Effects of Four-Day School Weeks on School Finance and Achievement: Evidence From Oklahoma

2020 ◽  
pp. 0013189X2094802
Author(s):  
Emily Morton
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Finance ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
The United States ◽  
Day School ◽  
Detectable Effect ◽  
Food Services ◽  
Difference In Differences

Motivated by potential financial savings, 4-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 24 states as of 2019. The consequences of the 4-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This article uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal effect of the 4-day schedule on school district finance and academic achievement. Results indicate that 4-day weeks decrease districts’ federal revenues and their noninstructional and support services expenditures. Decreases are concentrated specifically in operations, transportation, and food services expenditures and amount to approximately 2.03% of the average 4-day district’s budget. There is no detectable effect of the 4-day week on academic achievement.

Effects of Four-Day School Weeks on School Finance and Achievement: Evidence from Oklahoma

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Morton
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Finance ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
The United States ◽  
Day School ◽  
Detectable Effect ◽  
Food Services ◽  
Difference In Differences ◽  
Operations And Maintenance

Motivated by potential financial savings, four-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 25 states as of 2018. The consequences of the four-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This paper uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal effect of the four-day schedule on school district finance and academic achievement. Results indicate that four-day weeks decrease districts’ federal revenues and their non-instructional and support services expenditures. Decreases are concentrated specifically in operations and maintenance, food services, and transportation expenditures and amount to approximately 2.03% of the average four-day district’s budget. I find no detectable effect of the four-day week on academic achievement.

scholarly journals The High Cost of The Nation's Current Framework for Education Federalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly J. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
School Finance ◽  
Educational Opportunity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Equal Educational Opportunity ◽  
Education Politics ◽  
School Finance Litigation ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
Future Work

This Article will show the consistent ways that the current understanding of education federalism within the United States has hindered three of the major reform efforts to promote a more equitable distribution of educational opportunity: school desegregation, school finance litigation, and, most recently, NCLB. In exploring how education federalism has undermined these efforts, this Article adds to the understanding of other scholars who have critiqued these reforms and examined why the nation has failed to guarantee equal educational opportunity. For example, scholars have argued that the failure to undertake earnest efforts to achieve equal educational opportunity is caused by a variety of factors, including the lack of political will to accomplish this goal, the domination of suburban influences over education politics, and the failure of the United States to create a social welfare system that addresses the social and economic barriers that impede the achievement of many poor and minority students.1s In a past work, I also explored some of the reasons that these efforts have failed to ensure equal educational opportunity. In light of this literature, education federalism undoubtedly is not the only factor that has influenced the nation's inability to ensure equal educational opportunity. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the consistent ways in which education federalism has contributed to the ineffectiveness of efforts to ensure equal educational opportunity as scholars propose new avenues to achieve this paramount goal. In addition, in both past and future work, I argue that the nation should consider embracing a new framework for education federalism that would enable the nation to more effectively achieve its goals for public schools. Understanding how education federalism has hindered past reforms is an essential part of exploring how education federalism should be reshaped.

scholarly journals Do Student Mindsets Differ by Socioeconomic Status and Explain Disparities in Academic Achievement in the United States?

AERA Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 233285841985770 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mesmin Destin ◽  
Paul Hanselman ◽  
Jenny Buontempo ◽  
Elizabeth Tipton ◽  
David S. Yeager
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
The United States ◽  
Negative Association ◽  
Academic Ability ◽  
Socioeconomic Achievement ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Small Factor ◽  
Ninth Grade Students

Students from higher–socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds show a persistent advantage in academic outcomes over lower-SES students. It is possible that students’ beliefs about academic ability, or mindsets, play some role in contributing to these disparities. Data from a recent nationally representative sample of ninth-grade students in U.S. public schools provided evidence that higher SES was associated with fewer fixed beliefs about academic ability (a group difference of .22 standard deviations). Also, there was a negative association between a fixed mindset and grades that was similar regardless of a student’s SES. Finally, student mindsets were a significant but small factor in explaining the existing relationship between SES and achievement. Altogether, mindsets appear to be associated with socioeconomic circumstances and academic achievement; however, the vast majority of the existing socioeconomic achievement gap in the U.S. is likely driven by the root causes of inequality.

