Teachable Moment
The Elite Illusion: Achievement Effects at Boston and New York Exam Schools
Atila Abdulkadiroğlu, Joshua Angrist & Parag Pathak
Econometrica, January 2014, Pages 137–196
Abstract:
Parents gauge school quality in part by the level of student achievement and a school's racial and socioeconomic mix. The importance of school characteristics in the housing market can be seen in the jump in house prices at school district boundaries where peer characteristics change. The question of whether schools with more attractive peers are really better in a value-added sense remains open, however. This paper uses a fuzzy regression-discontinuity design to evaluate the causal effects of peer characteristics. Our design exploits admissions cutoffs at Boston and New York City's heavily over-subscribed exam schools. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the least selective of these schools move from schools with scores near the bottom of the state SAT score distribution to schools with scores near the median. Successful applicants near admissions cutoffs for the most selective of these schools move from above-average schools to schools with students whose scores fall in the extreme upper tail. Exam school students can also expect to study with fewer nonwhite classmates than unsuccessful applicants. Our estimates suggest that the marked changes in peer characteristics at exam school admissions cutoffs have little causal effect on test scores or college quality.
----------------------
Nicole Stephens, MarYam Hamedani & Mesmin Destin
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
College students who do not have parents with 4-year degrees (first-generation students) earn lower grades and encounter more obstacles to success than do students who have at least one parent with a 4-year degree (continuing-generation students). In the study reported here, we tested a novel intervention designed to reduce this social-class achievement gap with a randomized controlled trial (N = 168). Using senior college students’ real-life stories, we conducted a difference-education intervention with incoming students about how their diverse backgrounds can shape what they experience in college. Compared with a standard intervention that provided similar stories of college adjustment without highlighting students’ different backgrounds, the difference-education intervention eliminated the social-class achievement gap by increasing first-generation students’ tendency to seek out college resources (e.g., meeting with professors) and, in turn, improving their end-of-year grade point averages. The difference-education intervention also improved the college transition for all students on numerous psychosocial outcomes (e.g., mental health and engagement).
----------------------
The Impact of Greek Organization Membership on Collegiate Outcomes: Evidence from a National Survey
Wesley Routon & Jay Walker
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a longitudinal survey of college students from over 400 institutions and a propensity score weighting framework, we examine the impacts of college fraternity and sorority membership on academic outcomes and general facets of the college experience. Our results suggest a mixed academic effect for males and a positive academic effect for females. For both genders, we find evidence that membership increases the likelihood of graduating on time and graduate school aspirations. For males, however, there appears to be a small, negative impact on grades. For both genders, we find that Greek membership increases the frequency of alcohol and cigarette consumption and decreases religious convictions and religious service attendance. Lastly, Greek organization members are more likely to participate in student government, perform volunteer work, and begin their careers immediately following graduation.
----------------------
Peer Effects in Higher Education: A look at heterogeneous impacts
Amanda Griffith & Kevin Rask
Economics of Education Review, April 2014, Pages 65–77
Abstract:
This paper uses data on roommates from two different selective institutions to investigate the effect of peers on first-year performance, with a specific focus on the underlying mechanism. We compare measures of academic ability across student sub-groups by race, income, and gender, and across institutions. Male, minority, and aided students are affected most strongly by their peers. The size and presence of peer effects are dependent on the ability measure used as well as the setting. Standardized estimates suggest ability measured by high school grades have roughly twice the effect of ability measured by SATs. We also test the use of a standardized measure of first-year performance and find more consistent evidence of peer effects across both schools. Our results provide an explanation for the mixed findings in the literature and suggest that the driving force behind peer effects lies in the transfer of general academic know-how rather than in the teaching of specific knowledge or social proximity.
----------------------
Student abilities during the expansion of US education
Lutz Hendricks & Todd Schoellman
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The US experienced two dramatic changes in the structure of education in a fifty year period. The first was a large expansion of educational attainment; the second, an increase in test score gaps between college bound and non-college bound students. This paper documents the impact of these two trends on the composition of school groups by ability and the importance of these composition effects for wages. The main finding is that there is a growing gap between the abilities of high school and college-educated workers that accounts for one-half of the college wage premium for recent cohorts and for the entire rise of the college wage premium between the 1910 and 1960 birth cohorts.
