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Despite ample evidence that Massachusetts's charter public schools are among the highest performing schools--charter or traditional--in the country, a 2016 ballot initiative to open more of them failed by a large margin. Rhetoric on both sides of the issue was driven by emotion rather than data, and charter school detractors successfully advanced several myths about the schools. The ballot question's failure is unlikely to halt charter school expansion in the future, but it does slow the pace of the movement's growth and speak to the work that charter supporters must do to educate the public. This paper summarizes the research-based truth about Massachusetts charter public schools, focusing on the ideas that were most prominent in the charter school ballot initiative debate. The data that follow are taken from a series of papers published by Pioneer Institute over the course of 2016.

The purpose of this paper is to take a closer look at the states that have designed strong history standards and note what has made them exceptional so other states might do the same. They include Alabama, California, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina. The report draws on interviews with individuals from each state who sat on advisory boards and panels, who shared details on their review process, and identified individuals consulted to design their standards, timetables and outcomes. Members of the state design committees included chairmen of high school history or social studies departments, elementary and middle school teachers, college history professors, members of historical societies and parents. The report also includes seven core recommendations related to process; non-partisanship; the importance of detail and clarity in standards; the need to focus on academic content; the value of civics-based content; encouraging the reading of history in each grade; and finally to promote historical writing in each grade. In all, the paper shows that states can create robust K-12 standards that are clear enough for teachers to employ effectively and that enrich students' understanding of U.S. history. [Preface by Daniel Walker Howe.]

In 2016 the state of Massachusetts began a process to end the confusing series of alterations to education by revising and aligning the state's academic standards and tests. In March 2017 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) approved revisions to the state English language arts (ELA) and math standards. The purpose of this report is to answer two questions: (1) Are the latest revisions substantial or superficial?; and (2) Do the revisions signal a return to the quality of the pre-Common Core standards, or continue the trajectory of Common Core? These questions are addressed by recognized subject-matter experts. Dr. Mark Bauerlein (English) and Dr. R. James Milgram (math), both of whom have extensive knowledge of Common Core and of the pre-Common Core Massachusetts standards. Their answers, while not surprising, will disappoint the commonwealth's parents and other citizens who had hoped for a return to the glory days of Massachusetts education.

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.

While there are many causes at the root of the academic achievement gap between high- and low-income students, one that is seldom acknowledged is summer learning loss, which disproportionally affects low-income and minority students. With a wide achievement gap across all regions of Massachusetts, private schools in the commonwealth should consider offering summer enrichment programs, which have been shown to promote student achievement, to underserved students as a tool to combat this trend. This paper compares the costs and tuition at typical summer programs run by elite private schools to "mission-based" programs that actively recruit disadvantaged students to offer high-quality, longer-term educational experiences. Findings indicate that elite schools often offer single-summer day programs for $5,500 or more per student for five weeks of instruction, while programming at other schools that extend the program for twelve months, multiple summers or multiple full years can operate at less than half the cost. Not only are these expanded programs cost-efficient, but they fulfill a mission to educate underprivileged students who are most at-risk for summer learning loss.

Many observers argue that diversity in Economics and STEM fields is critical, not simply because of egalitarian goals, but because who is in a field may shape what is studied by it. If increasing the rate of majoring in mathematically-intensive fields among women is a worthy goal, then understanding whether women's colleges causally affect that choice is important. Among all admitted applicants to Wellesley College, enrollees are 7.2 percentage points (94%) more likely to receive an Economics degree than non-enrollees (a plausible lower bound given negative selection into enrollment on math skills and major preferences). Overall, 3.2 percentage points--or 44% of the difference between enrollees and non-enrollees--is explained by college exposure to female instructors and students, consistent with a wider role for women's colleges in increasing female participation in Economics.

As explored in the first report in this series, the past decade has been a period of tremendous growth for UMass. This growth has taken many forms, including expansion of the school's capital facilities, increased student enrollment, and a growing national profile and public mission. These developments have resulted in innumerable successes for the university, including impressive leaps in national rankings. As the first report discussed, from 2005 to 2014, UMass increased total enrollment by 27.3 percent, far outpacing the average of other New England state universities (1.7 percent), MA private four-year universities (11.8 percent), U.S. public universities (14.4 percent), and U.S. private universities (16.4 percent). UMass' expanding programs have resulted in significant increases in operating expenses over this period, as this report will explore in greater depth. UMass capital expansion and enrollment growth are closely linked. To attract and accommodate more students, UMass undertook a building boom on its campuses between FY2005 and FY2015 with a price tag of $3.81 billion, only $1.38 billion of which was funded by the state. The university funded the balance by itself through increased institutional borrowing, more revenue from tuition and fees, and admitting increasingly higher volumes of out-of-state students who pay more to attend. The institution recently adopted an ambitious $6.98 billion FY2015-2019 Capital Plan that outlines significant additional expansion of the university's five campuses. This report considers the implications of the capital plan on future university and state finances. Findings suggest that UMass' capital plan as currently proposed threatens to exacerbate the budget gap that has been created by capital and enrollment expansion and increase the university's dependence on future state capital and operating funding, tuition and fee revenue increases, along with expanded enrollment of out-of-state students to support the university's growing costs. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-Of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]

