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This paper examines how the process of making higher education choices in the United States--whether to enter higher education, attend a particular college, or follow a particular path through college--produces and legitimates social inequality. The paper's central thesis is that a societal regime of many choices--while serving individual freedom and producing social well-being--"produces" societal inequality in a way that obscures that process of social reproduction for virtually all who participate in that choice regime. Students often make choices that do not serve their interests as well as they might wish, particularly if students are faced with many choices and do not have adequate information. The incidence of those suboptimal choices is not random but is socially stratified. It is higher for less advantaged people, and unequal provision of good information plays a crucial role in producing those socially stratified suboptimal choices. Secondly, the provision of many choices "legitimates" social inequality. Seemingly offered many choices in life, both the fortunate and unfortunate in society come to feel that much of the inequality they experience is due to their own actions and therefore is legitimate. The paper concludes by offering various prescriptions for reducing the socially stratifying impacts and ideological consequences of a high-choice regime. It lays out how we could more equally distribute high-quality information, nudge students toward better choice making, reduce the costs to students of suboptimal choices, and mitigate blaming self and others by demystifying the nature of choice. In making these arguments, this paper draws on the research literature in sociology of education, behavioral economics, cognitive psychology, and social psychology of inequality.

Even though equity has become a hot topic, the pathway to making it a reality has not necessarily become clear. The national agenda on race, racial equity, and dealing with COVID-19 has pushed the challenge of equity to the front and center for schools. This pressurized moment in history has raised important questions: (1) What are the steps to an effective equity journey? and (2) What are the standards and targets to guide the pursuit of equity outcomes? What are the conditions for success in an effective, equitable district? What are the capacities and practices of equitable leaders and practitioners? This paper will highlight a few resources that may be helpful and will refer to many others. There are multitudes of resources available today to support equity development on a personal, organizational, institutional, and societal level. [The paper was prepared with the Center for Understanding Equity.]

This study examines the emerging relationship between microcredentials and qualification systems. Information gathered through an online survey among European VET providers, national authorities, employee and employer organisations was complemented by in-depth country case studies and interviews with Cedefop's ReferNet network. Questions of whether and how microcredentials should be related to established qualification systems are at an early stage of consideration in most countries; the focus is on better defining and standardising their role within national qualifications systems. Existing trends towards modularisation and the recognition of prior learning provide potential avenues for realising the benefits of microcredentials in terms of flexibility and responsiveness, while also ensuring their quality for learners and employers. There is still significant debate over how to deal with microcredentials, and how to avoid potential negative effects, such as encouraging a shift away from holistic education towards short-duration learning based around reduced skill sets. Microcredentials are a complex phenomenon, particularly with regard to their relationship to qualifications. In recent years, there has been an acceleration in the availability and use of microcredentials in the labour market, raising questions about their relationship to VET and to qualification systems. The proliferation of microcredentials of different types across various sectors, occupations, education sectors and levels and countries, along with variations between countries in the nature of qualification systems -- which are undergoing change -- make this a complex landscape to research and analyse. To date there has been a lack of data at EU level informing decision-making in this area. This report aims to be a first step towards filling some key gaps in the knowledge around these topics, addressing three main research questions.

This paper focuses on the increase in families who have chosen to homeschool their children in grades K-12 since the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. This update includes interviews with families who opted to homeschool their children in the conventional approach, rather than continue with the hasty remote learning that educators tried to transfer from the classroom in March of 2020 and then the blended approach of online learning/classrooms-with-masks format that many districts used during the 2020-2021 school year. This report follows a study authored in June of 2017, "Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice," also published by the Pioneer Institute. It covered the history of homeschooling, demographics on homeschoolers, the economics around homeschooling and legislation affecting homeschooling. The authors of this report include several recommendations on how policy makers and education administrators can accommodate the growth in homeschooling and assist families who chose this manner of education for their children. The authors also urge policy makers and education officials to do more to acknowledge homeschooling as a viable educational choice. Districts and states can do more to provide direction and information for parents who are considering non-traditional options. [Foreword written by Kerry McDonald. For "Homeschooling: The Ultimate School Choice," see ED588847.]

