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2. US Universities Face a Red Tide and a Precipice: A Neo-Nationalism and University Brief. Research & Occasional Paper Series: CSHE.14.2023
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University of California, Berkeley. Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) and John Aubrey Douglass
- Abstract
The United States retains many aspects of a healthy open society, but there are indicators of trouble and deep divisions around the meaning and importance of democratic values. This debate has significant repercussions for universities and their academic communities. In the most-simple terms, there is a red and blue state divide over the role and importance of public institutions, including universities -- red representing largely rural states in which most voters vote Republican and blue being majority Democratic voters, often with one of the two parties having majorities in their respective state legislatures. Then there are so-called purple states in which both parties are vying for dominance, but they are fewer in number. This brief discusses this contemporary dynamic and its implication for higher education and science policy.
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- 2023
3. School Choice Programs Need a Firewall for Homeschoolers. Briefing Paper Number 164
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Cato Institute and Colleen Hroncich
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The growth of homeschooling from a somewhat fringe movement during the 1970s and 1980s to a more widespread and socially accepted approach in recent decades has provided a strong foundation of flexible learning models. When Florida's school choice expansion, House Bill 1, was introduced in January 2023, one of its goals was to allow more homeschoolers to participate in the education savings account (ESA) program. But many homeschoolers and homeschool advocacy groups balked at the proposal. Having worked hard to achieve independence, they were loath to be linked to government funding. Even if the program were optional, they feared that associated regulations would eventually extend to traditional homeschoolers. In the end, the bill passed with new language that satisfied traditional homeschoolers by creating a new option for parents to educate their children at home. As states continue to enact and expand education savings accounts, Colleen Hroncich argues that it is crucial that policymakers craft bills in a way that maximizes freedom and minimizes roadblocks.
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- 2023
4. 2023-2024 Florida Adult Education Assessment Technical Assistance Paper
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Florida Department of Education, Division of Career and Adult Education and Kevin O’Farrell
- Abstract
This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assistance paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection and use of appropriate student assessment are included. The following important information for adult education programs is provided: (1) Definition of key terms and acronyms; (2) Selection of appropriate assessments by student and program type; (3) Appropriate student placement into program and instructional level; (4) Verification of student learning gains, EFL, and/or program completion; (5) Accommodation for students with disabilities and other special needs; (6) Assessment procedures for Distance Education; and (7) Training for all staff who administer the standardized assessments.
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- 2023
5. Persistent Teach for America Effects on Student Test and Non-Test Academic Outcomes. Working Paper No. 277-0123
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National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at American Institutes for Research, Backes, Ben, and Hansen, Michael
- Abstract
This paper examines the impact of Teach For America (TFA) on following-year student test and non-test outcomes in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. This paper measures the extent to which exposure to TFA is followed by improved student outcomes in the future. In particular, this paper measures days missed due to absences or suspensions, course grades in each core subject, and progression in math courses. We find that students taught by TFA math teachers go on to have higher grades in math courses in the following year and are less likely to miss school due to being absent or suspended. However, while students in TFA classrooms score higher on math and ELA assessments in a given year, these test score gains fade out by the following year.
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- 2023
6. How Can Community Colleges Afford to Offer Dual Enrollment College Courses to High School Students at a Discount? CCRC Working Paper No. 130
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Columbia University, Community College Research Center (CCRC), Belfield, Clive, Jenkins, Davis, and Fink, John
- Abstract
Dual enrollment--in which students take college credit-bearing courses when still in high school--is becoming increasingly popular. Community college programs account for about 70% of the dual enrollment that more than one million high school students participate in each year nationwide. Yet dual enrollment can be a big financial burden for community colleges. In most parts of the country, community colleges receive less funding per dual enrollment student than they receive for their regular, non-dual-enrollment students. If community colleges are to continue to provide broad access to high-quality programs, they need to be able to sustain these programs. In this paper, we consider the economics of dual enrollment from the perspective of the community college. We illustrate how dual enrollment may not be financially sustainable in colleges and states where it is offered at a discount, but we also show how community colleges can structure their programs to be more efficient. To support our analysis, we describe case studies to show the conditions under which dual enrollment is affordable and efficient.
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- 2023
7. Students with Disabilities in AICE English General Paper Course: Effects of Academic Ability on Student Success
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Sara Faye Vogel Curry
- Abstract
This study investigated the impact of AICE (Advanced International Certificate of Education) English General Paper courses on the academic progress of 10th-grade students with disabilities, specifically their performance in Florida Standards Assessment (FSA) scores. The primary objective was to examine the correlation between ninth-grade FSA scores and 10th-grade AICE English General Paper scores among students with disabilities. The research sample included 67 students from a large public high school in Southern Florida, all with either Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans. A correlational quantitative approach was utilized to analyze the relationship between FSA and AICE scores. The findings reveal a significant positive correlation between ninth-grade FSA scores and 10th-grade AICE English General Paper scores, indicating that students with higher FSA scores tend to perform better in AICE courses. The study holds implications for future studies and policy enhancements aimed at improving the educational experiences of students with disabilities in advanced coursework. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
- Published
- 2024
8. College Enrollment during the Pandemic: Insights into Enrollment Decisions among Black Florida College Applicants. Working Paper
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Temple University, Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, Olaniyan, Motunrayo, Hu, Pei, and Coca, Vanessa
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A college credential can expand the range of career opportunities available to young adults. However, existing barriers to enrollment for prospective students pose equity gaps in college access and success, particularly for Black college aspirants. In Florida, racial and ethnic disparities in college enrollment contribute to disparities in educational attainment. Only 31% of Black Floridians hold a college degree. This report examines the attainment gap by exploring various factors contributing to Florida college applicants' decisions to enroll. This paper uses survey and enrollment information from two Florida community colleges (Hillsborough Community College and Miami Dade College) to identify factors related to college applicants' enrollment decisions. In the summer of 2021, nearly 15,000 applicants to the two colleges were surveyed about their pre-college experiences, and roughly 1,200 responded, resulting in a response rate of 8%. Of the respondents, 997 applicants identified as Black (i.e., African American, Black Hispanic, African, or West Indian/Caribbean).