----------------------
Charter High Schools’ Effects on Long-Term Attainment and Earnings
Kevin Booker et al.
Mathematica Working Paper, January 2014
"In previous work, we produced the first evidence of the effects of charter schools on the probability of graduating from high school and entering college (Booker et al., 2011). Enough time has now passed that the same cohorts of students in Chicago and Florida have had the opportunity to enroll in college for multiple years and to begin careers. In this paper, we used the same approach as in our previous work — relying on a restricted sample of students who were all (treatment and comparison group alike) enrolled in charter school in eighth grade — to estimate the effect of charter high schools on persistence in college and earnings. We continue to find that charter high schools in both locations increase the probability that a student will graduate and enter college. In addition, we find new evidence that students from charter high schools are more likely to persist in college for at least two years. The college persistence findings are not as clear-cut as the findings on high school graduation and college entry, because the estimated impact is statistically significant in only one of the two sites (Florida). Estimates in both sites are positive and nontrivial in magnitude, however, consistent with the interpretation that the attainment effect of charter schools goes beyond merely helping their students to enroll in college. In Florida, we also examine data on the subsequent earnings of students in our analytic sample, at a point after they could have earned college degrees. Charter high school attendance is associated with an increase in maximum annual earnings for students between ages 23 and 25 of $2,347 — or about 12.7 percent higher earnings than for comparable students who attended a charter middle school but matriculated to a traditional high school."
----------------------
Equalizing Superstars: The Internet and the Democratization of Education
Daron Acemoglu, David Laibson & John List
MIT Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
Educational resources distributed via the Internet are rapidly proliferating. One prominent concern associated with these potentially transformative developments is that, as many of the leading technologies of the last several decades have been, these new sweeping technological changes will be highly disequalizing, creating superstar teachers, a wider gulf between different groups of students and potentially a winner-take-all educational system. In this paper, we argue that, these important concerns notwithstanding, a major impact of the superstars created by web based educational technologies will be the democratization of education: not only will educational resources be more equally distributed, but also lower-skilled teachers will be winners from this technology. At the root of our results is the observation that for web-based technologies to exploit the comparative advantage of skilled lecturers, they will need to be complemented with opportunities for face-to-face discussions with instructors, and web-based lectures will increase the quantity and quality of teaching services complementary to such instruction, potentially increasing the marginal product and wages of lower-skill teachers.
----------------------
Cash-on-Hand & College Enrollment: Evidence from Population Tax Data and Policy Nonlinearities
Dayanand Manoli & Nicholas Turner
NBER Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
In this paper, we estimate the causal effects of tax refunds (cash-on-hand) on college enrollment using population-level administrative data from United States income tax returns. We exploit plausibly exogenous variation in tax refunds around two kink points in the federal income tax code, including the first kink point in the Earned Income Tax Credit benefit schedule and the 15%-25% tax bracket kink point. Non-parametric graphical evidence suggests that differences in tax refunds across these tax kink points have meaningful effects on enrollment. Using a Regression Kink Design, our results indicate that a $1,000 increase in tax refunds received in the spring of the high school senior year increases college enrollment the next fall by roughly 2 to 3 percentage points. The magnitude of these effects, combined with less-than complete take-up of student aid, may be evidence that tax refunds relax credit constraints.
----------------------
The desegregating effect of school tracking
Gianni De Fraja & Francisco Martínez-Mora
Journal of Urban Economics, March 2014, Pages 164–177
Abstract:
This paper makes the following point: “detracking” schools, that is preventing them from allocating students to classes according to their ability, may lead to an increase in income residential segregation. It does so in a simple model where households care about the school peer group of their children. If ability and income are positively correlated, tracking implies that some high income households face the choice of either living in the areas where most of the other high income households live and having their child assigned to the low track, or instead living in lower income neighbourhoods where their child would be in the high track. Under mild conditions, tracking leads to an equilibrium with partial income desegregation where perfect income segregation would be the only stable outcome without tracking.