Many factors influence students' experiences in upper secondary education and beyond, including upper secondary curricula, programme design and support for students. But a good transition from earlier levels of education is the first, essential step in a successful journey through upper secondary education and into further education and/or employment. The design of transition systems can mitigate existing inequities in education, but it can also accentuate them. Transitions can also influence student well-being. They can have either a negative impact, for example through highly competitive systems that can be stressful for students and narrow their development, or a positive impact, for example by helping to construct young people's sense of agency and ability to make informed decisions about their future. This paper looks at how countries manage students' transition into upper secondary education and the main policy implications of each transition point and how they can influence student outcomes.

How is upper secondary education organised across OECD countries? This level of education, which most frequently serves students aged between 15 to 18, is generally the first time when learners have significant capacity to shape the content of their learning, for example by opting for general or vocational education, choosing their subjects and developing a specialisation. Across the OECD, education systems have developed different ways to be responsive to different student needs and interests while trying to ensure that learners develop coherent foundational skills. This paper captures the diversity of countries' upper secondary systems by: (1) developing a common language that sets the foundation for internationally comparative analysis; (2) categorising how countries organise their programmes in upper secondary education to manage choice, coherence and specialisation; and (3) identifying benefits and strategies to mitigate the risks associated with different approaches to upper secondary programmes for students, education systems and society.

Filling the STEM pipeline from secondary schools to postsecondary institutions is essential for the nations' competitiveness in the 21st century. It is therefore crucial to motivate more high school students to consider entering one of the STEM fields and to prepare themselves by taking advanced coursework in STEM that will prime them for choosing a STEM major in college, and eventually, a STEM career. High school students' pathway to a college STEM major can be seen as related to a series of academic choices (e.g., middle school STEM related activities, high school STEM coursetaking, and outside of school activities) and achievements that begin in early schooling years and continue to develop in secondary school (Eccles, 1994; Wang, 2013; Wang & Degol, 2013). This current study develops a comprehensive conceptual framework to describe how high school STEM coursetaking, STEM GPA, and motivational beliefs on science and mathematics are related to students' decisions about whether to choose a STEM major at 4-year college after taking into consideration student, family, and school background factors. The conceptual framework focuses on the direct relationships between five factors and choosing a STEM major in college: mathematics motivation, science motivation, high school STEM coursetaking, STEM achievement, and social networks. The results of simple comparisons of mathematics and science motivation between students in STEM- and non-STEM majors indicated that STEM-major students have a higher level of mathematics and science motivation in all four measured constructs (mathematics identity, mathematics self-efficacy, science identity, and science self-efficacy) compared to non-STEM major students. The structural equation model (SEM) results, which take into consideration of factors for other high school experiences, further identified the significant relationships between STEM motivation and having a STEM major in college. The findings suggest that science identity had the strongest association with students' choice of a STEM major among all other motivation variables, STEM coursetaking, and achievement variables.

This paper presents the first evidence of how students make career technical education (CTE) course-taking decisions. Among the universe of Michigan high-schoolers we find large disparities in CTE access and participation by gender, race, and income. We decompose participation gaps between supply (access) and demand (preferences) with a simple discrete choice model. We find that student preferences for CTE content drive participation gaps by gender, inequities in access drive gaps by income, and school-level supply and demand factors combine to create the gaps by race. Policy simulations highlight the importance of accessible CTE delivery models within comprehensive high schools.

There is growing interest in using measures of teacher applicant quality to improve hiring decisions, but the statistical properties of such measures are poorly understood. We present evidence on structured ratings solicited from teacher applicants' references. We find that the reference ratings capture only one underlying dimension of applicant quality, which may indicate a need to broaden the range of questions posed to professional references. Point estimates of inter-rater reliability range between 0.23 and 0.31 and are significantly lower for novice applicants. It is difficult to judge whether these levels of reliability are high or low in the current context given so little evidence on comparable applicant assessment tools.