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- 2022
9. 2022-2023 Florida Adult Education Assessment Technical Assistance Paper
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Florida Department of Education, Division of Career and Adult Education
- Abstract
This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assessment paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection and use of appropriate student assessment are included in this technical assistance paper. Additionally, the following important information for adult education programs is reviewed: (1) Definition of key terms and acronyms; (2) Selection of appropriate assessments by student and program type; (3) Appropriate student placement into program and instructional level; (4) Verification of student learning gains, Educational Functioning Level and/or program completion; (5) Accommodations for students with disabilities and other special needs; (6) Assessment procedures for Distance Education; and (7) Training for all staff who administer the standardized assessments. [For the 2021-2022 report, see ED616047.]
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- 2022
10. Online and on Course: Digital Learning Creates a Path for At-Risk Students. White Paper No. 242
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Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research, Young, Julie, and Donovan, William
- Abstract
Digital learning, the use of computers and the internet to study courses taught in the classroom, is viewed by many educators as a breakthrough to helping those at-risk students stay in school and earn their diplomas. The flexibility afforded by digital learning, with students working on their own time at their own pace, is a way for students to meet the requirements of their courses while handling pressing responsibilities outside of school, problems at home or personal issues. Yet parents should scrutinize digital programs closely. Their quality and effectiveness vary widely. Students are poorly served by point-and-click assessments with no engagement, virtual schools with videos instead of real teachers and programs without pacing and scheduling support. This report presents ideas and examples of how teachers and policymakers across the country are using virtual learning to improve educational outcomes for at-risk students.
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- 2022
11. Competitive Effects of Charter Schools. Working Paper 32120
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), David N. Figlio, Cassandra Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik
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Using a rich dataset that merges student-level school records with birth records, and leveraging three alternative identification strategies, we explore how increase in access to charter schools in twelve districts in Florida affects students remaining in traditional public schools (TPS). We consistently find that competition stemming from the opening of new charter schools improves reading--but not math--performance and it also decreases absenteeism of students who remain in the TPS. Results are modest in magnitude.
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- 2024
12. The Unintended Consequences of Test-Based Remediation. Working Paper 30831
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Figlio, David N., and Özek, Umut
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School systems around the world use achievement tests to assign students to schools, classes, and instructional resources, including remediation. Using a regression discontinuity design, we study a Florida policy that places middle school students who score below a proficiency cutoff into remedial classes. Students scoring below the cutoff receive more educational resources, but they are also placed in classes that are more segregated by race, socio-economic status, and prior achievement. Increased tracking occurs not only in the remedial subject, but also in other core subjects. These tracking effects are significantly larger and more likely to persist beyond the year of remediation for Black students.
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- 2023
13. Modeling One-on-One Online Tutoring Discourse Using an Accountable Talk Framework
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Balyan, Renu, Arner, Tracy, Taylor, Karen, Shin, Jinnie, Banawan, Michelle, Leite, Walter L., and McNamara, Danielle S.
- Abstract
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) has been emphasizing the importance of teachers' pedagogical communication as part of mathematical teaching and learning for decades. Specifically, NCTM has provided guidance on how teachers can foster mathematical communication that positively impacts student learning. A teacher may have different academic goals towards what needs to be achieved in a classroom, which require a variety of discourse-based tools that allow students to engage fully in mathematical thinking and reasoning. Accountable or academically productive talk is one such approach for classroom discourse that may ensure that the discussions are coherent, purposeful and productive. This paper discusses the use of a transformer model for classifying classroom talk moves based on the accountable talk framework. We investigate the extent to which the classroom Accountable Talk framework can be successfully applied to one-on-one online mathematics tutoring environments. We further propose a framework adapted from Accountable Talk, but more specifically aligned to one-on-one online tutoring. The model performance for the proposed framework is evaluated and compared with a small sample of expert coding. The results obtained from the proposed framework for one-on-one tutoring are promising and improve classification performance of the talk moves for our dataset. [For the full proceedings, see ED623995.]
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- 2022
14. Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021-2023
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American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and Isaac Kamola
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During the 2021, 2022, and 2023 state legislative sessions more than one hundred and fifty bills were introduced seeking to actively undermine academic freedom and university autonomy. This includes nearly one hundred academic gag orders affecting higher education, such as those restricting the teaching of "critical race theory" (CRT) and other so-called "divisive concepts." These academic gag orders were shortly followed by efforts to undermine campus diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), bills weakening tenure and accreditation, and legislation mandating "viewpoint diversity" and academic programming, often in ways that circumvented faculty governance over the curriculum. This legislative onslaught has been understood as simply an effect of America's highly polarized politics. However, as this white paper demonstrates, this legislation has been pushed by a network of right-wing and libertarian think tanks, working closely with Republican politicians, to manufacture a culture war backlash against educators and academic institutions. This white paper explores eleven think tanks that have helped created a self-reinforcing echo chamber of reports, commentary, webinars, op-eds, and other content villainizing faculty and academic institutions. Many of these same organizations also develop model legislation and lobby in support of bills designed to address this manufactured "crisis."