This paper is the third in Pioneer Institute's "UMass at a Crossroads" series. This report takes a closer look at the university's growing dependency on increases in tuition and fees and expansion of out-of-state and international student enrollment to support continued expansion of the university. The first report examined whether UMass' continuing strategy of enrollment expansion makes sense given forecasts by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education of an 11.4 percent decline in Massachusetts high school graduates over the next twelve years. This study examines more closely the university's strategy of increasing out-of-state and international enrollment as a means of increasing revenue through higher tuition rates paid by this group of students. As this paper explains, UMass-Amherst made offers of admission to more out-of-state and international applicants to its 2015-2016 freshman class than it did to Massachusetts applicants for the first time in university history. Growing out-of-state enrollment is not limited to undergraduate programs at UMass. Overall, in-state students are in the minority in UMass graduate programs, representing 30 percent of the total master's degree student population. This study also examines state funding as measured by state support per full-time equivalent student (FTE), showing that Massachusetts' higher education institutions (including UMass, the state colleges and community colleges) receive the second highest level of state financial support of New England higher education systems by this metric, and also receive more than the national average. Pioneer Institute questions whether UMass' current strategy of increasing out-of-state and international enrollment is consistent with its primary mission of serving in-state students. Furthermore, this report raises the question of whether it makes sense to provide UMass with additional state funding for capital expansion if the intent of the expansion is in large part intended to attract and educate a rising percentage of out-of-state students. The recommendations of this report call for the Governor, state education leaders, the state legislature, and university leaders to consider whether UMass' current strategy of expanding the university's facilities and enrollment capacity in order to serve a growing percentage of out-of-state students serves the financial and educational interest of Massachusetts residents. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 1: Is the UMass Enrollment Expansion Plan Sustainable? White Paper No. 145," see ED598651. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659.]

This paper is the first in Pioneer Institute's UMass at a Crossroads series. In the opening study, the authors focus on UMass' significant growth in two areas, academic competitiveness and student enrollment, compared to other New England state universities, MA private universities, national private universities and national public universities. UMass has expanded enrollment more rapidly than other comparable university systems in the last ten years. As this paper will illustrate, UMass' enrollment expansion has continued against the backdrop of a projected decline in high school graduates in Massachusetts. The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) forecasts that the number of high school graduates will decline by 11.4 percent from 2015-16 to 2027-28. In spite of these projections, the school has continued to grow its enrollment and expand its capital facilities to historic levels. Through the past decade of enormous growth in enrollment, the university has significantly elevated its academic profile. This is evidenced by its rise in rankings--in just five years UMass Amherst, UMass' flagship campus, rose more than 20 in rank in the top 100 of U.S. News and World Report's 2014 rankings of national universities. UMass' rising academic rank and its growing national profile have led to increasingly competitive admissions, which has made it considerably more difficult for Massachusetts students to be admitted. One of the most significant contributing factors to this trend has been the university's admittance of a growing percentage of out-of-state and international students in recent years. While UMass has been accepting significantly higher volumes of out-of-state students relative to in-state enrollees, the school's enormous growth is also reflective of its growing popularity as a higher education option for in-state students. Pioneer raises the question of whether the continued expansion of UMass, based largely on increased enrollment of out-of-state students, is in the best interest of the commonwealth. With a comprehensive examination of trends in enrollment, Pioneer's aim is to illustrate the degree to which UMass' changing priorities in recruitment present a number of a grave concerns for in-state students and Massachusetts residents at-large. UMass is fundamentally changing, and this evaluation of the trends of the last ten years is part of a larger discussion about how the university can best serve the commonwealth while maintaining a sustainable fiscal course. [For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 2: Is UMass' Expansion Fiscally Sustainable? White Paper No. 146," see ED598659. For "UMass at a Crossroads Part 3: UMass' Growing Dependency on Tuition and Fees and Strategic Recruitment of Out-of-State Students. White Paper No. 147," see ED598661.]