This paper investigates whether the decision to attend university depends on university enrollment of close neighbors. I create a unique dataset combining detailed geographic information and educational records from different public agencies in Chile, and exploit the quasi-random variation generated by the rules that determine eligibility for student loans. I find that close neighbors have a large and significant impact on university enrollment of younger applicants. Potential applicants are around 11 percentage points more likely to attend university if a close neighbor enrolled the year before. This effect is particularly strong in areas with low exposure to university and among individuals who are more likely to interact; the effect decreases both with geographic and social distance and is weaker for individuals who have spent less time in the neighborhood. I also show that the increase in university attendance translates into retention and university completion. These effects are mediated by an increase in applications rather than by an improvement on applicants' academic performance. This set of results suggests that policies that expand access to university generate positive spillovers on close peers of the direct beneficiaries.

Education researchers use surveys widely. Yet, critics question respondents' ability to provide high-quality responses. As schools increasingly use student surveys to drive policymaking, respondents' (lack of) motivation to provide quality responses may threaten the wisdom of using surveys for data-based decision-making. To better understand student satisficing (suboptimal responding on surveys) and its impact on data quality, we examined the pervasiveness and impact of this practice on a large-scale social-emotional learning survey administered to 409,721 students in grades 2-12. Findings indicated that despite the prevalence of satisficing in our sample, its impact on data quality appeared more modest than anticipated. We conclude by providing an accessible approach for defining and calculating satisficing for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers working with large-scale datasets.

The OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030 (E2030) project's overall goal is that of looking to the future in terms of how school curricula should evolve given the technological advances and other changes that societies are now facing. Towards that end, the E2030 project centres on the idea that education needs to equip students with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to become active, responsible and engaged citizens. Mathematics is considered a highly relevant subject for achieving the above stated goals, as such it requires further and more detailed analysis. As a result, it has been chosen as one of the E2030 project's subject-specific analyses. The project has been named the Mathematics Curriculum Document Analysis (MCDA) study as per the request of participating countries. This working paper presents the findings of the MCDA study, which involves participants from 19 countries and jurisdictions.

This paper summarises the evolution of student contributions in Australia since 1989, exploring system redesigns that commenced in 1997, 2005 and 2021. Public and private benefits are recurring themes in setting student contributions, both as high-level justifications for government policy and in pricing specific disciplines. Professor Andrew Norton evaluates five different rationales used by successive Australian governments to satisfy competing policy and political considerations: course costs, private benefits, public benefits, increasing resources per student place, and incentivising course choices. Professor Norton argues that despite using student contributions to guide course choices being central to current funding policy it is never likely to be effective. Student contributions do, however, have practical consequences that seem to be given little consideration by the government. These include how long it takes to repay student debt, how much of that debt the government will eventually write off, and university incentives to enrol students. As the new government reviews the Job-ready Graduates policy, the paper provides a useful basis for discussion, offering lessons from history in what works and what does not, and guiding policymakers towards student contribution systems that minimise problems for students, government and universities.

In this paper we estimate the impacts of the "pathways" chosen by community college students--in terms of desired credentials and fields of study, as well as other choices and outcomes along the paths--on the attainment of credentials with labor market value. We focus on the extent to which there are recorded changes in students' choices over time, whether students make choices informed by their chances of success and by labor market value of credentials, and the impacts of choices on outcomes. We find that several characteristics of chosen pathways, such as field of study and desired credential as well as early "momentum," affect outcomes. Student choices of pathways are not always driven by information about later chances of success, in terms of probabilities of completing programs and attaining strong earnings. Students also change pathways quite frequently, making it harder to accumulate the credits needed in their fields. Attainment of credentials with greater market value could thus likely be improved by appropriate guidance and supports for students along the way, and perhaps by broader institutional changes as well. [Financial support for this report was provided by the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute (ESSPRI) at UC Irvine.]

How can we see education research as a coherent body of inquiry? The naturally occurring diversity of epistemologies and methods give education research the appearance of discord. In this paper, we propose that all of these various methods, questions, and interpretive frameworks of education research share a common commitment to the idea that "education is design for learning." We begin with a discussion of how recent efforts at the global and national policy levels have sought to position scientific inquiry as the premiere version of education research based on the model of social sciences. We then discuss the role of practical inquiry as a necessary complement to both receive and generate positivist knowledge. The iteration between scientific and practical inquiry describes a path for how scientific and practical work can be naturally linked in an iterative inquiry for improving education processes and outcomes. However, without a critical perspective, this iterative process can become detached from valued social concerns and become an exercise in optimization, rather than improvement. We propose that critical inquiry should be systemically integrated into the design process for researchers and educators to reflect on both the intentions and consequences of the scientific-practical cycle. We then describe how integrating these approaches can show the way toward to a coherent model of education research.