----------------------
Collective Bargaining, Transfer Rights, and Disadvantaged Schools
Sarah Anzia & Terry Moe
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2014, Pages 83-111
Abstract:
Collective bargaining is common in American public education, but its consequences are poorly understood. We focus here on key contractual provisions — seniority-based transfer rights — that affect teacher assignments, and we show that these transfer rights operate to burden disadvantaged schools with higher percentages of inexperienced teachers. We also show that this impact is conditional: It is substantial in large districts, where decisions are likely to follow rules, but it is virtually zero in small districts, where decisions tend to be less formal and undesirable outcomes can more easily be avoided. The negative consequences are thus concentrated on precisely those districts and schools — large districts, high-minority schools — that have been the nation’s worst performers and the most difficult to improve.
----------------------
The contribution of rising school quality to U.S. economic growth
Hye Mi You
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
U.S. public school expenditures per pupil increased by a factor of 9 during the 20th century. This paper quantifies how much U.S. labor quality has grown due to the rise in educational spending. A schooling model and cross-sectional earnings variations across cohorts are exploited to identify the effect of the increased school expenditures on labor quality growth. The findings are that (i) U.S. labor quality increased by 0.4% per year between 1967 and 2000, one-fifth of which is attributable to the rise in educational spending; and that (ii) labor quality growth explains one-quarter of the rise in labor productivity.
----------------------
Philip Cook et al.
NBER Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
There is growing concern that improving the academic skills of disadvantaged youth is too difficult and costly, so policymakers should instead focus either on vocationally oriented instruction for teens or else on early childhood education. Yet this conclusion may be premature given that so few previous interventions have targeted a potential fundamental barrier to school success: “mismatch” between what schools deliver and the needs of disadvantaged youth who have fallen behind in their academic or non-academic development. This paper reports on a randomized controlled trial of a two-pronged intervention that provides disadvantaged youth with non-academic supports that try to teach youth social-cognitive skills based on the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and intensive individualized academic remediation. The study sample consists of 106 male 9th and 10th graders in a public high school on the south side of Chicago, of whom 95% are black and 99% are free or reduced price lunch eligible. Participation increased math test scores by 0.65 of a control group standard deviation (SD) and 0.48 SD in the national distribution, increased math grades by 0.67 SD, and seems to have increased expected graduation rates by 14 percentage points (46%). While some questions remain about the intervention, given these effects and a cost per participant of around $4,400 (with a range of $3,000 to $6,000), this intervention seems to yield larger gains in adolescent outcomes per dollar spent than many other intervention strategies.
----------------------
Francis Huang
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, March–April 2014, Pages 79–93
Abstract:
Young-for-grade kindergarteners experience a disproportionate risk of retention compared to their old-for-grade peers. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten cohort dataset, this study investigated whether socioemotional skills mediated the association of age with kindergarten retention. Multilevel logistic regression models tested whether certain positive (e.g., interpersonal skills, approaches to learning) and negative (e.g., externalizing behavior) socioemotional skills were related to the likelihood of grade repetition, while controlling for academic abilities and student demographic variables. Findings showed that the relatively youngest kindergarteners were approximately five times more likely to be retained compared to the oldest student and that a child's approach to learning (e.g., attentiveness, task persistence) contributed as much as a child's academic abilities in relation to the likelihood of repeating a grade.
----------------------
Douglas Harris, William Ingle & Stacey Rutledge
American Educational Research Journal, February 2014, Pages 73-112
Abstract:
Policymakers are revolutionizing teacher evaluation by attaching greater stakes to student test scores and observation-based teacher effectiveness measures, but relatively little is known about why they often differ so much. Quantitative analysis of thirty schools suggests that teacher value-added measures and informal principal evaluations are positively, but weakly, correlated. Qualitative analysis suggests that some principals give high value-added teachers low ratings because the teachers exert too little effort and are “lone wolves” who work in isolation and contribute little to the school community. The results suggest that the method of evaluation may not only affect which specific teachers are rewarded in the short term, but shape the qualities of teacher and teaching students experience in the long term.