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- 2024
15. Elementary Mathematics Curriculum: State Policy, COVID-19, and Teachers' Control
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Mona Baniahmadi, Bima Sapkota, and Amy M. Olson
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In the U.S., state guidance to schools in response to the COVID-19 pandemic was politicized. We used state-level political affiliation to explore whether access to curricular resources differed pre-pandemic or during pandemic remote teaching and teachers' reported control over curricular resources during pandemic teaching. We found that pre-pandemic the percentage of teachers in Republican states reported higher levels of resources overall, and use of core and teacher-created curricular resources in particular. They also reported having greater control over their curricular decision-making during the pandemic. There were no state-level differences in teachers' level of preparation for pandemic teaching, but teachers in Democrat states reported a greater proportion of their students had sufficient resources for online learning. We discuss the implications of these findings in terms of teacher control and state policies. [For the complete proceedings, see ED657822.]
- Published
- 2023
16. Session-Based Course Recommendation Frameworks Using Deep Learning
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Khan, Md Akib Zab and Polyzou, Agoritsa
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Academic advising plays an important role in students' decision-making in higher education. Data-driven methods provide useful recommendations to students to help them with degree completion. Several course recommendation models have been proposed in the literature to recommend courses for the next semester. One aspect of the data that has yet to be explored is the suitability of the recommended courses taken together in a semester. Students may face more difficulty coping with the workload of courses if there is no relationship among courses taken within a semester. To address this problem, we propose to employ session-based approaches to recommend a set of courses for the next semester. In particular, we test two session-based recommendation models, CourseBEACON and CourseDREAM. Our experimental evaluation shows that session-based methods outperform existing popularity-based, sequential, and non-sequential recommendation approaches. Accurate course recommendation can lead to better student advising, which, in turn, can lead to better student performance, lower dropout rates, and better overall student experience and satisfaction. [For the complete proceedings, see ED630829.]
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- 2023
17. Psychological Distress during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nursing Students: A Mixed-Methods Study
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Watson, Mayantoinette
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During such an unprecedented time of the largest public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing students are of the utmost concern regarding their psychological and physical well-being. It is important to identify and establish influences and associations within multilevel factors, including the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on psychological distress among nursing students. The research in this study utilized a mixed-methods, convergent study design. The study population included a convenience sample of undergraduate nursing students from Southeastern U.S. with 202 students completing the quantitative survey and 11 students participating in the qualitative follow-up interview surveys. Statistical tests were performed and identified the effects of independent variables on psychological distress. Coding and qualitative content analysis were performed and identified overarching themes within participants' interviews. The findings are significant, specifically regarding contributing factors of nursing students' psychological distress, which will help to improve learning in the academic environment. [For the full proceedings, see ED631133.]
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- 2022
18. Heterogeneity of Treatment Effects of a Video Recommendation System for Algebra
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Leite, Walter L., Kuang, Huan, Shen, Zuchao, Chakraborty, Nilanjana, Michailidis, George, D'Mello, Sidney, and Xing, Wanli
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Previous research has shown that providing video recommendations to students in virtual learning environments implemented at scale positively affects student achievement. However, it is also critical to evaluate whether the treatment effects are heterogeneous, and whether they depend on contextual variables such as disadvantaged student status and characteristics of the school settings. The current study extends the evaluation of a novel video recommendation system by performing an exploratory search for sources of heterogeneity of treatment effects. This study's design is a multi-site randomized controlled trial with an assignment at the student level across three large and diverse school districts in the southeast United States. The study occurred in Spring 2021, when some students were in regular classrooms and others in online classrooms. The results of the current study replicate positive effects found in a previous field experiment that occurred in Spring 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, causal forests were used to investigate the heterogeneity of treatment effects. This study contributes to the literature on content sequencing systems and recommendation systems by showing how these systems can disproportionally benefit the groups of students who had higher levels of previous algebra ability, followed more recommendations, learned remotely, were Hispanic, and received free or reduced-price lunch, which has implications for the fairness of implementation of educational technology solutions.
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- 2022
19. Helping Families Navigate the Changing Education Landscape. Policy Analysis. Number 976
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Cato Institute, Colleen Hroncich, and Jamie Buckland
- Abstract
Unlike vouchers and tax credit scholarships that do not allow parents to customize their children's education, Education savings accounts (ESAs) provide funding to pay for part-time classes at public and private schools, tutoring, curricula, services for special needs, and more. As navigating the opportunities that come with ESAs can be difficult, there is a growing movement to include "choice navigators" as an eligible expense in ESA programs, which can inform parents what educational opportunities are available and help tailor an education program for their children. This paper examines several key elements, including determining the types of navigation services that parents need in the changing education landscape; identifying best practices that states can adopt to simplify ESA navigation; tapping into the experiences of current ESA users and traditional homeschoolers; and deciding whether there are policies that can encourage an adequate supply of navigators without creating counterproductive rules.