The ongoing push to raise or eliminate the charter school cap in Massachusetts provides an opportunity to reflect upon the purpose of charter schools. When the legislature created the Commonwealth's charter school law, as a part of the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA), it clearly stated a main reason for these new schools was innovation. Charters were expected to provide new curricular and pedagogical options and even experiment with existing school structures, such as grade configurations and the length of the school day and year. This paper highlights two Massachusetts charter schools that offer curricular opportunities rarely available in other public schools in Massachusetts. Both of these schools enable students to achieve exceptional results in comparison to their peers in traditional district schools. The Mystic Valley Regional Charter School (MVRCS) consistently ranks among the best schools in Massachusetts and the country. It offers two distinct but complementary curricula--the Core Knowledge Curriculum at the elementary and middle school levels and the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum at the high school level. At the Advanced Math and Science Academy (AMSA) in Marlborough, MA science and math are the "driving forces" behind much of the curricular content, but students are exposed to holistic and rigorous content in all subject areas. The curriculum is horizontally and vertically aligned and follows a logical, chronological sequence of content from grade to grade, enabling students to make intellectual connections not just within but also among and between content areas. In the current policy environment, understanding some of the important innovations that charter schools offer to students and families can productively inform the debate. The schools profiled in this white paper are providing high caliber educational opportunities and interesting curricular options to students and families in the communities that they serve.

The Science and Technology Standards for the teaching and learning of K-12 science in Massachusetts were issued in April 2016. These were adapted, as the document explains, from K-12 science-education documents that have come generally to be known as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Common features include: (1) integration of science and engineering practices; (2) Grade-by-grade standards for elementary school that include all science, technology, and engineering disciplines; and (3) application of science in engineering contexts. In this report, the authors review the new standards and assess the positives and negatives of them.

Holyoke Community Charter School (HCCS) provides high quality educational opportunities to students and families in a city where such opportunities are not widely available. A long waitlist, high lottery subscription, and low attrition rate are all evidence of community demand for the school. Student outcomes that surpass the district of Holyoke attract parents and help to put students on the path to college success. Despite its success, HCCS has been the target of charter critics because of its association with the for-profit educational management organization SABIS. Most critics are focused on the organization's worldwide presence and for-profit status. They are unable to describe the SABIS approach or the extent to which it enables students to succeed. They also have limited or inaccurate information about why schools would choose SABIS. This white paper shines a light on Holyoke Community Charter School and the SABIS-designed systems that the school uses; systems that relate to curriculum, assessments, and the gathering of school level data pertaining to both. Drawing upon school- and state-generated data and interviews with HCCS students and faculty, this cases study describes how SABIS's integrated approach to curriculum, assessment, and data-driven instruction engages students in a way that encourages them to take ownership of their own learning--something rarely seen in schools, especially at the K-8 level.

In July 2010, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted to adopt Common Core's standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics in place of the state's own standards in these two subjects. The vote was based largely on recommendations by Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester and then Secretary of Education Paul Reville, and on the conclusions in three studies comparing the state's standards with Common Core's, all financed directly or indirectly by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all issued by organizations that are among the primary boosters of Common Core (Achieve, Inc., Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education). Nevertheless, annual state testing for school and district accountability continued as part of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) mandated by the 1993 Massachusetts Education Reform Act (MERA). To accommodate the adoption of Common Core's standards, tests were based on both the old standards and an annually increasing number of Common Core's standards until 2015, when all of the pre-Common Core standards in ELA and mathematics were archived, and the MCAS tests were presumably only Common Core-based. After the vote to adopt Common Core's standards in 2010, the state joined the testing consortium called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), funded by the United States Department of Education (USED) to develop common tests for its member states (about 25 initially), but with the costs for administering the tests to be borne by the states and local school districts. Since 2011, PARCC has been developing tests that BESE is expected to vote to adopt in the late fall of 2015 as the state's official Common Core-based tests in place of Common Corebased MCAS tests. (Indeed, the commissioner of education and his staff at the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) have been implementing a transition to PARCC tests for several years.) BESE's official vote will be guided, again, by the recommendations of the same commissioner of education (who now also chairs PARCC's Governing Board), the current Secretary of Education James Peyser, and the conclusions reached in "external" studies comparing PARCC and MCAS tests as well as in about 20 studies directly authorized by PARCC. Two of the external studies are listed in the state's 2015 application to the USED for a waiver from No Child Left Behind Act requirements and are by organizations that had originally recommended adoption of Common Core. One, issued by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education in February 2015, claims that PARCC tests predict college readiness better than MCAS tests did. A second, to be completed by the Fordham Institute and a partner, is to be issued in time for BESE's vote. A third, issued in mid-October 2015 by Mathematica Policy Research (and requested by the state's Executive Office of Education) claims both tests are equally predictive of college readiness, although its report has major shortcomings. This White Paper will be a fourth external report on the question BESE's vote will address; it is motivated by our interest in providing an analysis of how MCAS and PARCC assess reading and writing. Much less national attention has been paid to Common Core-based assessments of reading and writing than of mathematics, yet reading and writing skills are just as important to readiness for college and career as is mathematics. This White Paper's central recommendation is that Massachusetts use a testing system for K-12 that is much less costly, more rigorous academically, and much more informative about individual student performance, and with much less instructional time spent on test preparation and administration, than the current PARCC tests. Both the PARCC tests and the current MCAS tests in grade 10 are weak, albeit for different reasons, and neither indicates eligibility for a high school diploma, college readiness, or career readiness. In essence, the authors recommend that BESE reject the PARCC assessment system and vote for the MCAS system but on the condition that the responsibility for developing and administering K-12 standards and tests be assigned to an organization in Massachusetts independent of DESE and the state's education schools. This organization must focus squarely on providing the best possible content standards from disciplinary experts in the arts, sciences, and engineering throughout the state and be capable of providing oversight of high school standards and tests. If carried out, these recommendations would ensure the legacy and future promise of MERA. The following are appended: (1) Critique of Criteria for Evaluating Common Core-Aligned Assessments, (2) Links to Public Hearings and Other Sources of Public Comment on MCAS or PARCC, and (3) A Randomly-Chosen Test Item Used on the 2014 Grade 10 MCAS Math Test. Also provided are additional recommendations, an about the authors section, and endnotes.

