Schools as Refractors: Comparing Summertime and School-Year Skill Inequality Trajectories

2021 ◽  
Vol 94 (4) ◽  
pp. 316-340
Author(s):  
Dennis J. Condron ◽  
Douglas B. Downey ◽  
Megan Kuhfeld

How does schooling affect inequality in students’ academic skills? Studies comparing children’s trajectories during summers and school years provide a provocative way of addressing this question, but the most persuasive seasonal studies (1) focus primarily on skill gaps between social categories (e.g., social class, race/ethnicity), which constitute only a small fraction of overall skill inequality, and (2) are restricted to early grades, making it difficult to know whether the patterns extend into later grades. In this study, we use seasonal comparisons to examine the possibilities that schooling exacerbates, reduces, or reproduces overall skill inequality in math, reading, language use, and science with recent national data on U.S. public school students spanning numerous grade levels from the Northwest Evaluation Association. Our results suggest that schooling has a compensatory effect on inequality in reading, language, and science skills but not math skills. We conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of our findings, possible reasons why the math findings differ from those of other subjects, and discrepant seasonal patterns across national data sets.

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-86
Author(s):  
Ma. Dionita V. Vergara, MSLT ◽  
Celo I. Magallanes

One of the primary functions of education is to provide students with opportunities to maximize their full potentials in all areas of life. A school's guidance and counseling program's function is to offer a broad spectrum of services to facilitate students' growth and development. These services include but are not limited to individual inventory, information service, counseling, service, placement service, and follow up service. Hence, this paper describes the extent of utilization and the degree of satisfaction of high school students in a Catholic school in Antique during the school year 2019-2020. Likewise, it explores the significant difference in the extent of utilization and the degree of satisfaction vis-à-vis the respondent's sex and grade levels.


2016 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 148-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teya A. Stephens ◽  
Jennifer L. Black ◽  
Gwen E. Chapman ◽  
Cayley E. Velazquez ◽  
Alejandro Rojas

This study examined student-reported participation in school food and nutrition activities in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), and whether engagement differed by gender and between elementary and secondary school students. A cross-sectional survey of grade 6–8 public school students (n = 937) from 20 elementary and 6 secondary schools assessed student-reported participation in a range of food and nutrition activities. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics and multilevel logistic regression to examine associations between participation with gender and school type. Overall, <50% of students reported engaging in most of the food and nutrition activities examined in the 2011–2012 school year, including: food preparation (36%), choosing/tasting healthy foods (27%), learning about Canada’s Food Guide (CFG) (45%), learning about foods grown in BC (35%), gardening (21%), composting (32%), and recycling (51%). Females were more likely to report recycling and learning about CFG and BC-grown foods (P < 0.05). Secondary students were more likely to report activities focused on working with or learning about food/nutrition (P < 0.05). Despite local and provincial efforts to engage students in food and nutrition experiences, participation in most activities remains relatively low, with few students exposed to multiple activities. Continued advocacy is needed from the dietetics community to improve student engagement in food and nutrition activities.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sendil Can ◽  
Meryem Gorecek Baybars

This study was carried out to reveal the mental models of the secondary school students from different grade levels regarding the concept of space. At the same time, within the context of the study, it was aimed to determine the factors playing a role in the construction of their concepts of space. The study employed the special case study design, one of the descriptive methods. The study was conducted in the spring term of the 2016-2017 school year and the sampling of the study is comprised of the students attending a private secondary school in a city located in the western region of Turkey. In the study, a data collection tool including four open-ended questions developed by the researchers to determine the students’ mental models of the “space” was used. The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistical techniques. The findings of the study have revealed that the students mostly associate the concept of the space with the concepts of emptiness (53 students), infinity (50 students), planet (48 students) and star (28 students). These findings are also supported by the students’ drawings and the Celestial Bodies Mental Model was found to be the model most frequently used by the students.


2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Buckley ◽  
Mark Schneider

One point of debate in the recent controversy in the media and among policy analysts over the academic achievement of charter school students is whether the charter students are in some way harder to educate than their counterparts enrolled in traditional public schools. This article examines this question using data from the 2002–2003 school year in Washington, D.C. It begins by examining a simple binomial model of the proportion of students in key demographic and programmatic categories linked to educability. It then turns to the estimation of a more theoretically appropriate mixture model that assumes two latent categories of charter schools. It concludes with an analysis that moves beyond simple demographic/programmatic factors to consider measures of educability using individual-level survey data from charter and traditional public school students. Overall, there is mixed evidence of differences in the educability of students in the two sectors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Julie Dallavis ◽  
◽  
Stephen Ponisciak ◽  
Megan Kuhfeld ◽  
Beth Tarasawa ◽  
...  

Using a national sample of kindergarten to eighth grade students from Catholic and public schools who took MAP Growth assessments, we examine achievement growth over time between sectors. Our findings suggest that while Catholic school students score higher in math and reading than public school students on average, they also enter each school year at a higher level. Public school students close this gap to some degree during the school year. Additionally, these patterns varied by age and subject. Catholic school students in the earlier grades show less growth in both reading and math during the academic year compared to their public school peers, but in middle school growth patterns in math were comparable across sectors.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura V. Sánchez-Vincitore ◽  
Analía Henríquez Cross

ABSTRACT The attainment of the alphabetic principle is one of the earliest signs of successful literacy acquisition. Public school students from the Dominican Republic have low literacy skills, partly because of not being systematically exposed to the alphabetic principle while learning to read. This paper presents the results of an intervention to teach the alphabetic principle using a tablet-based game. Nineteen kindergarten students were randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group during the last month of the 2017 school year. Students from the experimental group played with the game for ten sessions of 20 minutes each. Students from the experimental group outperformed the control group in syllable recognition after the intervention. The intervention did not influence other reading skills. Automatic syllable identification has been shown to boost early literacy acquisition, although it is not sufficient for students to become fluent readers.