----------------------
Does attending a STEM high school improve student performance? Evidence from New York City
Matthew Wiswall et al.
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the role of specialized science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) high schools in New York City (NYC) in promoting performance in science and mathematics and in closing the gender and race gaps in STEM subjects. Using administrative data covering several recent cohorts of public school students and a rich variety of high schools including over 30 STEMs, we estimate the effect of attending a STEM high school on a variety of student outcomes, including test taking and performance on specialized science and mathematics examinations. While comparisons of means indicate an advantage to attending a STEM school, more thorough analysis conditioning on a rich set of covariates, including previous grade test performance, reduces or eliminates this advantage. Females and males in STEMs do better than their counterparts in Non-STEMs, but the gender gap is also larger in these schools. We also find that the black-white and Hispanic-white gaps are smaller in STEM relative to Non-STEM schools across almost all outcomes, but the Asian-white gap, in contrast, is larger in STEMs relative to Non-STEMs.
----------------------
Michael Gottfried & Jennifer Graves
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
The existence of gender peer effects has been well-documented, yet regarding estimates that are best-suited for policy formation, the literature finds somewhat mixed results. This article builds on the gender peer effects literature in a number of ways. First, we focus on early elementary school students, for which fewer studies exist. We also test whether effects in early elementary grades are subject-specific. Contrary to findings for older grade levels, we find that estimates by gender are subject-specific for the early elementary grades. Second, previous studies using similar estimation have focused on very different geographical areas, while this study makes use of nationally representative elementary school data for the United States. Third, we explore whether effects vary across grades, for which the existing literature finds mixed results. We find that the negative subject-specific effects of having a higher proportion of boys in the classroom increases in magnitude across grades, with insignificant effects in kindergarten, negative and significant by first grade, and larger negative and significant effects by third grade. Our findings suggest that a more balanced gender mix in the classroom is optimal for both reading and math comprehension for both boys and girls. However, regarding math performance, there is also suggestive evidence that a 100% separation of genders could improve girls’ math performance without consequences for boys’ math performance, motivating further research into single-gender subject-specific instruction.
----------------------
Unionization and Productivity: Evidence from Charter Schools
Cassandra Hart & Aaron Sojourner
University of California Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
This paper studies the relationship between teacher unionization and student achievement. Generally stable patterns of teacher unionization since the 1970s have historically presented challenges in measuring the effects of unionization on educational production. However, the blossoming of the charter school sector in recent decades provides fertile ground for study because while most charters are non-union, teachers at some charters have unionized. Using a generalized difference-in-difference approach combining California union certification data with student achievement data from 2003-2012, we find that, aside from a one-year dip in achievement associated with the unionization process itself, unionization does not affect student achievement.
----------------------
Caroline Hoxby
NBER Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
I consider how online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), might fit into economically sustainable models of postsecondary education. I contrast nonselective postsecondary education (NSPE)in which institutions sell fairly standardized educational services in return for up-front payments and highly selective postsecondary education (HSPE) in which institutions invest in students in return for repayments much later in life. The analysis suggests that MOOCs will be financially sustainable substitutes for some NSPE, but there are risks even in these situations. The analysis suggests that MOOCs will be financially sustainable substitutes for only a small share of HSPE and are likely to collapse the economic model that allows HSPE institutions to invest in advanced education and research. I outline a non-MOOC model of online education that may allow HSPE institutions both to sustain their distinctive activities and to reach a larger number of students.
----------------------
Class size, class composition, and the distribution of student achievement
Ryan Bosworth
Education Economics, March/April 2014, Pages 141-165
Abstract:
Using richly detailed data on fourth‐ and fifth‐grade students in the North Carolina public school system, I find evidence that students are assigned to classrooms in a non‐random manner based on observable characteristics for a substantial portion of classrooms. Moreover, I find that this non‐random assignment is statistically related to class size for a number of student characteristics and that failure to control for classroom composition can severely bias traditionally estimated class size effects. Teacher‐fixed effects and classroom composition controls appear to be effective at addressing selection related to classroom composition. I find heterogeneity in class size effects by student characteristics – students who struggle in school appear to benefit more from class size reductions than students in the top of the achievement distribution. I find that smaller classes have smaller achievement gaps on average and that class size reductions may be relatively more effective at closing achievement gaps than raising average achievement; however, class size effects on both average achievement and achievement gaps are small.
