-wage workers. The paper then discusses two popular community college strategies intended to increase academic success among this population: enhanced student services and performance-based scholarships. Recent research about performance-based scholarships suggests that they can have a large, positive effect on academic achievement among a predominately female, single-parent student population that faces multiple barriers to completing college. (Contains 6 footnotes and 3 tables.)

In large urban districts, schools enrolling more white students tend to have higher school performance ratings. We use an instrumental variables strategy leveraging centralized school assignment to identify the drivers of the correlation between racial make-up and ratings. Estimates from Denver and New York City suggest the relationship between widely-reported school performance ratings and white enrollment shares reflects selection bias rather than causal school value-added. In fact, value-added in these two cities is essentially unrelated to white enrollment shares. A simple regression adjustment is shown to yield school ratings that are uncorrelated with race, while predicting causal value-added as well or better than the corresponding unadjusted measures.

Most analyses of teacher quality end without any assessment of the economic value of altered teacher quality. This paper combines information about teacher effectiveness with the economic impact of higher achievement. It begins with an overview of what is known about the relationship between teacher quality and student achievement, which provides the basis for consideration of the derived demand for teachers which comes from their impact on economic outcomes. Alternative valuation methods are based on the impact of increased achievement on individual earnings and on the impact of low teacher effectiveness on economic growth through aggregate achievement. A teacher one standard deviation above the mean effectiveness annually generates marginal gains of over $400,000 in present value of student future earnings with a class size of 20 and proportionately higher with larger class sizes. Alternatively, replacing the bottom 5-8 percent of teachers with average teachers could move the U.S. near the top of international math and science rankings with a present value of $100 trillion. (Contains 3 tables, 3 figures and 44 footnotes.)

This paper explores the emergence of selective admission policies in Dutch university education. Such policies are being developed to promote excellence in a higher education system that is generally known to be "egalitarian" and increasingly criticized for a lack of differentiation. The changing policy context of admission in Dutch university education and its driving forces and rationales are discussed in the context of European-wide developments such as the Bologna Process. Especially the emergence of selective liberal arts colleges will be presented as a recent excellence initiative. A review of international trends, methods and criteria in selective admission (notably from systems with extensive experience in this field such as the USA), including historical pitfalls, provides an analytical framework for the discussion of the fostering of excellence in combination with the aim for diversity in the student population. The predictive value of selection methods and criteria used at Amsterdam University College (AUC) are evaluated against the study progress and performance of AUC students. This includes academic criteria such as GPA in secondary school, and AUC's use of interviews. Examining data from AUC's first entering class in 2009, the college has achieved enrolling students from different national and socioeconomic backgrounds. It is also achieving excellence in terms of study progress and academic performance, including an attrition rate of only 13 percent. The question is whether interviews generate sufficient added value, in particular with regard to the time and costs of this model and with a view to the risk of subjective interpretations of "soft variables" such as student motivation. The answer seems to be that interviews provide extra guidance to both the student and the institution as to whether the student is choosing the right study programme (and not so much as whether he or she is able to complete it successfully). Consequently, the combined model of selection on the basis of prior academic achievement at secondary school (GPA) and personal interviews will be continued. However, specific attention needs to be paid to the fact that the interviewer's estimate of academic performance seems to be less accurate to predict study success than the actual secondary school GPA (i.e. based on the former more students could have been wrongly rejected than on the basis of the latter). (Contains 6 tables, 11 figures and 27 endnotes.)

As Duncomb and Yinger (2001) have stated, "School consolidation represents the most dramatic change in education governance and management in the United States in the twentieth century. Over 100,000 school districts have been eliminated through consolidation since 1938, a drop of almost 90 percent (NCES 1999, Table 90). This longstanding trend continues throughout the country, largely because consolidation is widely regarded as a way for school districts to cut costs" (p. 1). The study described in the present paper applies Duncomb and Yinger's methods to Michigan data, looking as possible to financial consequences of consolidation of school districts at the county level. Research data sets for 10 counties in Michigan are used to estimate cost-saving effects of consolidation, as in the Duncombe and Yinger study. It appears that significant savings can be achieved in consolidating school districts at the county level. The coordination of services also produces cost savings for the districts assuming participation in a county level (ISD) coordination of services. These findings are consistent with other research studies in New York and Indiana. However, consolidation studies conducted in Arizona and New Jersey indicated that the fiscal savings hoped for did not materialize to the extent expected. Overall, consolidation seems to make fiscal sense, particularly in rural and small districts. The coordination of services seems more palatable to Michigan communities and also produces significant reduction in cost of services such as transportation and operation. The results of this study should be of interest to state and local elected officials, to state education agency staff, and to public school administrators. The Future of School Districts Consolidation in Michigan is provided in an addendum. (Contains 1 footnote.) [This study was funded by the Booth Newspapers of Michigan.]

