Excused Versus Unexcused: How Student Absences in Elementary School Affect Academic Achievement

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Gottfried
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Academic Risk ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Unexcused Absences ◽  
Reading And Math

The literature on school absences has focused predominantly on the reasons for student truancy, or it has assessed only aggregate student absences in their effect on achievement. However, this study brings forth a new issue: the relationship between types of absences—excused versus unexcused—and school performance. With a quantitative model of educational achievement on a longitudinal multilevel data set of all second-through fourth-grade students in the Philadelphia School District from 1994 to 2000, this study disaggregated absence information to provide new insight on the attendance–achievement relationship. Specifically, a model using fixed effects with classroom-level clustering was employed to determine how the distinction among varying proportions of excused versus unexcused absences related to students’ standardized test performance in reading and math. This article demonstrates that distinguishing between students with high rates of excused or unexcused absences is significant. Having a higher proportion of excused absences to total absences exhibits a positive relationship between reading and math test scores. Conversely, students with a higher proportion of unexcused absences places them at academic risk, particularly in math achievement and as early as in elementary school. Implications for policy are discussed.

scholarly journals Does Sure Start spending improve school readiness? An ecological longitudinal study.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Senior
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
School Readiness ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Child Poverty ◽  
Children's Services ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Health And Social Care ◽  
Children’S Services ◽  
Important Time

Background Early child development predicts a range of later outcomes including educational achievement, employment, involvement in crime, health, and social care need. Inequalities in early childhood also cause inequalities in health later on in life. Because of this, early childhood is an important time for intervention. School readiness in England is used to refer to an assessment of a child's cognitive, emotional, and physical development, and is a major focus of effort for local and national policymakers. However, evidence on what factors affect school readiness is needed to guide policymakers at local and national levels. MethodsI analysed a panel data set of 150 English upper tier local authorities from 2012 to 2016, for a total of 750 local-authority years. I used fixed effects poisson regression models to test for associations between local trends in school readiness performance and sure start spending, non-sure start children’s services spending, and child poverty rates.ResultsAfter adjustment for local trends in child poverty and spending on other children’s services, local trends in Sure Start spending were positively associated with school readiness, both among all children and among children eligible for free school meals (an indicator of poverty). All effects were small, with a 10% change in per-child Sure Start spending associated with a less than 0.2% change in school readiness performance.ConclusionDespite limitations associated with the ecological nature of this study, it provides evidence that Sure Start spending may improve school readiness. This complements wider evidence on the health benefits of Sure Start, suggesting that this programme had benefits across a range of outcomes.

scholarly journals Inequality’s Association with Poor Educational Outcomes in U.S. States Relates to Interest in Academic Shortcuts

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Moshontz ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Keith Payne ◽  
Elizabeth Marsh
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Academic Outcomes ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Psychological Consequences ◽  
8Th Grade ◽  
Standardized Test Performance ◽  
Google Search

Regional income inequality is associated with poor academic outcomes. Using U.S. data (2005 - 2016), we explored whether inequality has psychological consequences that may harm student outcomes. Theoretically, income inequality causes excessive focus on immediate concerns, therefore we examined whether inequality is associated with increased interest in academic shortcuts, and whether interest in shortcuts explains the academic outcomes of 4th graders, 8th graders, and adults. We used state-level Google search frequencies to measure interest in academic shortcuts (e.g., “cliff notes”). Inequality was associated with 8th grade standardized test performance and adult high school degrees, but not 4th grade standardized test performance. Interest in academic shortcuts mediated the effect of inequality on 8th grade performance and high school degrees (with some caveats). Our analyses are consistent with theorized psychological consequences of inequality suggesting that it biases students’ focus on the present in ways that undermine their educational achievement and attainment.

Is It the Music or Is It Selection Bias? A Nationwide Analysis of Music and Non-Music Students’ SAT Scores

2013 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Elpus
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Students ◽  
Entrance Examination ◽  
College Entrance Examination ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Fixed Effects Regression

This study examined the college entrance examination scores of music and non-music students in the United States, drawing data from the restricted-use data set of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS), a nationally representative education study ( N = 15,630) conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics. Analyses of high school transcript data from ELS showed that 1.127 million students (36.38% of the U.S. class of 2004) graduated high school having earned at least one course credit in music. Fixed-effects regression procedures were used to compare standardized test scores of these music students to their non-music peers while controlling for variables from the domains of demography, prior academic achievement, time use, and attitudes toward school. Results indicated that music students did not outperform non-music students on the SAT once these systematic differences had been statistically controlled. The obtained pattern of results remained consistent and robust through internal replications with another standardized math test and when disaggregating music students by type of music studied.