----------------------
Chris Rohlfs & Melanie Zilora
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study estimates parents’ valuations of small classes by examining the effects of randomly assigned class type on the decision to remove one’s child from the Tennessee Student Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment, using a new hedonic estimation strategy that estimates the cash payment that would be required to generate the same difference in attrition rates as was observed between treatment and control groups. In 2010 dollars, our preferred estimates indicate that parents on the margin of sending their children to private schools valued small classes at $2,000–$18,000 per year relative to a cost of $3,000 per student year.
----------------------
Nuns and the Effects of Catholic Schools: Evidence from Vatican II
Rania Gihleb & Osea Giuntella
Boston University Working Paper, December 2013
Abstract:
This paper examines the causal effects of Catholic schooling on educational attainment. Using a novel instrumental-variable approach that exploits an exogenous shock to the Catholic school system, we show that the positive correlation between Catholic schooling and student outcomes is explained by selection bias. Spearheaded by the universal call to holiness and the opening to lay leadership, the reforms that occurred at the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) in the early 1960s produced a dramatic exogenous change in the cost/benefit ratio of religious life in the Catholic Church. The decline in vocations that followed contributed to a significant increase in costs and, in many cases, to the closure of Catholic schools. We document that this decline was heterogeneous across US dioceses, and that it was more marked in those dioceses governed by a liberal bishop. Merging diocesan data drawn from the Official Catholic Directory (1960-1980) and the US Census, we show that that the variation in the supply of female religious teachers across US dioceses is strongly related to Catholic schooling. Using the abrupt decline in female vocations as an instrument for Catholic schooling, we find no evidence of positive effects on student outcomes.
----------------------
Can You Leave High School Behind?
Sandra Black et al.
NBER Working Paper, January 2014
Abstract:
In recent years, many states, including California, Texas, and Oregon, have changed admissions policies to increase access to public universities for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. A key concern, however, is how these students will perform. This paper examines the relationship between high school quality and student success at college. Using newly available administrative data from the University of Texas at Austin, we take advantage of the unique policy environment provided by Texas’s Top Ten Percent automatic admissions law, which has not only increased the diversity of high schools in the state that send students to the university, but also provides an admission criteria based on a sole observable characteristic: high school class rank. We find that high school characteristics do affect student performance, and these effects seem more pronounced for women and low-income students. In addition, there is little evidence that the effects of high school characteristics decay over time.
----------------------
Classmates With Disabilities and Students’ Noncognitive Outcomes
Michael Gottfried
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2014, Pages 20-43
Abstract:
The increasing trend of placing students with disabilities in general education classrooms has raised questions among researchers, policymakers, practitioners, and parents about classmate peer effects on all students. However, little is known about the peer effects of classmates with disabilities on the outcomes of other students in the classroom; no research has evaluated these peer effects on other students’ noncognitive outcomes though they are highly predictive of schooling and lifelong success. The purpose of this study is to fill this research gap by using quasi-experimental methods on a nationally representative data set (i.e., Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Class) of elementary school students to examine the peer effects of classmates with disabilities on five noncognitive scales for classmates without disabilities. The findings indicate that students with a greater number of classmates with disabilities have higher externalizing and internalizing behavioral problems and lower frequencies of self-control, approaches to learning, and interpersonal skills. The findings are differentiated by disability category of a student’s classmates and are moderated by individual and contextual factors. Implications for policy and practice are addressed.