Video-based supplemental instruction (VSI) is a non-traditional course delivery system designed to improve developmental students' academic performance in difficult courses that typically have high failure and withdrawal rates. This paper describes the VSI model and examines data from VSI applications. (Contains 12 figures.)

This paper presents the findings from a quantitative analysis of the Community College of Baltimore County's Accelerated Learning Program (ALP). Under ALP, students placed into upper-level developmental writing are "mainstreamed" into English 101 classes and simultaneously enrolled in a companion ALP course (taught by the same instructor) that meets in the class period immediately following the English 101 class. The aim of the ALP course, which has only eight students, is to help students maximize the likelihood of their success in English 101. Our results suggest that among students who place into the highest level developmental writing course, participating in ALP is associated with substantially better outcomes in terms of English 101 completion and English 102 completion, the two primary outcomes ALP was designed to improve. However, we found no evidence that ALP students' greater likelihood of completing English 101 and 102 correlates with increased rates of college persistence or passing other college-level courses. Looking at the costs of ALP in relation to our findings on its effects, we found that ALP is a more cost-effective pathway through the required college-level English courses than the traditional developmental English sequence as measured by cost per successful student ($2,680 versus $3,122). A rough cost-benefit analysis finds that the benefits of ALP are more than double the costs. Appended are: (1) Tables; and (2) Accelerated Learning Program, Community College of Baltimore County Cost Analysis Details. (Contains 7 tables and 17 footnotes.)

Does public information about school quality lead parents to sort their children out of schools with relatively poor performance? Use of this exit option in response to information about school quality has the potential to indirectly foster school responsiveness to quality concerns. To determine whether this information affects student exit, I use a regression discontinuity design to examine the effect of school grades on exit. Results indicate that parents do not seem to respond to information about school quality generally and, thus, cast doubt on the effectiveness of indirect accountability to promote educational improvement. However, there is limited evidence that particularly poor school performance accompanied by institutional mechanisms for school choice promote student sorting away from low-quality schools. (Contains 12 figures, 9 tables, and 11 footnotes.) [Funding for this paper was provided by the National Science Foundation's IGERT program.]

Status quo approaches to teacher evaluation have recently come under increasing criticism. They typically assign most teachers the highest available score, provide minimal feedback for improvement, and have little connection with student achievement growth and the quality of instruction that leads to higher student growth. A more comprehensive approach has been demonstrated for ten years by TAP[TM]: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement. This system includes both classroom observations and student achievement growth measures, provides feedback to teachers for improvement, is aligned to professional development and mentoring support, and provides metrics for performance-based compensation. This paper describes the TAP system, and examines data from a large sample of teachers to assess the distribution of TAP evaluations and their alignment to student achievement growth. We find that TAP evaluations provide differentiated feedback, that classroom observational scores are positively and significantly correlated with student achievement growth, that TAP teachers increase in observed skill levels over time, and that TAP schools show differential retention of effective teachers based on these evaluation scores. Appended are: (1) Components of the TAP Skills, Knowledge, and Responsibilities Performance Standards; and (2) Weighting in the Skills, Knowledge, and Responsibilities Score. (Contains 15 figures, 3 tables and 3 footnotes.) [For "A Teacher Evaluation System That Works. Research Brief," see ED533381.]

This paper contributes importantly to the growing literature on the training of special education teachers and how it translates into classroom practice and student achievement. The authors examine the impact of pre-service preparation and in-service formal and informal training on the ability of teachers to promote academic achievement among students with disabilities. Using student-level longitudinal data from Florida over a five-year span the authors estimate "value-added" models of student achievement. There is little support for the efficacy of in-service professional development courses focusing on special education. However, teachers with advanced degrees are more effective in boosting the math achievement of students with disabilities than are those with only a baccalaureate degree. Also pre-service preparation in special education has statistically significant and quantitatively substantial effects on the ability of teachers of special education courses to promote gains in achievement for students with disabilities, especially in reading. Certification in special education, an undergraduate major in special education, and the amount of special education coursework in college are all positively correlated with the performance of teachers in special education reading courses. (Contains 4 tables and 12 footnotes.)