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- 2024
20. Bending without Breaking - COVID-19 Tests the Resilience of State Education Policymaking Institutions. EdWorkingPaper No. 23-888
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Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, David Menefee-Libey, Carolyn Herrington, Kyoung-Jun Choi, Julie Marsh, and Katrina Bulkley
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COVID-19 upended schooling across the United States, but with what consequences for the state-level institutions that drive most education policy? This paper reports findings on two related research questions. First, what were the most important ways state government education policymakers changed schools and schooling from the moment they began to reckon with the seriousness of COVID-19 through the first full academic year of the pandemic? Second, how deep did those changes go -- are there indications the pandemic triggered efforts to make lasting changes in states' education policymaking institutions? Using multiple-methods research focused on Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, and Oregon, we documented policies enacted during the period from March 2020 through June 2021 across states and across sectors (traditional and choice) in three COVID-19-related education policy domains: school closings and reopenings, budgeting and resource allocation, and assessment and accountability systems. We found that states quickly enacted radical changes to policies that had taken generations to develop. They mandated sweeping school closures in Spring 2020, and then a diverse array of school reopening policies in the 2020/2021 school year. States temporarily modified their attendance-based funding systems and allocated massive federal COVID-19 relief funds. Finally, states suspended annual student testing, modified the wide array of accountability policies and programs linked to the results of those tests, and adapted to new assessment methods. These crisis-driven policy changes deeply disrupted long-established patterns and practices in education. Despite this, we found that state education governance systems remained resilient, and that at least during the first 16 months of the pandemic, stakeholders showed little interest in using the crisis to trigger more lasting institutional change. We hope these findings enable state policymakers to better prepare for future crises.
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- 2023
21. Running from Accreditors Means Running from Accountability: Who Is Left with the Tab?
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Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) International Quality Group (CIQG) and Kathleen Rzucidlo
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Recent state legislative developments have brought accreditation to the forefront of public higher education conversations. Some accreditation critics state that accreditors have too much influence in higher education suggesting that their efforts may affect institutional autonomy and that they are allegedly structured as legalized monopolies answering to no one (Gillen et al., 2010). There are similar allegations from individuals who, for example, oppose issues focused on critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. This has led to some individuals referencing accreditors as agents of the progressive or "woke" movement to influence or conform colleges to a certain ideology. Some have even begun an effort to "de-accredit the accreditors." In this paper, Kathleen Rzucidlo discusses the recognition of accrediting organizations by Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) and US Department of Education (ED), recent legislation relative to accrediting organizations, and the potential impact of this legislation on not only accredited institutions but students and taxpayers as well.
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- 2023
22. What to Do When the Modality of a Learning Experience Is Unclear: Guidelines for Creating Multidimensional Learning Experiences
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WCET (WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies) and Johnson, Nicole
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The mix of technologies used in postsecondary instruction has become increasingly more varied, and information with students about instructional experiences can be confusing. Building upon on a series of WCET works over the past year on digital learning definitions, this paper presents several complex cases, based on real-world examples, where the learning modality is unclear. Discussion includes guidance and recommendations for categorizing and naming learning experiences that do not fit neatly into one category or another. [This report was written with assistance from Kathryn Kerensky and Russ Poulin.]
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- 2023
23. Breaking down Public School District Lines: Policies, Perceptions, and Implications of Inter-District Open Enrollment
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EdChoice and Pendergrass, Susan
- Abstract
Open enrollment is a form of school choice that gives families the opportunity to choose an educational setting or school within the public school system that is best for their children. In U.S. public school districts, students typically must attend the school that is in their neighborhood and often do not have a choice of attending a different school if there is not an open enrollment option. Open enrollment options, however, vary by state and region. Open enrollment can be either intra-district or inter-district. "Intra-district open enrollment" allows students to transfer to another school within their resident district. "Inter-district open enrollment" allows students to transfer to another public school district, even if they live outside the choice district's attendance boundaries. This paper will describe trends in elementary and secondary enrollment and financing and how those trends interact with open enrollment in the US. Then it describes the open enrollment landscape at both the state and district level. It then reviews the available literature on the participation and impact these policies have on students and school systems, followed by detailed case studies of inter-district choice programs in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and Ohio to understand and gain insight on the processes and perceptions of administrators in the state. Finally, policy implications for improving access to and the impact of opening district boundaries will be summarized.
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- 2023
24. Statewide Districts: A Way to Unleash Creative New Learning Options--and Study Them as They Grow
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Arizona State University (ASU), Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), Lake, Robin, and Young, Kelly
- Abstract
An abundance of opportunities to innovate in public education have emerged post-pandemic and the rules for defining how schooling works are up for grabs like never before. Yet, school districts are struggling to keep teachers on the job and schools open, much less address the mental health and academic toll of the pandemic. How can school systems possibly find the bandwidth to act on new visions for public education when their leaders are constantly trapped in crisis mode? One particular mechanism might allow them to pull this off: statewide school districts. This report outlines several existing statewide oversight efforts that overcome barriers that traditionally constrain schools or traditional districts. The report also explains how statewide districts could promote creative new learning options, including the following: (1) Providing infrastructure and support to allow cities, community groups, or even individuals to form small learning communities; (2) Creating a statewide system to validate students' learning, and to provide credit for those efforts; (3) Allowing youth to access a variety of service providers and mentors; (4) Ensuring all families can access educational options; and (5) Conducting or commissioning research on K-12 education innovations. We can't afford to allow possibilities that came into view during the pandemic to vanish in a rush to return to normal school operations, nor can we afford to watch innovations flourish outside of public education but remain inaccessible to students who stand to benefit from them. We need to build public-education systems that encourage and support innovation--and we need new state policies to help encourage those actions. [This report was written with contributions from Travis Pillow and Emily Liebtag. Education Reimagined partnered with the Center for Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) to co-author this paper.]