For most families, their home address determines the school that their children will attend. While wealthier families can move to the community of their choice or choose a private school, lower-income families have fewer alternatives if they are not satisfied with their local schools. In the past two decades, many states have begun to subsidize private school choice through scholarship tax credits, educational savings accounts, and vouchers. These programs often target specific students such low-income, special needs, or students in struggling districts. In the 2015-16 school year 23 states will offer subsidies to roughly 400,000 students. Research consistently indicates that private school choice programs increase parents' satisfaction and have a positive impact on students. The positive outcomes may explain why states almost always expand private school choice programs in the years following implementation. Unfortunately, the Massachusetts Constitution includes an amendment that makes it impossible to enact a private-school choice program. While the legal barrier presents a high hurdle to proponents of increased choice, this paper models how a voucher program for low-income urban students might work in the Commonwealth. Vouchers have the potential to do many things--improve family satisfaction, reduce racial isolation, and strengthen educational outcomes for both the recipients and the children remaining in public schools--all at little or no net cost to taxpayers. The program described in this paper could provide 10,000 students from low-income families with the choices that other families already possess. A table titled: Low-Income Voucher Programs in the U.S. 2014-155 is appended. [This white paper includes a preface by Patrick J. Wolf.]

School systems around the United States are heavily segregated by income and race. At the same time, an achievement gap between white and nonwhite students persists despite many efforts to close it. Against this background, in this white paper the authors explore the history and successes of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity program, better known as METCO. The paper begins by examining segregation in the United States and in Massachusetts. [This white paper contains a preface by Gerard Robinson.]

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.

Recent studies continue to shine light on high-performing charter schools. While Boston-area charter schools--a concentrated group of high-performers--garner more attention than others, many excellent schools outside of Boston have been quietly chipping away at the achievement gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. One of these schools is the SABIS International Charter School (SICS) in Springfield, MA, a school that has been named a "top high school". What makes SICS a "top school?" It prepares students to persist in college and enables it students, the vast majority of whom are economically disadvantaged, to "perform better than statistical expectations." That is, students at SICS not only outperform their peers in similar schools on standardized tests of achievement, they also embody the idea that "demography is not destiny." Founded in 1995, SICS was among the first charter schools established in Massachusetts. It serves students in grades K-12 and has a clear, two-pronged mission. The first part of the mission is academic: to prepare students for success in college and to be critical thinkers who are intellectually engaged and excited about life-long learning. The second part of the SICS mission is to produce ethical, responsible "citizens of the world"; people who care about their community and are engaged with social issues. To understand how SICS students defy "statistical expectations," it is necessary to understand the SABIS approach to curriculum, instruction, and assessment. This report provides their best practices by data-driven instruction, answers how they meet the demand for better school options, and offers recommendations for struggling schools.

Using administrative longitudinal data from five states, we study how value-added measures of teacher performance are affected by changes in state standards and assessments. We first document the stability of teachers' value-added rankings during transitions to new standard and assessment regimes and compare our findings to stability during stable standard and assessment regimes. We also examine the predictive validity of value-added estimates during nontransition years over transition-year student achievement. In most cases we find that measures of teacher value added are similarly stable in transition years and nontransition years. Moreover, there is no evidence that the level of disadvantage of students taught disproportionately influences teacher rankings in transition years relative to stable years. In the states we study, student achievement in math can consistently be forecasted accurately--although not perfectly--using value-added estimates for teachers during stable standards and assessment regimes. There was somewhat less consistency in reading, because we find cases where test transitions significantly reduced forecasting accuracy.