In just the last 18 months, Massachusetts has seen the closure of small private liberal arts colleges Mount Ida and Newbury Colleges. The pressures on these types of institutions include technological disruption, changing student demands, and ever-escalating costs. To address this, the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) and Department of Higher Education (DHE) have proposed creating a new state agency, called the Office of Student Protection (OSP), that would be granted unilateral authority to order colleges to notify students and other stakeholders by December 1st of any academic year where a meaningful risk exists that the college cannot complete the current school year and the next one. Under the proposal, OSP would be empowered to order a December 1st notification even if the college has a current satisfactory Financial Responsibility Composite Score from the U.S. Department of Education, qualifying its students to receive federal financial aid and loans, and even if the college is currently accredited by the U.S. DOE's approved regional accrediting agency, the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE). On March 6, 2019, Governor Baker filed Senate Bill 2183, which proposes giving BHE authority to request information from private higher education institutions "to accurately and fairly determine the institution's financial condition and to monitor such condition over time" and "to impose sanctions on institutions that do not comply in a timely manner." The legislation also proposes giving BHE authority to compel higher education institutions "to prepare and submit to [BHE], for its approval, a contingency closure plan which shall include a process for providing enrolled and admitted students and staff with timely notification of the institution's financial condition" and "arrangements for enabling students to complete their programs of study" if BHE identifies the institution as having liabilities or risks that may result in imminent closure or jeopardize the institution's ability to fulfill its obligations to current and admitted students. Under the proposed legislation, such contingency closure plans would be subject to BHE approval. The proposed legislation would exempt information submitted by institutions of higher education at BHE's request from the Massachusetts public records law. The proposed legislation also directs BHE to establish regulations interpreting and applying this new section of law, following consultation with representatives of public and private colleges and universities. The stated goal of BHE's proposal is to protect students from sudden, unexpected closings such as what happened with Mount Ida College. According to BHE and DHE, their proposal would provide an earlier warning of potential college closures than has historically been provided by USDOE and NECHE. In this report, Pioneer Institute identifies 10 serious problems with the BHE/DHE proposal.

High-stakes decisions are often made for English learners in the K-12 context based on their performance on English language proficiency assessments. Although states and districts provide guidelines for making such decisions, little is known regarding how educators actually make decisions at the district and school levels. Understanding these decisions is important as they often have significant consequences. In addition, evidence regarding the decisions is necessary to support validity claims made regarding the use of the assessments. This study examines how K-12 educators identify and place English learners in language instruction educational programs. These educators serve ELs in different capacities, including district coordinators, instructional coaches, administrators, teachers, and counselors. Participants were sampled from 35 U.S. states, using stratified random sampling. A total of 476 educators (207 district-level and 269 school-level educators) completed an online survey on EL identification and placement. Findings reveal information regarding (1) educators who make decisions about English learner identification and placement, (2) instruments and information sources used for decision making, and (3) educators' perceived appropriateness of the decisions. Results provide practical implications for improving the English learner identification and placement decision at the district and school levels.

Existing research on the effectiveness of college career services centers (CSCs) has primarily focused on students' rates of utilization and their satisfaction with the programs and services offered. Based on survey (n = 372) and focus group data (n = 35) from undergraduate business students, we found that participants were most satisfied with the CSC's provision of practical tools that enhanced employability and were least satisfied with the CSC's integration of students' backgrounds and interests during advising. Our qualitative analysis yielded three categories of contributors (i.e., sociocultural factors, independent activities, and institutional factors) to student career outcomes, which were psychological characteristics, career decisions, and social capital. Sociocultural factors were most prominently featured in students' narratives of their experiences, in that they shaped how students leveraged institutional resources and how they engaged in independent activities as part of their career trajectories. Practical implications and future research directions are discussed.