- Published
- 2022
25. Comparing the Predictive Utility of Parent and Teacher Reports of Externalizing Behaviors on Concurrent Academic Achievement in Preschool-Aged Children
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Christopher DeCamp and Christopher J. Lonigan
- Abstract
Discrepancies between teacher and parent reports of children's externalizing behaviors are well documented. However, less research has examined the associations these different ratings have with objective indicators of functioning in other domains. The goal of this study was to compare the strength of association of parent and teacher reports of externalizing behaviors with children's early academic skills. The sample consisted of 695 children (376 boys, 318 girls, 1 unknown) who ranged between 48 months and 63 months of age (mean age = 55.05; SD = 3.63) at time of initial assessment. Children completed standardized measures of early academic skills; parents and teachers completed the Conners Rating Scale. Steiger's Z tests were performed to compare the strength of associations between parent and teacher ratings on children's early academic skills. Multi-level regressions examined the unique predictive variance each rater accounted for. Teacher ratings of inattentive and oppositional defiant behaviors had stronger associations with children's early academic skills than did parent ratings for most measures of early academic skills, but there were no significant differences for ratings of hyperactive/impulsive behaviors. Multivariate analyses revealed that only teacher ratings of inattentive behaviors accounted for notable portions of unique variance in early academic skills. Children's externalizing behaviors are related to their early academic skills. However, these results suggest that teachers contribute more unique variance, possibly due to their access to a normative reference group. [This paper was published in "Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology."]
- Published
- 2024
- Full Text
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26. Teachers' Structuring of Culturally Responsive Social Relations and Secondary Students' Experience of Warm Demand
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Meredith P. Franco, Jessika H. Bottiani, and Catherine P. Bradshaw
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Students who experience teacher caring and high expectations (i.e., warm demand) are typically more engaged and successful at school. Yet, relative to White students, students of color tend to report lower levels of school social belonging and more distant relationships with their White teachers. Leveraging data from 179 6th-9th grade Measures of Effective Teaching project classroom videos, we tested whether teachers' facilitation of culturally responsive social relations was associated with higher warm demand, and whether these social relations moderated associations between race and warm demand. Results showed that teachers' promotion of culturally responsive social relations was associated with warm demand, and that this was magnified for White teachers in relation to their discipline practices. Findings suggest that taking a culturally responsive approach to facilitating classroom social relations is critical for teachers seeking to improve students' experiences of warm demand. [This paper was published in "Contemporary Educational Psychology" v76 Article 102241 2024.]
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- 2024
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27. Competitive Effects of Charter Schools. Research Briefs in Economic Policy. Number 379
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Cato Institute, David N. Figlio, Cassandra Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik
- Abstract
Charter schools have been growing in the United States and worldwide over the past two decades, and there is considerable interest in how they affect students remaining in traditional public schools (TPSs). Charter schools present important policy questions, as they often compete for the same students, educators, and resources as TPSs. This brief explores how charter schools affect outcomes of TPS students using a detailed data set from 12 large and diverse districts in Florida that includes standardized math scores for each student between 2001 and 2014, standardized reading scores between 2001 and 2017, attendance data from the 2002-03 to 2009-10 school years, and demographic data on each student. [This research brief is based on David N. Figlio, Cassandra Hart, and Krzysztof Karbownik, "Competitive Effects of Charter Schools," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper no. 32120, February 2024.]
- Published
- 2024
28. A Description of the Cognitively Guided Instruction Professional Development Program in Florida: 2013-2020
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Florida State University, Learning Systems Institute (LSI), Robert C. Schoen, Wendy S. Bray, Amanda M. Tazaz, and Charity K. Buntin
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Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) is a teacher PD program that has been found to have a potentially positive impact on student learning in mathematics through randomized controlled trials. Through a series of grant-funded projects led by FSU, approximately 2,000 Florida teachers have participated in CGI-based professional development in the past 8 years. This paper describes the core features of the CGI-based PD programs that were implemented in Florida during that time period. We provide this information to help researchers and practitioners to understand the context in which the associated research studies occurred and interpret the available and forthcoming findings related to the impacts of the interventions.
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- 2022
- Full Text
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29. Classroom Assessment and Instructional Modes: An Exploration of School-Level Contextualized Psychometric Challenges
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Huggins-Manley, A. Corinne, Huang, Jing, Danso, Jerri-ann, Li, Wei, and Leite, Walter L.
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The global COVID-19 health pandemic caused major interruptions to educational assessment systems, partially due to shifts to remote learning environments, entering the post-COVID educational world into one that is more open to heterogeneity in instructional and assessment modes for secondary students. In addition, in 2020, educational inequities were brought to the forefront of social conscience. The purpose of this study is to empirically explore how contextual (i.e., school-level) race and economic factors may relate to and explain measurement challenges that can arise during shifts to remote learning. We fit a series of multilevel models to explore school-level factors in assessment data alongside psychometric problems of differential item functioning and person fit in classroom assessment measurement models. Our results demonstrate ways in which our project's classroom assessments were impacted by shifts to remote learning, emphasizing the importance of researchers and practitioners evaluating such concerns when seeking validity evidence for interpretation of classroom assessment data. [This paper will be published in "The Journal of Experimental Education."]