In recent years many charter public schools in Massachusetts have increased the number of English language learners (ELLs) that they enroll. A 2010 amendment to the charter school law has made it easier for charter schools to recruit English language learners. The success that many charter schools have had with this subset of students defies critics who claim that charter schools "cream" students, attracting and retaining only those who are "easiest to teach." Case studies of high-achieving charter schools with large and sometimes culturally and linguistically diverse populations of English language learners reveal common best practices. These practices include but are not limited to: individually tailored curricula that emphasize inclusive teaching practices; intentional and continuous use of high-quality formative assessments; language-enriched learning environments; recruitment and retention of teachers with knowledge of the communities that the school serves; and efforts to engage parents and community that are attuned to relevant cultural and linguistic contexts. The following report highlights three high-performing charter schools, detailing the common best practices that they continue to use and refine and highlighting the subtle but important ways each school caters to its specific student population. The case studies make clear that the autonomies that these schools enjoy because of their charter status allow them to be nimble in serving a changing student population. The same autonomies also enable these schools to design and refine approaches to serving English language learners that enhance student learning and achievement.

It is clear from assessment, graduation, and follow-up data that career-vocational technical education (CVTE), as it is practiced in Massachusetts, is a success. CVTE is becoming so popular that there are up to 5,000 more applicants for places in Massachusetts' vocational technical schools than there are openings, creating waiting lists. This paper examines the conditions that have created the present predicament whereby there are waiting lists for vocational education, and 52 Massachusetts cities and towns do not have access to either district or regional career vocational technical programs. It also examines funding for vocational-technical education; while vocational-technical education is more expensive than traditional high school, it would cost the state less than ½% of the FY16 education budget to provide 5,000 more CVTE placements in Massachusetts.

The purpose of the "Bringing Theory to Practice" May 15th seminar was to examine and explore a wide range of faculty rewards (including promotion criteria, awards, faculty development support, and policies at various levels) that provide incentives and recognition to faculty for undertaking community-engaged scholarship (CES). The central problem the seminar addressed is that most universities lack a system of incentives and supports for faculty who undertake (or are considering) community-engaged scholarship addressing broad social impact. Thirty individuals participated in the seminar, primarily faculty and administrators from the five campuses in the University of Massachusetts system representing a range of disciplines and various levels of faculty rank. The seminar offered an opportunity to examine what is being done to reward community engagement across the campuses of the University of Massachusetts system within the context of national efforts and change initiatives, and in light of some emergent campus discussions. This paper briefly describes the seminar structure and findings and concludes with recommendations.

In recent decades, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has implemented reforms aimed at improving and controlling the quality of the teaching workforce in public schools. Among those reforms are tests for licensure that assess both general and content-area specific knowledge, requirements for ongoing teacher professional development, and procedures for teacher evaluation. Notable is the continued high performance of Massachusetts's commonwealth charter schools--schools that, by law, do not have to comply with requirements for teacher licensure. With a teaching workforce that is comparatively young, unlicensed, and slightly less likely to stay in the profession, Massachusetts's charter schools achieve stellar student achievement results. Evidence presented in this report from case studies of five high-performing charters schools from around the state reveal that these schools create highly effective teaching workforces in specific ways. The schools included in this report have varied but well defined philosophies about the importance of teacher retention and the need to build organizational pipelines to support the induction of new teacher recruits and the growth of more experienced faculty members.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for K-12 English language arts/literacy and mathematics, released in 2010, have been adopted by 49 states and territories; the District of Columbia; and the U.S. Department of Defense schools, which serve the children of U.S. service members around the world. The widespread adoption of the CCSS is a major step forward, yet significant work remains for states to successfully implement the new more rigorous and relevant academic standards--notably, the adoption of new tests to measure students' progress against the CCSS. This paper reports on states' challenges and progress in creating and launching assessments of students' learning that are aligned with the CCSS.

As governors respond to the need to significantly improve the quality of public education, they should consider incorporating stronger actions to improve mathematics instruction as part of their overall reform agenda. Governors can take the following actions to promote high-quality mathematics instruction for young children: (1) Become a champion for improvements in the quality of early math education with legislators, business leaders, educators, parents, and students; (2) Align high-quality mathematics standards through the educational pipeline, and support appropriate use of student assessments to measure results. State leaders could consider raising standards for the math skills and concepts children should learn in their state's early learning guidelines; and (3) Promote changes in policies that improve educator preparation and that support their capacity to teach mathematics to young children. Although governors are already strong proponents of early reading initiatives, they have an opportunity to become champions for improving early mathematics instruction in their states, as well. Many of the actions described in this brief require no or minimal new state funding and can help lay the groundwork for a state's focus on high-quality early mathematics teaching and learning.