Providing remedial (also known as developmental) education is the primary way colleges cope with students who do not have the academic preparation needed to succeed in college-level courses. Remediation is widespread, with nearly one-third of entering freshman taking remedial courses at a cost of at least $1 billion per year. Despite its prevalence, there is uncertainty surrounding its short- and longer-run effects. This paper presents new evidence on this question using longitudinal administrative data from Texas and a regression discontinuity research design. We find little indication that remediation improves academic or labor market outcomes. Additional data are appended. (Contains 32 footnotes, 11 tables, and 5 figures.) [This article has been published as: Martorell, Paco and Isaac McFarlin Jr. 2011. "Help or Hindrance? The Effects of College Remediation on Academic and Labor Market Outcomes," The Review of Economics & Statistics, 93(2): 436-454.]

This paper examines crowding-out effects and the labour market match for the tertiary educated in 26 OECD countries, using attainment data and data on labour market outcomes from Education at a Glance 2006. A first-difference approach is applied on a three-period, pooled country-panel to examine the effects of changes in tertiary attainment levels against changes in labour market outcomes over time. The policy questions in this paper focus on the potential negative short-term effects that mismatches between the supply of and demand for higher-educated individuals might bring about. There is no evidence in the current data suggesting any crowding-out effects of lower-educated from higher-educated individuals. On the contrary, there seems to be positive employment effects for individuals with less education in countries expanding their tertiary education. Labour market outcomes for the upper secondary educated appears to be less influenced by the expansion of tertiary education, but there is no indication that tertiary educated individuals, on average, are displacing (crowding out) upper secondary educated individuals from the labour market. Similarly, the job market for the tertiary educated appears to be little influenced by the expansion of tertiary education. There are some indications that relative unemployment (relative to upper secondary) for the tertiary educated has been diluted to some extent, but this appears to be more related to the upper secondary educated, relatively speaking, strengthening their labour market positions vis-a-vis tertiary educated individuals in general. The earnings advantage (premium) for tertiary educated individuals in comparison with upper secondary educated individuals is still on the rise, which suggests that, on the whole, demand outstrips supply in most countries. (Contains 4 footnotes, 5 figures and 6 tables.)

Studies have found substantial sorting of teachers across schools, with the schools with the highest proportions of poor, non-white, and low-scoring students having the least qualified teachers as measured by certification, exam performance, and inexperience (Lankford, Loeb and Wyckoff, 2002). Yet, there have been substantial changes in the educational policy landscape over the past five years. New laws, including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), have changed requirements for teachers. Assessment-based accountability policies at the state-level have created standards and increased oversight of schools, especially those with low-achieving students. New routes into teaching, many with fewer requirements before teaching, have changed the cost for individuals to enter the teaching profession. These changes have affected teacher labor markets profoundly. In this paper the authors examine these changes, asking how the distribution of teachers has changed in recent years and what the implications of these changes are for students. They examine three questions: (1) How has the distribution of teaching qualifications between schools with concentrations of poor students and those with more affluent students changed over the last five years?; (2) What effects are the changes in observed teacher qualifications likely to have on student achievement?; and (3) What implications do these findings have for improving policies and programs aimed at recruiting highly effective teachers? This study uses data on New York City teachers, students, and schools to address these questions. The authors find that measurable characteristics of teachers are more equal across schools in 2005 than they were in 2000. Schools with large proportions of poor students and students of color, on average, have teachers whose observable qualifications are much stronger than they were five years ago. Nonetheless, a meaningful number of schools with large proportions of poor students did not demonstrate such improvement. Changes in these observed qualifications of teachers account for a modest improvement in the average achievement of students in the poorest schools. More importantly, the results suggest that recruiting teachers with stronger observed qualifications, e.g., math SAT scores or certification status, could substantially improve student achievement. The following are appended: (1) Average School Qualifications of Teachers by Percent of Students in School Who Are Black or Hispanic, 2000 and 2005; (2) Average School Qualifications of Teachers by Percent of Students in School Who Scored at Level 1 on 4th Grade ELA Exam, 2000 and 2005; (3) Average School Qualifications of Teachers in Elementary Schools by Student Poverty, 2000 and 2005; (4) Average School Qualifications of Teachers In Middle Schools by Student Poverty, 2000 and 2005; and (5) Average School Qualifications of Teachers in High Schools by Student Poverty, 2000 and 2005. (Contains 10 figures, 11 tables, and 10 footnotes.) [This working paper was published by the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER). CALDER is a program of research by the Urban Institute with Duke University, Stanford University, University of Florida, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Texas at Dallas, and University of Washington. It is supported by an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) grant to the Urban Institute.]