- Published
- 2023
30. An Observational Study of Student Reading Engagement during UFLI Intensive Intervention
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Fang Xu
- Abstract
Measuring reading engagement is critical for monitoring student involvement in academic tasks, as it predicts student reading achievement and further academic success (Anderson et al., 2021; Guthrie et al., 2012). As a multidimensional construct, researchers have employed various methods to assess reading engagement (Gill & Remedios, 2013; Lee et al., 2021). The purpose of the present study was to examine the potential variabilities of student reading engagement categories and factors associated with distraction across four activities in the University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) Intensive tutoring session using a direct observational approach, the Student Reading Engagement Observational Coding System (SREOCS). Twenty videos were randomly selected from 82 intensive tutoring in-person sessions that met the inclusion criteria in a Summer Adventure in Literacy (SAIL) program. The program aims to improve reading competence for students with dyslexia or reading difficulties in first grade through third grade (University of Florida Literacy Institute, [UFLI], 2021). A series of repeated measures within-subject analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Greenhouse-Geisser adjustment were used to examine the main effect of activity types on reading engagement and distraction category, respectively. Subsequently, sets of planned dependent samples t-tests were conducted for specific group comparisons if the main effect was statistically significant. The results suggested students exhibited a high level of reading engagement during UFLI Intensive tutoring, with a low level of disengaged behaviors associated with tutors' instructions, interruptions from the surrounding environment, and other confounding factors. Furthermore, statistically significant differences were found in student initiation and responding to initial requests under the student reading engagement category across four activities. The results from follow-up dependent samples t-tests showed student initiation increased and responding to initial requests decreased significantly in the regular word spelling activity than in the visual drill condition. Additionally, increases in student initiation were also found in the auditory drill and the blending drill conditions compared to the visual drill condition, separately. The implications for future research, professional development opportunities, and practitioners' instructional practices to improve student reading engagement were discussed. Limitations and conclusions were provided at the end of the paper. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
- Published
- 2023
31. Care-Full Connections: Responding to Students' Writing in the Online Writing Instruction Classroom
- Author
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Nitya Pandey
- Abstract
This dissertation responds to the dearth of research in responding practice of instructors teaching in college composition online writing classrooms, especially addressing both how they do it and how "care-fully." More specifically, the dissertation investigates the responding thoughts and behaviors of instructors teaching writing within the parameters of an asynchronous online format. Furthermore, the dissertation regards the instructors as carers and the students as cared-fors, exploring how teachers' responses to students (carer and cared-for) are marked by elements of care-fullness. These elements include engrossment (empathy [thinking + feeling] + receptive attention), motivational displacement (the impulse to focus on and contribute to the resolution of students' challenges), and reciprocity (the desire for dialogic exchange between carer and cared-for). There has been ample research establishing the increased frequency of online writing instruction and its rising prevalence especially during COVID-19. In the wake of the move from face-to-face teaching to online teaching, the need to explore instructors' responding protocols are also increasing. While response to students' writing has been a staple in composition studies for more than six decades, little research has focused specifically on fully online situations, particularly those with an asynchronous approach. Furthermore, while care in the context of elementary and middle-school has been researched before, no such research focuses on the asynchronous online situation. This dissertation brings together these disparate elements into a meticulously structured intellectual confluence. In brief, this dissertation examines the following questions through the case studies of two instructors teaching the asynchronous online iteration of a sophomore-level college composition course, mandatory to all undergraduate students at Florida State University, namely, ENC 2135 (Research, Genre, and Context). The research questions the dissertation answers are: 1) How do teachers of online writing instruction describe their response protocols and goals? How, if at all, does "care-fullness" emerge within those descriptions? 2) How do teachers of online writing instruction respond to student papers? How, where, and when, if at all, does "care-fullness" emerge within those response behaviors? 3) What role, if any, does the medium of response play in teacher of online writing instruction response? How, if at all, does medium affect care-fullness? To find answers to these questions, the data corpus consisting of the instructors' response philosophies and textual comments, along with transcripts of audiovisual conferences and retrospective protocols were collected, coded, and interpretated through observation, transcription, color classification, and tabulation. The coding of the data happened on two levels. The descriptive coding focused on answering the questions: what, who, when, where, why, and how. Likewise, the "care-fullness" coding focused on the occurrences of the elements of the "care-fullness" triad, i.e., engrossment, motivational displacement, and reciprocity. The results showed that, first, there is negligible difference in the textual responses of college composition courses taught face-to-face and those taught asynchronously online. The instructors had numerous marginal comments and end comments across the drafts that helped students polish their projects. In addition to the format of responding that follows a series of comments at different locations on and across drafts, the similarity between online instruction and face-to-face instruction also lies in employing Canvas as the Learning Management System (LMS) through which textual responses are shared periodically. Second, the only domain of response that shows a departure from the responding practices of face-to-face college composition course is the mode of teacher-student conference, conducted via Zoom. This is significant because while it provides the immediacy in conversation which imitates a real-world in-person meeting, it is still happening through virtual channels. As a result, it consists of computer screens and Zoom elements like screen sharing. Third, the project shows that "care-fullness" can be performed in diverse ways. As derived from the first case study, balance is a key to care-full responding practices. Diego, the nurturing coach, maintains a delicate balance between personability and professionalism as he ensures that the conversation between him and his students flows smoothly through different mediums of responses. Likewise, the second case demonstrates the harmful effects of cultural forces at play informing the gendered expectations of care that migrate from face-to-face classrooms to online instructional platforms. Samantha, the pragmatic teacher, underscores the invisible labor demands of carework based on gendered perceptions of online writing instructors that if left unmonitored, may contribute to instructors' burnout. Finally, the project deems "care-fullness" as a necessary factor in all educational environments, but especially so in asynchronous online classes because it is an immensely powerful way to ascertain human presence, establish emotional and intellectual interactions, and intensify human community bonds in a technologically mediated instructional space. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]