Metacognitive Knowledge, Skills, and Awareness: A Possible Solution to Enhancing Academic Achievement in African American Adolescents

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-639
Author(s):  
Annie K. Smith ◽  
Sheila Black ◽  
Lisa M. Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
African American ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
African American Students ◽  
African American Youth ◽  
African American Adolescents ◽  
The United States ◽  
Metacognitive Knowledge ◽  
Future Research ◽  
American Students

The resegregation of public schools in the United States continues to place African American students at an academic disadvantage with—oftentimes—limited educational resources and fewer qualified teachers. Providing African American students with skills and strategies to succeed has never been more urgent. Metacognition, often defined simply as “thinking about thinking,” is a construct and process that may explain how students can improve and control their thinking and learning. Given the educational inequality African American students often face, providing strategies—with which they have control—may help empower students to better navigate and make the best of their daily academic experiences and environment composed of limited physical and human resources. Toward this end, recent research on metacognition looks promising and may be one viable option to enhance academic achievement among students. In this article, we consider three related areas that inform African American youth educational experiences: (a) the history of the educational context which African American youth have long faced, (b) the laws that have historically and currently buttress and inform the educational landscape for African American youth, and (c) one potential solution (i.e., metacognitive knowledge, skills, and awareness) to reduce or ameliorate some of the problems outlined in the history and laws that have been implicated in the low levels of academic achievement among some African American youth. Following the review of these related literature bases, we offer recommendations on how the extant literature bases may inform directions for future research that is focused on metacognition and that is ethically and culturally responsive.

Assessing Children's Strengths and Needs to Tailor Support Services for Academic Achievement

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy C. Orecchia ◽  
Mary E. Walsh ◽  
Elizabeth N. Loveless ◽  
Jessica T. Petrie
Keyword(s):  
Academic Achievement ◽  
Support Services

A Survey of Christian Religious Education in the United States

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jerald F. Dirks
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Schools ◽  
Religious Education ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
The United States ◽  
Youth Groups ◽  
Religious Educators ◽  
Contemporary Status ◽  
Children's Sermons ◽  
Private Christian Schools

Prior to the landmark Supreme Court decision of June 1963, which banned public prayer from the public schools, Christian religious education was often a routine part of the overt instruction provided by the American public school system. However, in the wake of that legal milestone, even though instruction in the Judeo-Christian interpretation of religious history continued to be taught covertly, American churches began relying more heavily on providing Christian religious education. This article briefly presents Christianity’s contemporary status in the United States and reviews such religious education methods as Sunday school, vacation Bible school, Christian youth groups, catechism, private Christian schools, Youth Sunday, and children’s sermons. The survey concludes with a look at the growing interface between such education and the lessons of psychology as well as training and certifying Christian religious educators.

Rethinking Racial Justice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Valls
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Equality ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Black Institutions ◽  
American Society ◽  
Racial Lines

American society continues to be characterized by deep racial inequality that is a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. What does justice demand in response? In this book, Andrew Valls argues that justice demands quite a lot—the United States has yet to fully reckon with its racial past, or to confront its ongoing legacies. Valls argues that liberal values and principles have far-reaching implications in the context of the deep injustices along racial lines in American society. In successive chapters, the book takes on such controversial issues as reparations, memorialization, the fate of black institutions and communities, affirmative action, residential segregation, the relation between racial inequality and the criminal justice system, and the intersection of race and public schools. In all of these contexts, Valls argues that liberal values of liberty and equality require profound changes in public policy and institutional arrangements in order to advance the cause of racial equality. Racial inequality will not go away on its own, Valls argues, and past and present injustices create an obligation to address it. But we must rethink some of the fundamental assumptions that shape mainstream approaches to the problem, particularly those that rely on integration as the primary route to racial equality.

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