Education researchers and policymakers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data set from North Carolina to explore a range of questions related to the relationship between teacher characteristics and credentials on the one hand and student achievement on the other. Though the basic questions underlying this research are not new--and, indeed, have been explored in many papers over the years within the rubric of the "education production function"--the availability of data on all teachers and students in North Carolina over a ten-year period allows us to explore them in more detail and with far more confidence than has been possible in previous studies. We conclude that a teacher's experience, test scores and regular licensure all have positive effects on student achievement, with larger effects for math than for reading. Taken together the various teacher credentials exhibit quite large effects on math achievement, whether compared to the effects of changes in class size or to the socio-economics characteristics of students, as measured, for example, by the education level of their parents. (Contains 11 tables and 20 footnotes.)[This paper is a revised version of a paper initially prepared for a conference organized by the World Bank on "The Contribution of Economics to the Challenges Faced by Education," Dijon, France, June 2006. An earlier version of this paper was presented in March 2006 at the annual meetings of the American Education Finance Association, Denver, Colorado.]

A growing number of American states and school districts require students to meet basic performance standards in core academic subjects at key transition points in order to be promoted to the next grade. We exploit a discontinuity in the probability of third grade retention under a Florida test-based promotion policy to study the causal effect of retention on student outcomes over time. Regression discontinuity estimates indicate large short-term gains in achievement among retained students and a sharp reduction in the probability of retention in subsequent years. The achievement gains from retention fade out gradually over time, however, and are statistically insignificant after six years. Despite this fade out, our results suggest that previous evidence that early retention leads to adverse academic outcomes is misleading due to unobserved differences between retained and promoted students. They also imply that the educational and opportunity costs associated with retaining a student in the early grades are substantially less than a full year of per pupil spending and foregone earnings. (Contains 10 figures, 11 tables, and 19 footnotes.)

Proponents of the recent and widely adopted Common Core State Standards argue that high quality curricular standards are critical to students' educational success. Little clear evidence exists, however, linking the quality of such standards to student achievement. I remedy this by connecting data on state-level student achievement from 1994-2011 with measures of the quality of states' curricular standards as judged by two independent organizations at three different moments in time. I show that, within states, changes in the quality of standards have little impact on overall student achievement. Improved standards do, however, raise achievement of 8th graders in low-scoring states, particularly for low-scoring students. Given the known weaknesses of U.S. middle schools, this result suggests that standards may be beneficial in settings where pedagogy would otherwise be poor. (Contains 2 figures and 6 tables.)

Hispanics continue to play an increasing role in shaping American society, as they are currently the largest and youngest minority group and whose birth rate accounts for a quarter of all children born in the United States (Pew Hispanic Center, 2009). This increase in the total number of Hispanics will result in a corresponding increase in college enrollments. Unfortunately, Hispanics currently lag behind other groups in terms of bachelor's degree attainment (Fry, 2004; Llagas & Snyder, 2003) with no significant changes in higher education that could alter graduation rates for this minority group. As such, U.S. President Obama's administrative goal to increase postsecondary attainment levels to exceed all other countries in the next decade will be impossible to reach without finding ways to increase and support the academic success of Hispanic students (Nunez & Crisp, 2011). This effort extends a recent review by the authors (2009) by offering a line of investigation that identifies research most needed to advance the understanding of how Hispanic students experience college, with a focus toward identifying factors that support student success. First the authors highlight several specific methodological, conceptual, and theoretical issues limiting the existing knowledge base on Hispanic students. Within the identification of those issues, they call for new perspectives that they hope researchers will consider in studying the success of Hispanic college students. They then discuss what they believe to be areas of research that deserve the immediate attention of higher education scholars, incorporating recommendations from scholars engaged in work on Hispanic student success.

Isolating the effect of a given teacher on student achievement (value-added modeling) is complicated when the student is taught the same subject by more than one teacher. We consider three methods, which we call the Partial Credit Method, Teacher Team Method, and Full Roster Method, for estimating teacher effects in the presence of co-teaching. The Partial Credit Method apportions responsibility between teachers according to the fraction of the year a student spent with each. This method, however, has practical problems limiting its usefulness. As alternatives, we propose two methods that can be more stably estimated based on the premise that co-teachers share joint responsibility for the achievement gains of their shared students. The Teacher Team Method uses a single record for each student and a set of variables for each teacher or group of teachers with shared students, whereas the Full Roster Method contains a single variable for each teacher, but multiple records for shared students. We explore the properties of these two alternative methods and then compare the estimates generated using student achievement and teacher roster data from a large urban school district. We find that both methods produce very similar point estimates of teacher value added. However, the Full Roster Method better maintains the links between teachers and students and can be more robustly implemented in practice. Comparing Estimates from Teacher Team and Full Roster Methods is appended. (Contains 2 figures and 11 footnotes.)