Across OECD countries, the increasing demand for evidence-based policy making has further led governments to design policies jointly with clear measurable objectives, and to define relevant indicators to monitor their achievement. This paper discusses the importance of such indicators in supporting the implementation of education policies. Building on the OECD education policy implementation framework, the paper reviews the role of indicators along each of the dimensions of the framework, namely smart policy design, inclusive stakeholder engagement, and conducive environment. It draws some lessons to improve the contribution of indicators to the implementation of education policies, while taking into account some of their perennial challenges pertaining to the unintended effects of accountability. This paper aims to provide insights to policy makers and various education stakeholders, to initiate a discussion on the use and misuse of indicators in education, and to guide future actions towards a better contribution of indicators to education policy implementation.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit many countries at a time when their education systems were facing multiple challenges. Economic, public-health and social impacts from the pandemic have exacerbated many of these challenges. The aim of this paper is to explore the way in which the behavioural sciences can help support the policy response to the COVID-induced education crisis, and to serve as a learning experience for other future crises. The paper involves an empirical exploration of the factors associated with a range of outcomes using large nationally representative datasets, and interpreting these relationships in the context of a detailed literature review. By using data that it is generally representative of the populations of interest, and is available for many dozens of countries with different histories, languages, cultures, and socioeconomic outcomes, this paper highlights how identifying behavioural biases can direct education systems towards more effective targeted policy interventions.

A growing number of institutions undertaking "guided pathways" reforms are rethinking how students select programs of study, choose courses, and make other program-related choices. One primary aim is to help students make thoughtful decisions about their programs early on as a means to encourage faster and more satisfying college completion. The City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) has been undertaking a guided pathways reform effort for several years. Based largely on student interviews, this paper describes how degree-seeking students at CCC make choices about their programs in their first year of enrollment, focusing especially on how they interact with advisors and how they use college-based resources in program selection and program planning. We find that the complex process of program selection and planning is undertaken differently by students with greater or lesser tolerance for ambiguity, and that inconsistent or conflicting information about program details is particularly frustrating for some students. We recommend that institutions engaging in guided pathways reform efforts clarify advising processes and materials to reduce contradictory information and confusion.

How do labor income shocks affect household investment in upper secondary and tertiary schooling? Using longitudinal data from 2005-15 for Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, this paper explores the effect of a negative household income shock on the enrollment status of youth ages 15 to 25. The findings suggest that negative income shocks significantly increase the likelihood that students in upper secondary and tertiary school exit school in Argentina and Brazil, but not in Mexico. For the three countries, the analysis finds evidence that youth who drop out due to a household income shock have worse employment outcomes than similar youth who exit school without a household income shock. Differences in labor markets and safety net programs likely play an important role in the decision to exit school as well as the employment outcomes of those who exit across these three countries.

A 1966 University of California academic plan estimated that future enrollments would soar to well over 200,000 before leveling off, and that by 1975 student demand would require two more UC campuses in addition to the ones opened a few years earlier at Santa Cruz, Irvine, and San Diego. The 1970 US census brought these stratospheric assumptions down to earth. Its projections of declining numbers of college-age students into the next decade and beyond, combined with the shock of unfavorable academic market and budgetary trends, became the starting point for an ambitious new UC planning endeavor. The intent was to improve long-range decision-making on the size, quality, and academic balance of the University. The strategy was to ensure that planning led budgeting; that campus academic plans were systematically reviewed at the university-wide and Regental level; and that fiscal realities disciplined planning at all levels. Two UC presidents led this experiment in multi-campus system planning. Charles J. Hitch (1968-1975) had revolutionized planning and budgeting at Robert S. McNamara's Department of Defense before coming to UC. David S. Saxon (1975-1983) brought a deep knowledge of the University and its culture gained through long experience as a faculty and administrative leader at UCLA. Despite differences in background, perspective, and approach, both shared the same goal: to create a truly university-wide plan that harmonized campus ambitions with the broader aims of the University as a whole and with the coming constraints on growth. This paper considers the context, assumptions, and forces that shaped, and then reshaped, the planning directions UC chose at the end of the golden age of the 1960s. A bibliography is included.