----------------------
Jackpot? The Impact of Lottery Scholarships on Enrollment in Tennessee
Donald Bruce & Celeste Carruthers
Journal of Urban Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We identify how the cost of college shapes high school graduates’ choice of college state and sector by exploiting discontinuous eligibility criteria for broad-based merit scholarships in Tennessee. For students whose ACT is a decisive factor in their scholarship eligibility, reductions in college cost result in substitution away from two-year community colleges in favor of four-year institutions. This pattern is more prominent among lower income students, and treatment effects are limited to a very local window around the qualifying threshold. We find no evidence that the scholarship affects college-going at the eligibility margin, little to no evidence of substitution between in-state and out-of-state colleges, and no evidence of substitution between public and private universities. Even so, results demonstrate that merit aid encompassing the middle of the ability spectrum can improve the quality of colleges students choose to attend.
----------------------
Understanding the Role of Time-Varying Unobserved Ability Heterogeneity in Education Production
Weili Ding & Steven Lehrer
Economics of Education Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Unobserved ability heterogeneity has long been postulated to play a key role in human capital development. Traditional strategies to estimate education production functions do not allow for varying role or development of unobserved ability as a child ages. Such restrictions are highly inconsistent with a growing body of scientific evidence; moreover, in order to obtain unbiased parameter estimates of observed educational inputs, researchers must properly account for unobserved skills that may be correlated with other inputs to the production process. To illustrate our empirical strategy we use experimental data from Tennessee's Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio experiment, known as Project STAR. We find that unobserved ability is endogenously developed over time and its impact on cognitive achievement varies significantly between grades in all subject areas. Moreover, we present evidence that accounting for time-varying unobserved ability across individuals and a more general depreciating pattern of observed inputs are both important when estimating education production functions.
----------------------
New Evidence on Teacher Labor Supply
Mimi Engel, Brian Jacob & Chris Curran
American Educational Research Journal, February 2014, Pages 36-72
Abstract:
Recent evidence on the large variance in teacher effectiveness has spurred interest in teacher labor markets. Research documents that better qualified teachers typically work in more advantaged schools but cannot determine the relative importance of supply versus demand. To isolate teacher preferences, we document which schools prospective teachers interviewed at during job fairs in Chicago. We find substantial variation in the number of applicants per school, ranging from under five to over 300. Schools serving more advantaged students have more applicants per vacancy, on average, and teacher preferences vary systematically by their own demographic characteristics. School geographic location is highly predictive of applications, even after controlling for distance from applicants’ home addresses and a host of school and neighborhood characteristics.
----------------------
Show Them the Mission: A Comparison of Teacher Recruitment Incentives in High Need Communities
James Shuls & Robert Maranto
Social Science Quarterly, March 2014, Pages 239–252
Objective: Most public organizations use both materialistic and idealistic appeals to attract valued employees, with the latter being particularly important for difficult jobs. Teaching in high poverty communities is one such job, though none have studied whether successful high poverty schools such as the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) schools make relatively greater use of public service appeals in teacher recruitment. In education, we identify these materialistic and idealistic appeals as teacher-centered and student-centered incentives. Teacher-centered incentives are those that appeal to a teacher's desire for higher compensation or advancement opportunities, whereas student-centered appeals attempt to attract teachers with a public service mission.
Method: We compare the use of teacher-centered and student-centered appeals in teacher recruitment by the universe of KIPP networks (n = 33) and neighboring traditional public school districts (n = 34), each serving disadvantaged populations. Coders record personnel website use of four teacher-centered appeals (including salary and benefits) and four student-centered appeals.
Results: Chi-square tests show that KIPP schools make less use of teacher-centered appeals, especially monetary compensation, and more use of student-centered appeals in teacher recruitment.
Conclusion: Supplemented by fieldwork, findings suggest that appeals to mission may work better than merit pay in recruiting effective teachers for high poverty schools.
----------------------
Improving the Implementation and Effectiveness of Out-Of-School-Time Tutoring
Carolyn Heinrich et al.
Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, forthcoming
Abstract:
School districts are spending millions on tutoring outside regular school day hours for economically and academically disadvantaged students in need of extra academic assistance. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), parents of children in persistently low-performing schools were allowed to choose their child's tutoring provider, and together with school districts, they were also primarily responsible for holding providers in the private market accountable for performance. We present results from a multisite, mixed-method longitudinal study of the impact of out-of-school time (OST) tutoring on student reading and mathematics achievement that link provider attributes and policy and program administration variables to tutoring program effectiveness. We find that many students are not getting enough hours of high-quality, differentiated instruction to produce significant gains in their learning, in part because of high hourly rates charged by providers for tutoring. We identify strategies and policy levers that school districts can use to improve OST tutoring policy design and launch improved programs as waivers from NCLB are granted.
