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Skeptics of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter school network argue that these schools rely on selective admission, attrition, and replacement of students to produce positive achievement results. We investigate this using data covering 19 KIPP middle schools. On average, KIPP schools admit students disadvantaged in ways similar to other local students, and attrition patterns are typically no different at KIPP than at nearby schools. Unlike district schools, however, KIPP schools tend to replace students who exit with higher achieving students, and fewer students are replaced in the later years of middle school. Overall, KIPP’s positive achievement impacts do not appear to be explained by advantages in the prior achievement of KIPP students, even when attrition and replacement patterns are taken into account.

A growing literature on within-study comparisons (WSC) examines whether and in what context nonexperimental methods can successfully replicate the results of randomized experiments. WSCs require that the experimental and nonexperimental methods assess the same causal estimand. But experiments that include noncompliance in treatment assignment produce a divergence in the causal estimands measured by standard approaches: the experiment-based estimate of the impact of treatment (the complier average causal effect, CACE) applies only to compliers, while the nonexperimental estimate applies to all subjects receiving treatment, including always-takers. We develop a new replication approach that solves this problem by using nonexperimental methods to produce an estimate that can be compared to the experimental intent-to-treat (ITT) impact estimate rather than the CACE. We demonstrate the applicability of the method in a WSC of the effects of charter schools on student achievement. In our example, some me...

One of the modifications of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (known as the No Child Left Behind Act) gave parents of low-income students in low-performing schools a choice of Supplemental Educational Services (SEdS). SEdS include tutoring or other academic support services offered outside the regular school day, at no charge to students or their families, by public or private organizations that have been approved by the state. We examine the impacts of SEdS on test scores among 24,000 students in school districts where SEdS were oversubscribed in Florida, Ohio, and Connecticut. Oversubscribed school districts are required to make SEdS available to the lowest achieving students among eligible applicants, creating the opportunity to estimate impacts using a regression discontinuity design, which relies on districts’ use of a continuous measure of prior academic achievement to determine which eligible applicants will be offered services. We find no impact of SEdS on student test scores.

Since their inception, charter schools have been a lighting rod for controversy, with much of the debate revolving around their effectiveness in improving student achievement. Previous research has shown mixed results for student achievement; this could be the consequence of different policy environments or varying methodological approaches with differing assumptions across studies. In our analysis, we discuss these approaches and their assumptions and estimate charter school achievement effects using a consistent methodology across seven locations.

We use several national surveys to provide a 50-year perspective on time spent on homework. The great majority of American children at all grade levels now spend less than one hour studying on a typical day—an amount that has not changed substantially in at least 20 years. Moreover, high school students in the late 1940s and early 1950s studied no more than their counterparts did in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Changes in educational opinion on homework over the last half century have had little effect on student behavior, with only two notable exceptions: a temporary increase in homework time in the decade following Sputnik, and a new willingness in the last two decades to assign small amounts to primary-grade students.

Homework has been a topic of considerable controversy in 20th century American education, largely because it is a linchpin in the relationship between home and school. This essay examines parent opinions on homework between 1900 and 1960 in order to integrate parents’ elusive voices into the history of American education, and to shed new light on modern-day controversies regarding the school-family interface. The underlying question we explore is whether, in educational policymaking, the family ought to march to the beat of the school, or the school ought to march to the beat of the family? We conclude that if parents want homework, and if homework keeps parents in touch with the program of the school, then it is the abolition of homework -not its presence - that most threatens parents’ interests.

Over the course of the twentieth century, sparks flew regularly whenever professionals, politicians, and parents addressed the topic of homework in the schools. Passions were many, and extreme positions were customary. At different points in time, radically different viewpoints prevailed. In the discourse about homework, the tendency was to portray it as either all good or all bad-savior or destroyer of schools, children, and families.

Teacher value-added models (VAMs) must isolate teachers’ contributions to student achievement to be valid. Well-known VAMs use different specifications, however, leaving policymakers with little clear guidance for constructing a valid model. We examine the sensitivity of teacher value-added estimates under different models based on whether they include student and peer background characteristics, and a double-lagged achievement score. We also consider two previously unexplored model variations: (a) replacing classroom peer characteristics with teacher-level averages, and (b) allowing demographics to influence the relationship between current and prior achievement. Using data from a northern state, we find that teacher effectiveness estimates are highly correlated across specifications. However, up to 26% of teachers in the bottom quintile using one specification are ranked higher using another specification. Differences between VAMs have direct implications for which estimates change. In particula...

In the last decade, many cities around the country have needed to close schools due to declining enrollments and low achievement. School closings raise concerns about the possible negative impacts on student achievement, neighborhoods, families, and teaching staff. This study examines an anonymous urban district that, faced with declining enrollment, chose to make student achievement a major criterion in determining which schools would be closed. The district targeted low-performing schools in its closure plan, and sought to move their students to higher-performing schools. We estimate the impact of school closures on student test scores and attendance rates by comparing the growth of these measures among students differentially affected by the closures. We use residential assignment to school as an instrument to address non-random sorting of students into new schools. We also statistically control for the contemporaneous effects of other reforms within the district. Results show that students displaced by school closures can experience adverse effects on test scores and attendance, but these effects can be minimized when students move to schools that are higher-performing (in value-added terms). Moreover, the negative effect on attendance disappears after the first year in the new school. Meanwhile, we find no adverse effects on students in the schools that are receiving the transferring students.

Although the availability of No Child Left Behind public school choice and supplemental educational options continues to expand for students in underperforming schools, only a small percentage of eligible students participate in these programs.

We analyze the relationship between charter high school attendance and educational attainment in Florida and in Chicago. Controlling for observed student characteristics and test scores, we estimate that among students who attended a charter middle school, those who went on to attend a charter high school were 7–15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma than students who transitioned to a traditional public high school. Similarly, those attending a charter high school were 8–10 percentage points more likely to attend college. We find even larger effects when we treat high school choice as endogenous.