Although many may be surprised at the growth of homeschooling during the past few decades, the real surprise is probably how that growth happened and that it continues. Home school advocates and practitioners have succeeded despite a lack of funding, recruiting efforts, publicity, and grant money from philanthropic billionaires. They have faced opposition from the National Education Association (NEA), obstacles imposed by individual school districts and various state restrictions, regulations, and requirements. There is also little if any professional development for parent-instructors and virtually no future career path (or pensions) for those parents. Systemically, there is a lack of institutional knowledge with which to keep the homeschooling movement going forward. This paper attempts to elucidate some of these issues by reviewing a brief history of homeschooling, the challenges associated with defining and counting homeschoolers, the predominant reasons for homeschooling, and the critical role parental choice plays in the decision to homeschool. By becoming more knowledgeable about the practices and benefits of homeschooling, traditional educators can begin to offer parents information, support, and encouragement, treating them as educational colleagues who care deeply about children's learning.

In order to graduate with a bachelor's degree, students must determine which classes they must take in order to satisfy the requirements of their major. These requirements are often complex and difficult to comprehend, leading to some policy interventions that aim to reduce complexity by either increasing the amount of student guidance in course choice or by reducing the amount of complexity-increasing choice. We perform two student preference experiments on students at two large four-year universities to determine how students might respond to increasing guidance or reduced choice in their course-taking options. We find that students do not respond strongly to increases in guidance, but strongly reject a reduction in options, even when given a rationale for the reduction. These results suggest that increased-guidance policies have some avenues to operate in without student pushback, but that strong reductions in choice are unlikely to be popular.

This essay discusses the contentious events leading to the decision by the University of California's Board of Regents to end affirmative action in admissions, hiring and contracting at the university in July 1995. This controversial decision provided momentum for California's passage of Proposition 209 the following year ending "racial preferences" for all of the state's public agencies. In virtually any other state, the debate over university admissions would have bled beyond the confines of a university's governing board. The board would have deferred to lawmakers and an even more complicated public discourse. The University of California's unusual status as a "public trust" under the state constitution, however, meant that authority over admissions was the sole responsibility of the board. This provided a unique forum to debate affirmative action for key actors, including Regent Ward Connerly and Governor Pete Wilson, to persuade fellow regents to focus and decide on a hotly debated social issue related to the dispersal of a highly sought public good -- access to a selective public university. Two themes are explored. The first focuses on the debate within the university community and the vulnerability of existing affirmative action programs and policies -- including a lack of unanimity among the faculty regarding the use of racial preferences. The second relates to the political tactics employed by Connerly and the saliency of his arguments, which were addressed to a larger public, and not to the academic community. Connerly attacked not only the idea of affirmative action but also the coherency of the university's existing admissions programs, the effectiveness of using race in admissions decisions, and the credibility of the university's administrative leaders who defended affirmative action.

Recent research suggests that the use of student search services is an effective part of a college's student marketing and recruitment strategy. What is not clear, however, is whether participating in a search service is an effective part of a student's college search strategy. To address this question, we exploit a recent change in the choice architecture that structures students' decision to participate in ACT's Educational Opportunity Service (EOS) in order to make a causal inference about the benefit to the student of opting into a search service. We hypothesized that students who had opted into EOS unintentionally sent scores to more colleges than students who opted out. Indeed, we found that unintentional opt-in was associated with an 8% increase in the odds of sending scores to any colleges, and for students who sent scores, unintentional EOS opt-in was associated with a 1.1 increase in the number of colleges to which scores were sent. Results of this study support the hypothesis that EOS opt-in may indeed be an effective part of a student's college search strategy.

The COVID-19 pandemic drew new attention to the role of school boards in the U.S. In this paper, we examine school districts' choices of learning modality--whether and when to offer in-person, virtual, or hybrid instruction--over the course of the 2020-21 pandemic school year. The analysis takes advantage of granular weekly data on learning mode and COVID-19 cases for Ohio school districts. We show that districts respond on the margin to health risks: all else equal, a marginal increase in new cases reduces the probability that a district offers in-person instruction the next week. Moreover, this negative response is magnified when the district was in-person the prior week and attenuates in magnitude over the school year. These findings are consistent with districts learning from experience about the effect of in-person learning on disease transmission in schools. We also find evidence that districts are influenced by the decisions of their peers.

