Improving Low-Performing Schools: A Meta-Analysis of Impact Evaluation Studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 000283122110608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth E. Schueler ◽  
Catherine Armstrong Asher ◽  
Katherine E. Larned ◽  
Sarah Mehrotra ◽  
Cynthia Pollard
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
English Language ◽  
Evaluation Studies ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Low Performing Schools ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
K 12

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K–12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post–No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeer-reviewed estimates.

Guest Column—On “Learning to Read”

PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (3) ◽  
pp. 539-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyne Ender ◽  
Deidre Shauna Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Education Reform ◽  
Common Core ◽  
English Language ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Good Readers ◽  
Learning To Read ◽  
Teaching Objectives ◽  
The Common ◽  
K 12

The theories and methodologies feature of this issue of PMLA contains a cluster of essays devoted to the subject of reading. At a time when many states in the United States are in the throes of a major public-education reform designed to prepare better-educated, more literate citizens for tomorrow's world, we collected these essays in the belief that scholars belonging to the MLA might be interested in reflecting on this effort in the light of their research. Hence our title, “Learning to Read,” and our appeal to our contributors to consider what they, with their scholarly expertise and pedagogical experience, might contribute to the charged debates about the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)— debates that remind us of the high stakes involved in training good readers. We hope that PMLA readers will agree with us that the question of how the architects of the Common Core have defined the uses and measures of literacy education affects much of the MLA membership—professors, adjuncts, and graduate instructors alike.For some years now, test results have indicated that American schoolchildren read more poorly than many of their peers abroad (Heitin). A distinctive feature of the Common Core (the shorthand title for an extraordinary effort to align educational requirements and standards nationwide) lies in its effort to devise a graduated progression in the standards for the English language arts (ELA) that is anchored in the skills of close reading. Given that the changes in teaching objectives defined and prescribed by the standards might transform the way children in America learn to make sense of the written word, it is only natural that our professional body would respond. The decisive, and some might say aggressive, manner in which the architects of the Common Core have recast the fundamentals of the ELA has provoked strong reactions, not only among K-12 teachers but also in higher education. Concerns were voiced early on in sessions at MLA conventions starting in 2013, and those conversations have continued on MLA Commons (e.g., Ferguson).

How State Education Agencies Are Administering School Turnaround Efforts: 15 Years After No Child Left Behind

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 423-452 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan A. VanGronigen ◽  
Coby V. Meyers
Keyword(s):  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
School Improvement ◽  
School Turnaround ◽  
Rapid Improvement ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Low Performing Schools ◽  
State Education Agency ◽  
State Education ◽  
Education Agency ◽  
K 12

School turnaround—the rapid improvement of student achievement in low-performing schools—is increasingly a major topic of interest in K-12 public education. Federal legislation has left varying degrees of school improvement–related responsibilities up to states, and policy makers have divergent views about how to realize turnaround. We investigate and describe how each state education agency (SEA) is administering school turnaround efforts in federally designated priority schools. To accomplish this, we examined a variety of publicly available documents from SEA websites and summarized the data into three overarching categories. We discuss how this finding has significant implications for policy makers and SEAs, especially as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is implemented.

Educational Meaning Making and Language Learning: Understanding the Educational Incorporation of Unaccompanied, Undocumented Latinx Youth Workers in the United States

2021 ◽  
pp. 003804072199600
Author(s):  
Stephanie L. Canizales
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Educational Attainment ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Immigrant Youth ◽  
The United States ◽  
English Language Learning ◽  
Youth Workers ◽  
K 12