Aside from effects on nearby property values, research is sparse on how foreclosures may generate negative externalities. Employing a unique dataset that matches individual student records from Boston Public Schools--including test scores, demographics, home address moves, and school changes--with real estate records indicating whether the student lived at an address involved in foreclosure, we investigate the degree to which the test scores of students attending high-foreclosure schools suffer, even among students not directly experiencing foreclosure. We also explore the impact on individual test scores of school-level (by grade and year) student mobility--that is, inflows of new students to a school during the school year--including mobility induced by residential moves (in some cases caused by foreclosures) and mobility arising for other reasons. We find fairly robust evidence that higher student mobility at a school, induced by residential moves, imposes significant negative effects on test scores of students at the receiving school. Beyond this channel, school-level foreclosure prevalence does not appear to generate externalities. Since we also find that residential-move-induced school changes appear to harm the outcomes of the school-changers themselves, policies that seek to limit such changes within the academic year may uniformly raise test scores, at least in the short run. The following are appended: (1) Math Test Score Regressions, (2) ELA Test Score Regressions; and 14 tables.

This report focuses on pathways to postsecondary education (PSE), including high school completion, for pregnant and parenting teens. Although birth rates among teens have declined in the United States over the last 20 years, one in seven adolescent females (14.4 percent) is expected to give birth before age 20 with females of color (24 percent of Hispanics and 21 percent of African Americans) more than twice as likely to have a child when compared with white females (10 percent) (OAH 2014). For too many of these adolescents, parenthood marks the end of their high school careers and aspirations for attending college. This is unfortunate because completing high school and earning a postsecondary degree or credential are critical for the economic well-being of both teen parents and their children. Very little is known about pathways to PSE for pregnant and parenting teens. Although some studies have focused on programs to prevent subsequent pregnancies among teen parents (Klerman 2004), research is lacking on effective approaches for preparing these students for college. This report represents a first step towards filling that gap. Drawing on a literature and program review, analysis of a small online survey conducted with Health Teen Network (HTN), and consultations with experts in the field, "Pathways to Postsecondary Education," examines barriers and promising approaches to support educational success for pregnant and parenting teens. Among the findings are: (1) More than two out of three young single mothers aged 18 to 24 are poor, and almost half of their children are poor; (2) Only about half of teen mothers receive a high school diploma by the age of 22, compared with about nine in ten women who do not have a child during their teen years; and (3) A survey supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation found that a third of the young women surveyed reported that becoming a parent played a major role in their decision to leave school. This report features eight programs that provide a range of academic and other supports and services to support pathways to PSE, including high school completion, among pregnant and parenting teens: (1) Florence Crittenton High School (FCHS) in Denver, Colorado; (2) Cal-SAFE in California; (3) New Heights in Washington, DC; (4) The Care Center in Holyoke, Massachusetts; (5) Keys to Degrees at Endicott College in Massachusetts; (6) Student Parent HELP Center (SPHC) at the University of Minnesota; (7) Generation Hope, a program started by a former teen mother in Washington, DC; and (8) The Jeremiah Program, a residential program in the twin cities of Minnesota. A list of experts consulted is appended. [This report is a product of IWPR's Student Parent Success Initiative.]

Multiple ways of assessing teaching effectiveness are being implemented by many states. Student survey instruments can provide valuable insight into the teaching and learning environment of a classroom. Students have the "deepest, broadest, and most veridical perception of their teacher." Thus, student survey instruments can be a valuable component when designing a 21st century comprehensive teacher evaluation system. Key points of this briefing paper include the following: (1) Student ratings are more highly correlated with student achievement than principal ratings and teacher self-ratings; (2) Students can discriminate between effective and ineffective teaching behaviors; and (3) Construction, content, and administration of student rating instruments are key to reliability and validity. The goal of this briefing paper is to provide decision makers and stakeholders with information on the use of student perception surveys in teacher evaluation systems. State highlights, and additional resources are provided.

The literature on teacher preparation programs in the United States is extensive. However, there is limited scientifically based research on what kind of program produces effective teachers; rather, the literature consists mostly of calls for change in teacher preparation programs. Almost all experts agree that major changes are needed in these programs, with the emphasis being to produce teachers who are effective in enhancing student learning. This paper reports evidence-based research and offers suggestions based on studies that include theoretical work, qualitative analysis, statistical analysis, and randomized experience that could provide strong causal evidence of the effects of teacher preparation on student learning. Key points of this briefing paper include the following: (1) Relevant clinical experience is a critical part of a teacher preparation program; (2) Programs must take advantage of existing technology and support its innovative use as a tool for teacher preparation and as a tool for teachers in the classroom; and (3) Multiple sources of data should be collected and analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of preparation programs.

AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) is collaborating with BSCS (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study) in the development of a curriculum unit for eighth grade students that connects fundamental chemistry and biology concepts to better prepare them for high school biology. Recognizing that teachers play an influential role in delivering the curriculum to students, we developed teacher support materials and professional development designed to help teachers use the unit effectively. In order to learn about the promise of the teacher support materials, we developed an assessment targeting aspects of participating teachers' (n = 8) science content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for the specific learning goals of the unit. Specifically, the assessment targeted three areas of teachers' knowledge: 1) content knowledge 2) knowledge of student thinking, and 3) knowledge of strategies to move student thinking forward, across four item contexts: 1) chemical reactions, 2) conservation of mass, 3) flow of matter in living systems, and 4) plant growth. Teachers took the assessment three times: before PD, after PD, and after teaching the unit. The assessment items were mainly constructed response and were scored using indicators of success and difficulty. Teachers made gains over time in most of the knowledge areas and across most of the contexts. Areas where they did not make clear progress, or where their knowledge was particularly low, indicated that either the assessment instrument or the teacher support materials could be improved. Revisions based on these findings are reported. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

In September 2003, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts launched two new civic development efforts--clustering and schoolwide governance--and moved into a new building designed to facilitate them. Clustering is designed to achieve a sense of community within a large school by creating small communities of 100 to 150 students. To create common bonds that tie each group together, clusters at the grade 10-12 level are organized around four areas of student interest: communications, media, and the arts; science, health, recreation, and the environment; business, engineering, and technology; and public policy, education, and service. Clusters also form the basic unit of Hudson High's schoolwide governance model, which was derived from the idea of "just communities" within high schools. The belief underpinning schoolwide governance is that students will become more civic minded and engaged if they experience democratic deliberation as part of their school experience. In 2003 the authors began a five-year data collection to assess the progress of the clustering and schoolwide governance intervention. This report describes the implementation of the intervention and presents preliminary findings on the civic development of twelfth graders since the programs were launched. The findings are based on information from four annual twelfth-grade surveys in 2003-2006 and twelfth-grade focus groups conducted in 2006. The questionnaire is appended. (Contains 9 tables and 6 figures.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

With the tuition cost of traditional colleges and universities soaring and education technology advancing, online courses and degree programs are becoming more common. Some critics argue that an online degree cannot provide all the important features of a traditional college education, from extracurricular activities to new professional networks, but the evidence disputes much of that criticism, especially for certain groups of students. Indeed, some aspects of online education may provide a better experience than a traditional brick-and-mortar college for some students. (Contains 49 footnotes.)

In September 2003, Hudson High School in Hudson, Massachusetts, launched two new civic development efforts--clustering and schoolwide governance--that provide an opportunity to study the influence of schoolwide democratic deliberation on students' civic knowledge and participation. The intervention involved, in part, organizing the school into clusters of 100 to 150 students that meet for one hour each week to discuss governance and other school-related issues, perform community service, and pursue other cluster-related activities. In 2003 we began collecting data to assess the progress of the clustering and schoolwide governance intervention. The findings to date suggest that the programs have been generally implemented as planned but that changes have been made to address specific issues that have arisen. Because the programs are still evolving, they cannot yet be considered mature. Nevertheless, successive classes of twelfth graders have shown improvements on measures of community service and political knowledge, and the improvements have been widespread in the student population. In addition, these positive changes were relatively larger for disenfranchised youth and other groups of students who initially scored lower than their counterpart groups on these civic measures, indicating that the programs are reaching the students they were designed to reach. Finally, examples from the current study support the idea that adult support, via scaffolding, plays an important role in building youth civic engagement. These findings demonstrate that all students--not just a select few--can and will engage in civic activity in their schools when given appropriate opportunity. A questionnaire used in this report's 21 measures of youth civic development is appended. (Contains 3 footnotes, 4 tables and 4 figures.)

The literature addressing how family and community involvement impacts a culture of college and career readiness suggests there is a positive association for certain types of involvement. Providing support and encouragement, as well as assisting with planning, increases the probability of attending and graduating from college. Key points include: (1) Make efforts to include families in postsecondary planning; (2) Provide information to support postsecondary planning throughout a student's education; (3) Provide information to support postsecondary planning throughout a student's education; and (4) Address linguistic and cultural barriers, parental time issues, and other factors across populations that are traditionally underrepresented in institutions of higher education. Appended are: (1) Suggested Strategies for Family and Community Involvement; and (2) Profiles of Reported Successful School, District, or State Programs. A list of references and additional resources is provided.

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these effects. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among teachers at varying ages of separation. Compared to a neutral system, often about half of an entering cohort's net pension wealth is redistributed to teachers who separate in their fifties from those who separate earlier. There is some variation across six state systems. This implies large costs for interstate mobility. Estimates show teachers who split a thirty-year career between two pension plans often lose over half their net pension wealth compared to teachers who complete a career in a single system. Plan options that permit purchases of service years mitigate few or none of these losses. It is difficult to explain these patterns of costs and benefits on efficiency grounds. More likely explanations include the relative influence of senior versus junior educators in interest group politics and a coordination problem between states. (Contains 7 tables, 16 figures, and 40 footnotes.)