- Published
- 2023
32. The Impact of CSI Designation on Student Outcomes
- Author
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Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), Drew Atchison, Umut Ozek, Kerstin Le Floch, Damon Blair, and Steve Hurlburt
- Abstract
Background/significance: Standards-based accountability systems have been a pillar of education reform in the United States for almost three decades. Although accountability systems have evolved in progressive reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the underlying theory of action has changed little. The basic premise is that school-level accountability designations signal low (and high) levels of student performance or school quality, provide meaningful information to local stakeholders about actionable areas in which schools are underperforming, and motivate educators to foster improvements in student outcomes (Elmore, 2004; Hanushek & Raymond, 2001; National Research Council, 2011; O'Day, 2002; Saw et al., 2017). In December 2015, ESEA was reauthorized as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which made several key changes to federal accountability policy. A key feature of ESSA is its flexibility, as it gave states substantial latitude in designing their processes for identifying and providing supports to low-performing schools (i.e., comprehensive support and improvement [CSI] schools). The current policy context promotes increasingly complex accountability systems with multiple measures and varied ways of calculating school performance, while also providing states, districts, and schools with more flexibility regarding how they will address low performance. Increased complexity and flexibility mean that school leaders must weigh more information and make strategic decisions about which accountability measures to prioritize and what improvement strategies to use in response to accountability results. Although several recent meta-analyses suggest that on average school performance improves in schools identified as low-performing in ESSA-style accountability systems, there is substantial heterogeneity in results with some systems being successful and others potentially harming low-performing schools (Redding & Nguyen, 2020; Schueler et al., 2020). Despite 25 years of federal accountability policies, many questions still exist about their ability to spur broad improvement, and notable gaps exist in our understanding of how accountability systems work, particularly in the context of the ESSA reauthorization. Purpose/Research Questions: In this study, we examine the causal effects of CSI designation on student outcomes including test scores, suspensions, absenteeism, high school graduation, and other student outcomes that are used for school accountability purposes. We also examine some of the mechanisms that might be driving the observed effects such as student mobility and teacher attrition. Setting: We have partnered with three states to conduct analyses of CSI schools: California, Ohio, and Florida. These three states represent different approaches to accountability and three different state contexts. In California, CSI schools are identified based on a series of business rules, where each accountability "indicator" is assigned a color (red being the lowest performing and blue being the highest performing). Schools with a sufficient number or percentage of red and orange indicators are identified as CSI. Both Ohio and Florida use index-based approaches for identifying CSI schools, where a variety of accountability measures are aggregated based on weights assigned to each measure. Schools with a low enough "index" are identified as CSI. Population/Sample: The population consists of all schools in our three partner states. Specifically, as of 2019-20, California had approximately 750 CSI schools, Florida had approximately 440 CSI schools, and Ohio had approximately 230 CSI schools. Intervention: Under ESSA, each state is required to identify at least the bottom 5% of schools based on performance and high schools with graduation rates below 67% to be identified as CSI schools. These schools are then intended to receive some additional funding, be provided additional supports, develop plans for improvement, implement strategies to improve, and ultimately improve student outcomes. Under ESSA, states were provided more flexibility to determine how to intervene in CSI schools and which improvement strategies to emphasize. Although not included in this paper, we conducted a principal survey and district interviews to better understand approaches to improvement and supports provided to CSI schools. Data sources and methods: To investigate the effects of the CSI designation on student outcomes, we obtained student- and school-level data from three states. Outcome data in each state consist of student-level test scores in math and ELA, attendance rates, student discipline, and graduation. The three states also provided student-level demographic data including student race, economic disadvantage status, special education status, and English learner status. We paired student-level data with data on CSI designation in 2018-19 and subsequent years. Using this data, we used two approaches to examine the effects of CSI designation on student outcomes. First, we used regression discontinuity (RD) to investigate the effect of CSI designation around school performance cutoffs. Because both Ohio and Florida both use an aggregate school performance index where schools performing below a cutoff are designated as CSI schools, the RD approach is most straightforward in these states. In California, a series of cutoffs on each individual indicator are used to determine performance ratings on each indicator. Given that no single cutoff determines CSI status, we used a comparative interrupted time series approach for California that establishes performance trends in both CSI and non-CSI schools prior to initial designation and then compares the difference in trends for both school types in the post-identification time periods. However, we have also used RD in California to understand the effect of earning a red or orange color on a given indicator. Findings: Preliminary results from Ohio through four years after CSI designation (2018-19 through 2021-22) using RD show no statistically significant improvements in student outcomes for CSI schools relative to non-CSI schools and several areas were CSI schools performed worse than non-CSI schools, including graduation rates, attendance, and ACT test scores. We are working on developing potential explanations for these findings. We are also working on completing analyses for California and Florida.