----------------------
Intensive reading remediation in grade 2 or 3: Are there effects a decade later?
Benita Blachman et al.
Journal of Educational Psychology, February 2014, Pages 46-57
Abstract:
Despite data supporting the benefits of early reading interventions, there has been little evaluation of the long-term educational impact of these interventions, with most follow-up studies lasting less than 2 years (Suggate, 2010). This study evaluated reading outcomes more than a decade after the completion of an 8-month reading intervention using a randomized design with 2nd and 3rd graders selected on the basis of poor word-level skills (Blachman et al., 2004). Fifty-eight (84%) of the original 69 participants took part in the study. The treatment group demonstrated a moderate to small effect size advantage on reading and spelling measures over the comparison group. There were statistically significant differences with moderate effect sizes between treatment and comparison groups on standardized measures of word recognition (i.e., Woodcock Basic Skills Cluster, d = 0.53; Woodcock Word Identification, d = 0.62), the primary, but not exclusive, focus of the intervention. Statistical tests on other reading and spelling measures did not reach thresholds for statistical significance. Patterns in the data related to other educational outcomes, such as high school completion, favored the treatment participants, although differences were not significant.
----------------------
The Dynamic Effects of Educational Accountability
Hugh Macartney
NBER Working Paper, February 2014
Abstract:
This paper provides the first evidence that value-added education accountability schemes induce dynamic distortions. Extending earlier dynamic moral hazard models, I propose a new test for ratchet effects, showing that classroom inputs are distorted less when schools face a shorter horizon over which they can influence student performance. I then exploit grade span variation using rich educational data to credibly identify the extent of dynamic gaming, finding compelling evidence of ratchet effects based on a triple-differences approach. Further analysis indicates that these effects are driven primarily by effort distortions, with teacher reallocations playing a secondary role.
----------------------
Effects of an Out-of-School Program on Urban High School Youth's Academic Performance
Julie O'Donnell & Sandra Kirkner
Journal of Community Psychology, March 2014, Pages 176–190
Abstract:
Research strongly indicates that low-income youth, particularly those of color who are overrepresented in poverty, have lower levels of academic performance than their higher-income peers. It has been suggested that community-based out-of-school programs can play an important role in reducing these academic differences. This study examined the effect of the YMCA High School Youth Institute on the grades, test scores, and school attendance of urban high school youth using a randomly selected matched comparison group. Those involved in the program had significantly higher English-language art and math standardized test scores and somewhat fewer absences than the comparison group. Active program participants had significantly higher academic grade-point averages (GPAs) and math test scores as well as somewhat higher total GPA. The findings suggest that high-quality out-of-school programs can positively influence the academic performance of low-income youth. Implications for practice are discussed.
----------------------
Teacher Mobility and Financial Incentives: A Descriptive Analysis of Denver’s ProComp
Eleanor Fulbeck
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, March 2014, Pages 67-82
Abstract:
Extensive teacher mobility can undermine policy efforts to develop a high-quality workforce. In response, policymakers have increasingly championed financial incentives to retain teachers. In 2006, the Denver Public Schools adopted an alternative teacher compensation reform, the Professional Compensation System for Teachers (“ProComp”). Using longitudinal teacher-level data from 2001–2002 to 2010–2011, I estimate hazard models that identify the relationship between ProComp and teacher mobility. Specifically, I compare mobility patterns of teachers who received a ProComp incentive with those who did not, with special attention to teacher mobility in high-poverty schools. Results suggest receiving a ProComp incentive is associated with a significant decrease in the odds of departure. This appears to be driven by a decrease in a teacher’s odds of leaving the district rather than moving to a new school within the district, by voluntary ProComp participants and by teachers who receive incentives that total more than $5,000.