Education policy worldwide has sought to incentivize school improvement and facilitate pupil-school matching by introducing reforms that promote autonomy and choice. Understanding the way in which families form preferences during these periods of reform is crucial for evaluating the impact of such policies. We study the effects on choice of a recent shock to the English school system--the academy programme--which gave existing state schools greater autonomy, but provided limited information on possible expected benefits. We use administrative data on school applications for three cohorts of students to estimate whether academy conversion changes schools' popularity. We find that families--particularly non-poor, White British ones--rank converted schools higher on average. Expected changes in composition, effectiveness and other school policies cannot explain this updating of preferences. Instead, the patterns suggest that families combine the signal of conversion with prior information on quality, popularity and proximity as a heuristic for assessing a school's expected future performance. The following are appended: (1) Robustness checks; and (2) Estimating Academies' Effectiveness using Legacy Enrolled Pupils. [This paper was produced as part of the Centre for Economic Performance's Education and Skills Programme.]

This paper is a description and analysis of the history of the renovation of Memorial Stadium and the building of the Barclay Simpson Student Athlete High Performance Center (SAHPC) on the Berkeley campus, showing how incremental changes over time result in a much riskier and financially less viable project than originally anticipated. It describes the decision making process, the role of various constituent groups including senior administrators and the UC Regents, faculty, community members and local and state governmental officials, donors and protesters. It includes the legal challenges and financial implications of the most expensive intercollegiate athletics capital project in the nation totaling $474 million dollars. Taking into account debt servicing over time, the total expenditures could approach more than $1 billion. These projects were highly controversial from their inception, continue to be so to this day because of current campus wide financial challenges, and illustrate the complexity and risk of managing big-time intercollegiate athletics programs. This study draws on two theories of organizational decisionmaking, Diane Vaughan's normalization of deviance and Charles Lindblom's science of muddling through. They are part of a larger debate within the social sciences about the degree to which structure and/or agency determine human behavior. Structure is the broad framework of rules, regulations, expectations, history and tradition within which organizations function and which provide limits or constraints on human behavior. Most organizational decisions are made within this framework and are inevitably incremental and often risk averse. Agency is the ability to take independent action despite the constraints of structure, entails greater risk, and becomes necessary because behavior within the organization has become normalized over time and deviates, even unknowingly, from changing values. The following are appended: (1) Lindblom's Science of Muddling Through; (2) Brief description of key individuals mentioned in the document; and (3) Chronology of significant events related to the construction of the SAHPC and the renovation of California Memorial Stadium.

Many postsecondary institutions, and community colleges in particular, require that students demonstrate specified levels of literacy and numeracy before taking college-level courses. Typically, students have been assessed using two widely available tests--ACCUPLACER and Compass. However, placement testing practice is beginning to change for three reasons. First, the Compass test will no longer be offered as of the end of 2016. Second, questions have been raised about the validity of commonly used placement tests. Third, there are emerging discussions about the need to consider other aspects of students' readiness to succeed in college, especially so-called noncognitive skills. In this paper, we discuss the history of college placement testing, with a focus on nonselective colleges. We describe the limitations of placement tests, the consequences of placement errors, and the movement toward changing systems of placement. The use of multiple measures is suggested as an approach that will result in more accurate placement. A typology of approaches to assessment and placement is described, including the identification of individual measures (e.g., alternative math and English tests, noncognitive assessments, and high school transcript information), ways to use them in combination (e.g., waivers, decision rules, and placement formulae), and how colleges might use assessment results in more varied ways (e.g., for placement into different course types or services). Finally, we include a discussion of emerging issues affecting assessment and placement practices.

Children's academic and social development before third grade is highly predictive of later success in school and beyond. Research shows that during those early years, the gains children make in language and literacy, mathematics and social skills, and their growth as learners and thinkers are associated with a range of benefits, from academic achievement to economic stability to healthy habits and behaviors. "The Untapped Potential of an Early Childhood Assessment System: A Strategy for Improving Policies and Instruction from Early Childhood through 3rd Grade" outlines how state leaders can reduce or streamline the assessments being used in early learning programs and elementary schools, achieve economies of scale for educator training and leverage existing data systems to yield more powerful data to inform decision-making.