- Published
- 2023
33. A New Normal? Labor Market Demand and Student Outcomes in CTE before and after COVID-19
- Author
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Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE), Angela Estacion, Cameron Sublett, Jenna Howard Terrell, Hayley Spencer, and Diana Roldan-Rueda
- Abstract
Background/Context: Public two-year and technical colleges have experienced declines in enrollment since the COVID-19 pandemic. While new data from the National Student Clearinghouse show that enrollment is beginning to increase, it is still below pre-pandemic levels and not all areas are experiencing the same levels of rising enrollment. At the same time, the labor market is vastly different than it was before 2020. An increase in demand in many sectors, combined with high hiring rates and quit rates, has left many high-growth, high-wage jobs unfilled (Ferguson, 2023). There's little research that has examined if and how sub-baccalaureate students are making decisions about their postsecondary pathways based on labor market data and how that's changed pre- and post-pandemic. This study uses geography of opportunity (López Turley, 2009) to understand how a student's residential location impacts their educational opportunities. This is especially true for students who attend community and technical colleges, as they are more likely than their four-year counterparts to live close to home and have competing work-life demands. Our study uses this framework to add to the limited studies on this topic (Acton, 2020; Baker et al., 2017; Foote & Grosz, 2019; Kienzl et al., 2007) by examining changes specific to CTE career clusters, with a specific focus on pre- and post-pandemic trends. Purpose/Objective/Research Question: In response to the many challenges community colleges face in their pandemic recovery efforts, IES established the ARCC research network to learn how community colleges can and support student learning and outcomes in a post-pandemic "normal." One research team in this network is conducting research to understand the impact of COVID-19 on postsecondary career and technical education enrollment. The research will address the following research questions: 1. To what extent can course-taking, concentration, major declaration and award completion within each CTE Career Cluster be predicted by labor market demand for related Career Cluster occupations? 2. To what extent are there observable differences pre- and post-pandemic? Research Design: To address the research questions, the team developed an exploratory research grant which was awarded by the Institute of Education Sciences. The design incorporates analysis of student-level data from the Florida Statewide Longitudinal Data System by coding course-level and student-level data in order to identify CTE enrollment, concentration, and completion. The labor market data design includes a descriptive analysis of labor market changes. The study combines these two sources of data by developing a predictive model to ascertain the extent to which CTE student uptake and success is predicted by changes in labor market demand. Data Collection and Analysis: Student-level data was collected by the Florida Department of Education. The study team requested and received the data in 2022. The labor market data was collected through Lightcast and includes location quotient, shift share, and job posting data. The research team is conducting a descriptive analysis of student-level data by analyzing and visualizing CTE student course enrollment, concentration, major declaration, and completion at the Florida two-year and district colleges over time. The team is separately analyzing the labor market data in the same way. To combine the data, the team translated the Standard Occupational Codes (SOC) employment and wage data to the Career Cluster framework in Florida and merged the data by Florida county. Our next step is to estimate the probabilities on the county-level demand measures. County-by-Career Cluster location quotients and annual Career Cluster wage figures are introduced on a one-year lag on the assumption that student i's CTE engagement or completion in year t would be in response to the regional labor market demand from year Y_(M,isct)= ?+??_1 X?_i+?_2 Q_((t-1))+?_3 W_((t-1))+?_4 ?Q*W?_(s(t-1))+ [superscript 1]_c+?_isct, M={1,2,3,É,17} where Y represents one of the RQ1A-D family of outcomes for Career Cluster M for student i in community or technical college s in cohort c in year t. On the right side of the equation, the vector X_i contains the student-level demographic and academic measures detailed in the previous section; [superscript 1]_c represents fixed effects for cohort. Q_((t-1)) and W_((t-1)) which represent county-level, Career Cluster-specific location quotient of employment and median annual wages, respectively; ?Q*W?_(s(t-1)) is the interaction of location quotient and median wages. The associated parameter for this term, ?_4, thus represents the change in the location quotient slope, ?_3, for every one-unit increase in W. Practically speaking, ?_4 tests whether the relationship between a Career Cluster-specific location quotient of employment and the CTE student outcomes as a function of the median annual wage for the same Career Cluster. The error term, ?_isc, represents all other factors explaining RQ1A-D not captured by? X?_i and [superscript 1]_c and will be clustered at the school level to account for correlated observations among students within the same community or technical college (Abadie et al., 2017) Findings/Results: Our preliminary descriptive analyses show that there are changes in CTE course enrollment over time, with the largest changes in 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 (average 8% decrease overall in district technical colleges and two-year colleges). Further analysis will include changes in CTE concentration and completion as well as changes in labor market demand based in career cluster. The final paper will also include results from the predictive model.
- Published
- 2023
34. Personalized Online Learning, Test Fairness, and Educational Measurement: Considering Differential Content Exposure Prior to a High Stakes End of Course Exam
- Author
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Katz, Daniel, Huggins-Manley, Anne Corinne, and Leite, Walter
- Abstract
According to the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing (2014), one aspect of test fairness concerns examinees having comparable opportunities to learn prior to taking tests. Meanwhile, many researchers are developing platforms enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) that can personalize curriculum to individual student needs. This leads to a larger overarching question: When personalized learning leads to students having differential exposure to curriculum throughout the K-12 school year, how might this affect test fairness with respect to summative, end-of-year high-stakes tests? As a first step, we traced the differences in content exposure associated with personalized learning and more traditional learning paths. To better understand the implications of differences in content coverage, we conducted a simulation study to evaluate the degree to which curriculum exposure varied across students in a particular AI-enhanced learning platform for Algebra instruction with high-school students. Results indicate that AI-enhanced personalized learning may pose threats to test fairness as opportunity-to-learn on K-12 summative high-stakes tests. We discuss the implications given different perspectives of the role of testing in education. [This paper was published in "Applied Measurement in Education" v35 n1 p1-16 2022 (EJ1345451).]
- Published
- 2022
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