Immigration scholars agree that educational attainment is essential for the success of immigrant youth in U.S. society and functions as a key indicator of how youth will fare in their transition into adulthood. Research warns of downward or stagnant mobility for people with lower levels of educational attainment. Yet much existing research takes for granted that immigrant youth have access to a normative parent-led household, K–12 schools, and community resources. Drawing on four years of ethnographic observations and interviews with undocumented Latinx young adults (ages 18 to 31) who arrived in Los Angeles, California, as unaccompanied youth, I examine the educational meaning making and language learning of Latinx individuals coming of age as workers without parents and legal status. Findings show that Latinx immigrant youth growing up outside of Western-normative parent-led households and K–12 schools and who remain tied to left-behind families across transnational geographies tend to equate education with English language learning. Education—as English language learning—is essential to sobrevivencia, or survival, during their transition to young adulthood as workers and transnational community participants.

scholarly journals Morning Report: Can an Established Medical Education Tradition Be Validated?

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew McNeill ◽  
Sayed K. Ali ◽  
Daniel E. Banks ◽  
Ishak A. Mansi
Keyword(s):  
Medical Education ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Outcome Measures ◽  
English Language ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cochrane Library ◽  
Clinical Effects ◽  
Morning Report ◽  
Residency Programs

Abstract Background Morning report is accepted as an essential component of residency education throughout different parts of the world. Objective To review the evidence of the educational value, purpose, methods, and outcomes of morning report. Methods A literature search of PubMed, Ovid, and the Cochrane Library for English-language studies published between January 1, 1966, and October 31, 2011, was performed. We searched for keywords and Medical Subject Heading terms related to medical education, methods, attitudes, and outcomes in regard to “morning report.” Title and abstract review, followed by a full-text review by 3 authors, was performed to identify all pertinent articles. Results We identified 71 citations; 40 articles were original studies and 31 were commentaries, editorials, or review articles; 56 studies (79%) originated from internal medicine residency programs; 6 studies (8%) focused on ambulatory morning report; and 63 (89%) originated from the United States. Identified studies varied in objectives, methods, and outcome measures, and were not suitable for meta-analysis. Main outcome measures were resident satisfaction, faculty satisfaction, preparation for professional examinations, use of evidence-based medicine, clinical effects on patient care, adverse event detection, and utilization of a curriculum in case selection. Conclusions Morning report has heterogeneous purposes, methods, and settings. As an educational tool, morning report is challenging to define, its outcome is difficult to measure, and this precludes firm conclusions about its contribution to resident education or patient care. Residency programs should tailor morning report to meet their own unique educational objectives and needs.

The Longitudinal Effects of School Improvement Grants

2021 ◽  
pp. 016237372110124
Author(s):  
Min Sun ◽  
Alec I. Kennedy ◽  
Susanna Loeb
Keyword(s):  
School Improvement ◽  
Low Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Students Of Color ◽  
English Language ◽  
High School Graduation Rates ◽  
Low Socioeconomic ◽  
School Improvement Grants ◽  
Positive Effects ◽  
State Test ◽  
Longitudinal Effects

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) exemplify a capacity-building investment to spur sustainable changes in America’s persistently lowest-performing schools and stimulate the economy. This study examines both short- and longer-term effects of the first two cohorts of SIG schools from four locations across the country. Dynamic difference-in-differences models show that SIGs’ effects on achievement in Grades 3 to 8, as measured by state test scores in math and English language arts, gradually increased over the three reform years and were largely sustained for 3 or 4 years afterward. Evidence on high school graduation rates, though less robust, also suggests SIGs had positive effects. SIGs’ effects on students of color and low-socioeconomic-status students were similar to or significantly larger than the overall effects.

Test Frequency, Stakes, and Feedback in Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 111-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard P. Phelps
Keyword(s):  
Student Achievement ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Effect Size ◽  
English Language ◽  
Variance Estimation ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Effect Sizes ◽  
Test Frequency