Student loans are a crucial aspect of financing a college education for millions of Americans, yet we have surprisingly little empirical evidence concerning individuals' unwillingness to borrow money for educational purposes. This study provides the first large-scale quantitative evidence of levels of loan aversion in the United States. Using survey data collected on more than 6,000 individuals, we examine the frequency of loan aversion in three distinct populations. Depending on the measure, between 20 to 40 percent of high school seniors exhibit loan aversion with lower rates among community college students and adults not in college. Women are less likely to express loan averse attitudes than men, and Hispanic respondents are more likely to be loan averse than white respondents.

Governments recognise that careers guidance, underpinned by accurate labour market information, can help learners make post-secondary education choices that match their interests, aptitudes and abilities, and lead to rewarding employment. For this reason, they have invested in building linked education/employment information systems and other information resources which are displayed on websites targeted to learners and their families. However, researchers and governments agree that these efforts are often ineffective in informing learners' decisions -- access to information is not sufficient to provide effective support to student choice. Drawing upon the insights of behavioural economics, this paper examines how learners access and use information, and what this implies for the design of public study and career choice websites that aim to effectively support student choice. The report also takes stock of the career guidance websites in use in the majority of OECD countries, and sets out to provide actionable advice for policy makers to guide the design of effective information policy levers that support student choice.

We estimate school-choice preferences revealed by the rank-ordered lists submitted by more than 22,000 applicants to a citywide lottery for more than 200 traditional and charter public schools in Washington, DC. The results confirm previously reported findings that commuting distance, school demographics, and academic indicators play important roles in school choice, and that there is considerable heterogeneity of preferences. Simulations suggest segregation by race and income would be reduced and enrollment in high-performing schools increased if policymakers were to expand school choice by relaxing school capacity constraints in individual campuses. The simulations also suggest that closing the lowest-performing schools could further reduce segregation and increase enrollment in high-performing schools. The following are appended: (1) Findings on Neighborhood and Other Non-Academic Characteristics; (2) Detailed Analysis of Endogeneity and Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives; and (3) Supplemental Tables and Figures. [For "Market Signals: How Do DC Parents Rank Schools, and What Does It Mean for Policy? Policy Brief," see ED568708.]

Students need to develop a variety of critical thinking and interpersonal skills in order to contribute successfully to today's increasingly globalized world. The Office of the Provost at the University of Michigan has implemented a plan known as Transforming Learning for a Third Century (TLTC) as part of its broader Third Century Initiative. This plan aims to foster development of such skills, with special emphasis on five distinct learning goals: (1) Creativity; (2) Intercultural engagement; (3) Social/civic responsibility and ethical reasoning; (4) Communication, collaboration, and teamwork; and (5) Self-agency, and the ability to innovate and take risks. The intercultural engagement goal is focused on fostering students' understanding of the role of values and culture in driving decisions, and supporting students as they develop the flexibility to work with others who have different values. More so than any previous generation, it is important for the University of Michigan to offer students opportunities to practice communicating and working with others from many different cultures and background experiences in intelligent, productive, and respectful ways. Aligned with previous TLTC Occasional Papers, this paper begins with a discussion of what intercultural engagement means and how it is conceptualized in the literature, followed by a discussion of the importance of this goal for student development. A summary of different approaches to promote intercultural engagement will then be offered. This paper concludes with an examination of how to assess these skills with an emphasis on choosing appropriate measures.

The increasing tension between the perceived necessity of a college degree and the challenge of paying for it has led to a proliferation of financial aid policy in the U.S. and around the world. More students are receiving more aid today, and more different types of aid, than ever before. Half a century of policy experimentation has led to an equally impressive accumulation of research evidence, facilitated by methodological advances and the widespread availability of student-level administrative data. In this chapter, we present the economic rationale for financial aid, a summary of how aid works in the U.S. context, and common methodological challenges in the study of financial aid. We then review the evidence from both inside and outside the U.S. on the causal impact of a variety of financial aid policies and programs on students' college decisions, attainment, and post-college outcomes, and summarize the overarching themes with respect to margins of impact, mechanisms, and heterogeneity. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for research.