Exploiting a statewide cutoff point on the placement examination used to assign students to remedial courses in Tennessee, this study employs a regression discontinuity research design to provide causal estimates of the effects on student outcomes of recently redesigned remedial courses at three Tennessee colleges. Moreover, using data on student outcomes prior to the course redesigns, the study also tests whether the redesigned remedial programs were more effective in preparing students for success in postsecondary education than the remedial programs they replaced. The findings indicate that, among students on the margins of the cutoff score, the effects of enrollment in developmental mathematics were positive and statistically significant on early student persistence as well as on the number of credits attempted but not completed in the first semester. However, these effects did not persist over time, as the results show no statistically significant differences between groups after two years. Yet the study also finds that students who were exposed to redesigned developmental math courses had more positive outcomes than did their peers in non-redesign institutions during the same period and also when compared with students who were exposed to the previous version of traditional remediation within their institution in prior years. Students appear to have benefited from redesigned courses at two of the three institutions. The results of this analysis provide insight into the extent to which the particular instruction and delivery methods of remedial courses affect subsequent student academic outcomes, thus informing administrators and policymakers as to how best to help underprepared students. Summarizing Course Redesign at Each Campus is appended. (Contains 7 tables, 4 figures and 22 footnotes.)

College students are increasingly combining studying with paid employment, and community college students tend to work even longer hours compared with students at four-year colleges. Yet, there is little evidence on the academic consequences of community college students' term-time employment. Using a rare administrative dataset from Washington State that combines students' quarterly transcript records with earning records from the state Unemployment Insurance system, this study relies on two causal strategies: first, an individual fixed effects strategy that takes advantage of the quarterly nature of the data to control for unobserved and time-invariant differences among students, and second, an instrumental variable--difference-in-differences framework that takes advantage of the fact that there is an exogenous supply of retail jobs during the winter holidays. The study compares academic outcomes in the fall and winter quarters for students who were more likely to work in retail and those less likely to work in retail based on pre-enrollment association with retail jobs. The findings reject the possibility of large negative effects for small increases in employment for community college students. (Contains 6 tables, 3 figures and 5 footnotes.)

We investigate whether commonly used value-added estimation strategies can produce accurate estimates of teacher effects. We estimate teacher effects in simulated student achievement data sets that mimic plausible types of student grouping and teacher assignment scenarios. No one method accurately captures true teacher effects in all scenarios, and the potential for misclassifying teachers as high- or low-performing can be substantial. Misspecifying dynamic relationships can exacerbate estimation problems. However, some estimators are more robust across scenarios and better suited to estimating teacher effects than others. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables, and 16 footnotes.)

This design experiment addresses the question: How can second-grade students from low-SES schools attain the same levels of achievement as students from high-SES schools on standards-based social studies and content area literacy assessments? Students from two high-SES school districts were assessed in order to establish target levels of achievement. Two project-based units focused on state standards in economics; civics and government; public discourse, decision making, and citizen involvement; and content area literacy were developed and implemented successively in four classrooms in low-SES school districts. Achievement of students in the low-SES districts was then compared to that of students in high-SES districts. Results show no statistically significant differences: following instruction, there was no SES achievement gap on these standards-based assessments. We describe the unit plans and strategies that the teachers used to implement these plans, and we discuss implications of the study for future research and practice. Appended are: (1) Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, Social Studies; (2) Michigan Grade Level Content Expectations, English/Language Arts; and (3) Projects. (Contains 2 tables and 2 footnotes.)

We use North Carolina data to explore the extent to which teachers in the lower grades (K-2) of elementary school are lower quality than in the upper grades (3-5) and to examine the hypothesis that accountability contributes to a shortfall in teacher quality in the lower grades. Our concern with early elementary grades arises from recent studies that have highlighted that children's experiences in the early school years have long lasting effects on their outcomes, including college going and earnings. Using licensure test scores as the primary measure of teacher quality, we find that concern about teacher quality in the lower elementary grades is warranted. Teachers in those grades are of lower quality than teachers in the upper grades. Moreover, we find that accountability, especially the form required by the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, increases the relative shortfalls of teacher quality in the lower grades and increases the tendency of schools to move teachers of higher quality from lower to upper grades and teachers of lower quality from upper to lower grades. These findings support the conclusion that accountability pressure induces schools to pursue actions that work to the disadvantage of the children in the lower grades. Appended are: (1) Quintile Descriptive Statistics; (2) Value-Added Calculations; and (3) Data Description. (Contains 2 figures, 9 tables and 5 footnotes.)