Background: Test frequency, stakes associated with educational tests, and feedback from test results have been identified in the research literature as relevant factors in student achievement. Objectives: Summarize the separate and joint contribution to student achievement of these three treatments and their interactions via multivariable meta-analytic techniques using a database of English-language studies spanning a century (1910–2010), comprising 149 studies and 509 effect size estimates. Research design: Analysis employed robust variance estimation. Considered as potential moderators were hundreds of study features comprising various test designs and test administration, demographic, and source document characteristics. Subjects: Subjects were students at all levels, from early childhood to adult, mostly from the United States but also eight other countries. Results: We find a summary effect size of 0.84 for the three treatments collectively. Further analysis suggests benefits accrue to the incremental addition of combinations of testing and feedback or stakes and feedback. Moderator analysis shows higher effect sizes associated with the following study characteristics: more recent year of publication, summative (rather than formative) testing, constructed (rather than selected) item response formats, alignment of subject matter between pre- and posttests, and recognition/recall (rather than core subjects, art, or physical education). Conversely, lower effect sizes are associated with postsecondary students (rather than early childhood–upper secondary), special education population, larger study population, random assignment (rather than another sampling method), use of shadow test as outcome measure, designation of individuals (rather than groups) as units of analysis, and academic (rather than corporate or government) research.

Are Reading Interventions for English Language Learners Effective? A Meta-Analysis

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 220-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caralyn Ludwig ◽  
Kan Guo ◽  
George K. Georgiou
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Reading Fluency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Reading Skills ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Reading Interventions ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Reading Accuracy ◽  
Positive Effects

Despite concerted efforts to improve the reading skills of English language learners (ELLs), it remains unclear if the interventions they have been receiving produce any positive results. Thus, the purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine how effective reading interventions are in improving ELLs’ reading skills and what factors may influence their effectiveness. Twenty-six studies with reported outcomes for pretest and posttest were selected, and four moderators (group size, intensity of intervention, students’ risk status, and type of intervention) were coded. The results of random-effects analyses showed that the reading interventions had a large effect on ELLs’ reading accuracy ( d = 1.221) and reading fluency ( d = 0.802) and a moderate effect on reading comprehension ( d = 0.499). In addition, for real-word reading accuracy, intervention groups composed of more than five students were less effective than groups composed of two to five students, and longer intervention sessions were less effective than shorter ones. Overall, our findings suggest that reading interventions have positive effects on ELLs’ reading skills, and they should not be delayed until these students have reached a certain level of oral English proficiency.

Standards-based classroom assessments of English proficiency: A review of issues, current developments, and future directions for research

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-382 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorena Llosa
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
English Language ◽  
Classroom Assessment ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
The United States ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Classroom Assessments ◽  
Key Issues

With the United States’ adoption of a standards-based approach to education, most attention has focused on the large-scale, high-stakes assessments intended to measure students’ mastery of standards for accountability purposes. Less attention has been paid to the role of standards-based assessments in the classroom. The purpose of this paper is to discuss key issues and challenges related to the use of standards-based classroom assessments to assess English language learners’ English proficiency. First, the paper describes a study of a standards-based classroom assessment of English proficiency in a large urban school district in California. Second, using this study as an example and drawing from the literature in language testing on classroom assessment, this paper highlights the major issues and challenges involved in using English proficiency standards as the basis for classroom assessment. Finally, the article outlines a research agenda for the field given current developments in the areas of English proficiency standards and classroom assessment.

History of Testing in the United States: PK–12 Education

2019 ◽  
Vol 683 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maris A. Vinovskis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
No Child Left Behind ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
The United States ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Education ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
K 12

This article provides a brief history of K–12 education testing in the United States from colonial America to the present. In early America, students were examined orally. After the mid-nineteenth century, written tests replaced oral presentations. In the late nineteenth century, graded schools gradually replaced the single-teacher, one-room schools. In the beginning of the twentieth century, standardized intelligence tests were increasingly used to categorize and promote students. State departments of education have played a larger role in local school funding and policies in the past hundred years. Since the 1960s, the federal government has expanded its involvement in national education while also promoting the role of states. During the past three decades, the federal government and states increased the use of high-stakes national testing with initiatives such as America 2000, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and Every Student Succeeds.

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