This ethnographic study explores the underlying structure of the design practices in the Oxford Studio, a design studio course taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Architecture. The study describes elements of the practices in the Oxford Studio and then analyzes the connections among these elements at three levels: (a) surface structure, (b) pedagogy, and (c) epistemology. This analysis suggests spatial organization and scheduling of the Oxford Studio made possible particular pedagogical tools, such as extended desk crits, ongoing cyclical projects, and guest reviews. These pedagogical tools, in turn, both depended on and fostered students' ability to develop expressive ideas about architecture. The Oxford Studio was thus an integrated system of practice built on a foundation of expressive activity. An understanding of how this framework was articulated in the Oxford Studio may be of use in the development of other learning environments using the design studio as a model. (Contains 13 figures.) [The research reported in this paper was supported in part by LEGO Corporation, the Things That Think Consortium at the MIT Media Laboratory, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Foundation for Ethics and Technology, and the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison.]

This paper explores the proposition that if American higher education has been broadly successful in serving its society, it is in large part because American colleges and universities, and the system of which they are part, were created under conditions of weakness, both academic and financial. (Contains 12 notes.)

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California and Massachusetts. There are interesting variations among these states' formulas, which affect the incentive to retire early. We identify key factors in the defined benefit formulas that drive such patterns and likely consequences for employee behavior. We examine the efficiency and equity consequences of these systems and lessons that might be drawn for pension reform. (Contains 1 table, 2 figures and 18 footnotes.)

Two studies explored the experience and performance of students at Williams College in three-person groups that were homogeneous or heterogeneous in rated academic ability. In accord with hypotheses from Festinger's (1954) social comparison theory, students in academically homogeneous groups had more positive experiences and performed better on measures of written and video-taped performance. These results differ somewhat from recent studies of peer effects among roommates and from a line of recent social comparison research regarding the effect of exposure to superior others on one's own performance. In addition, students in single-sex groups had higher scores on several self-report and performance measures. Qualifying this finding were additional results showing that women did better in single-sex, while men did better in mixed-sex groups. The overall results were framed in terms of social comparison dynamics. [Support for this research was provided by the Andrew Mellon Foundation through grants to the Williams Project on the Economics of Higher Education.]

The first and longest section of this publication is a comparative analysis summarizing the impacts of the two Unemployment Insurance (UI) Self-Employment Demonstration Projects in Washington State and Massachusetts. Based on the first wave of post-project follow-up surveys, this evaluation report provides results on the net impacts of each project on the following: business formation and survival rates; participants' employment and earnings from both self-employment and wage and salary employment; participants' duration of unemployment and receipt of UI benefits; and job creation. In the Washington and Massachusetts demonstrations, self-employment assistance promoted rapid reemployment of project participants, directly increased job creation, and significantly increased participants' total employment. One additional result is reported for the Massachusetts demonstration: self-employment assistance significantly increased total earnings of participants. The second part of the publication focuses on the recent national legislation authorizing self-employment assistance (SEA) programs. This section includes the text of the legislation itself, North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act SEA Programs, and a Department of Labor program letter providing guidance to the states in developing their SEA program. A listing of 80 papers in the UI Occasional Paper Series is appended. (YLB)

Of the nearly 100 different types of high school diplomas that are awarded across all fifty states and the District of Columbia, less than half prepare students for success in college and career. And while the national high school graduation rate is at an all-time high, the rate at which students earn these college- and career-ready (CCR) diplomas is substantially lower, especially among students from low-income families, students of color, and other traditionally underserved students. "Paper Thin? Why All High School Diplomas Are Not Created Equal" provides a state-by-state analysis of the different types of diplomas that states awarded to the Class of 2014 and the impact on traditionally underserved students. [Robyn Harper, Francisco Jaimes, Liz Spurgeon, and Sean Bradley contributed to this report.]

Early awareness strategies, from outreach campaigns to cohort-based learning groups to scholarships, are a group of efforts that help middle school students stay on the path to college and understand how to fund their education. These strategies become part of early awareness programs, which seek to put students on a college-going path by recruiting them in fifth through eighth grades. Such programs introduce many low-income and first-generation students to college and career opportunities they might not otherwise know are available. These programs provide much-needed aid and assistance to many low-income and first-generation students. They communicate with students and inform them that despite their socioeconomic status, they have the option to reach just as high, or even beyond, their higher-income peers. This brief outlines strategies that best promote early awareness in financial aid for middle-grade students, highlights a few examples of successful programs, and provides an overview of recommendations for implementation. This paper is divided into sections outlining four early awareness strategies: (1) children's savings account programs; (2) place-based Promise programs; (3) early commitment scholarships; and (4) informational campaigns. The National College Access Network (NCAN) does not recommend any one strategy over another, but instead discusses the most equitable way to implement each one. [Lisa King Consulting, LLC contributed to the writing of this report.]