AERA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 233285841986015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra Taylor ◽  
Erica Frankenberg ◽  
Genevieve Siegel-Hawley

The establishment of new school districts in predominantly White municipalities in the South is restructuring school and housing segregation in impacted countywide school systems. This article compares the contribution of school district boundaries to school and residential segregation in the Southern counties that experienced secession since 2000. Merging together several data sets, including Common Core of Data, census data, and shapefiles at multiple geographic scales, we measure segregation of public school students and the entire population over time. We show that school district secession is restructuring school segregation in the counties where secession is occurring, with segregation increasingly occurring because students attend different school districts. Additionally, in the most recent year of analysis, residents were increasingly stratified by race in different school districts. Segregation patterns differ substantially, however, depending on the history of secession in the county.


2004 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah A. Verstegen

What is an adequate education and how much does it cost? In 1989, Kentucky’s State Supreme Court found the entire system of education unconstitutional-“all of its parts and parcels”. The Court called for all children to have access to an adequate education, one that is uniform and has as its goal the development of seven capacities, including: (i) “sufficient oral and written communication skills to enable students to function in a complex and rapidly changing civilization . . . .and (vii) sufficient levels of academic or vocational skills to enable public school students to compete favorably with their counterparts in surrounding states, in academics or in the job market”. Now, over a decade later, key questions remain regarding whether these objectives have been fulfilled. This research is designed to calculate the cost of an adequate education by aligning resources to State standards, laws and objectives, using a professional judgment approach. Seven focus groups were convened for this purpose and the scholarly literature was reviewed to provide multiple inputs into study findings. The study produced a per pupil base cost for each of three prototype school districts and an total statewide cost, with the funding gap between existing revenue and the revenue needed for current operations of $1.097 billion per year (2001-02). Additional key resource requirements needed to achieve an adequate education, identified by professional judgment panels, include: (1) extending the school year for students and teachers, (2) adding voluntary half-day preschool for three and four year olds, and (3) raising teacher salaries. This increases the funding gap to $1.23 billion and suggests that significant new funding is required over time if the Commonwealth of Kentucky is to provide an adequate and equitable education of high quality for all children and youth as directed by the State Supreme Court.


2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 64-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Gance-Cleveland ◽  
Margo Bushmiaer

National surveys that have tracked weight and physical activity in the United States for more than 40 years have shown a continuing increase in the number of overweight children and adolescents. Overweight children and adolescents are showing an increase in diseases related to overweight: Type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and orthopedic and respiratory conditions. Overweight children are also likely to become obese adults. This article describes Arkansas’s efforts to connect with families through schools to prevent or reduce overweight in children. Arkansas school nurses measured the heights and weights of more than 400,000 public school students during the 2003–2004 school year. A detailed protocol for accurate measurement of students is provided.


EDUKASI ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hery Suharna ◽  
Agung Lukito Nusantara ◽  
I Ketut Budayasa

The research reveals a profile of reflective thinking of elementary school students in problem solving fractions based on his mathematical abilities. The instruments used in data collection is Test Problem Solving (TPM), interview. Selection of research subjects in a way given test is based on the ability of mathematics, namely mathematical skills of high, medium and low and further categorized and taken at least 2 people to serve as subjects. The research objective is: describe the profile of reflective thinking that math skills of elementary school students High, medium, and low. Based on the results of the study found reflective thinking profile and high ability students were as follows: (a) the step to understand the problems students have information/knowledge or data that is used to respond, comes from inside (internal) and can explain what has been done; (B) the planned step problem solving students have information/knowledge or data that is used to respond, comes from inside (internal) and can explain what has been done; (C) on measures to implement the plan in terms of information/knowledge or data used by students to respond, comes from inside (internal), could explain what has been done, realized the error and fix it, and communicate ideas with a symbol or image, and (d) the checking step back, namely information/knowledge or data that is used by students to respond, comes from inside (internal) and can explain what has been done. Profile of reflective thinking ability students lowly mathematics, namely: (a) at the stage of understanding the problem, students can determine known and asked in the problem, but the students' difficulties to explain the identification of the facts that have been done, the students explained the understanding vocabulary, and feel of existing data the matter is enough; (B) at the stage of implementing the plan, the students explained, organize and represent data on the issue, describes how to select the operation in solving a problem though students are not sure, and students' difficulty in explaining what he had done; (C) at the stage of implementing the plan, the student has information on calculation skills although the answer is not correct. Students difficulty in explaining about the skills calculations have been done, trying to communicate their ideas in the form of symbols or images, even if students rather difficult to describe, and realized there was an error when using a calculation skills and improve it; (D) at the stage of check, students' difficulties in explaining whether obtained estimates it approached, it makes senseKeywords: reflective thinking, problem solving, fractions, and math skills.


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