Means-Tested School Vouchers and Educational Achievement: Evidence from Chile’s Universal Voucher System

2017 ◽  
Vol 674 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandra Mizala ◽  
Florencia Torche
Keyword(s):  
School Choice ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Poverty Level ◽  
School Students ◽  
Poor Students ◽  
Voucher Schools

Chile features a universal school choice system, in which a government voucher provides families an opportunity to send students to public or private schools of their choosing. Since its implementation in 1981, the amount of the voucher was flat without adjustments for family income, creating incentives for schools to enroll students from economically advantaged families. In 2008, a policy change adjusted voucher values by the poverty level of students and the proportion of poor students attending each school. We evaluate the effect of this policy on primary school students’ standardized test scores, using time-distributed fixed effects models. We find a positive and significant effect of the means-tested voucher policy on Math and Language achievement. The effect is much larger among private-voucher schools serving poor children, and it increased over the years after the policy change, suggesting that schools require some time to realize the benefits of the policy. Our findings show that moving from a flat to a means-tested voucher improves achievement and equality.

scholarly journals SECULAR FERTILITY DECLINES, BABY BOOMS, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 1601-1672 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Tamura ◽  
Curtis Simon
Keyword(s):  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Baby Boom ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
The United States ◽  
Adult Mortality ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Housing Costs ◽  
Historical Education ◽  
Second World

We present a model capable of explaining 200 years of declining fertility, 200 years of rising educational achievement, and a significant baby boom for the United States and twenty other industrialized market countries. We highlight the importance of secularly declining young adult mortality risk for producing secularly declining fertility and a sudden decline in housing costs after the end of the Second World War, but ending by 1970. In addition, we introduce a new puzzle for the profession: Given the magnitude of the Baby Boom, roughly equal to fertility in 1900 for many of these countries, why did schooling of the Baby Boom cohorts not fall to the 1900 level of their predecessors? In fact, not only did it not fall, but the schooling levels of these cohorts are higher than for previous cohorts. Using a quantitative model, we are able to identify the magnitude of the reduction in costs of education necessary to explain this paradoxical increase in schooling. We produce a novel data set on historical education expenditures with over 1,500 observations. We find empirical support for these cost reductions.

Predicting Physical Activity and Lifelong Health Through Personal Control and Educational Attainment

2021 ◽  
pp. 003151252110292
Author(s):  
Jinyi Zhou ◽  
Xuesong Ding ◽  
Yuefan Zhai ◽  
Qing Yi
Keyword(s):  
Physical Activity ◽  
Educational Level ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mediating Effect ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Education And Health ◽  
Proposed Model

Prior studies have shown that physical activity (PA) is strongly associated with lifelong health and well-being. Thus, analyses of relationships among individual differences, PA, education, and health may provide important insights into the sustainability of PA-related personal development efforts. In this longitudinal study, we tested a proposed model in a data set of 12,686 participants from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY 79). We used hierarchical regressions and bootstrapping to test hypotheses concerning the main effect of personal control on lifetime health, the mediating effect of PA, and the moderating effect of educational achievement. We found that individuals’ self-reported PA was positively related to their health status. Additionally, there was a positive mediating effect of self-reported PA on the relationship between personal control and health when the individual’s educational level was high, and there was a negative mediating effect of self-reported PA when an individual’s educational level was low. Based on these results, we provide relevant government policy suggestions for increasing fitness participation, constructing sports facilities, and encouraging educational institutions to include health education in their efforts.

scholarly journals Mediating distributive politics: political alignment and electoral business cycle effects on municipality financing in Greece

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasios Kitsos ◽  
Antonios Proestakis
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Intergovernmental Transfers ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Resource Misallocation ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Political Alignment

AbstractWe examine the role of political alignment and the electoral business cycle on municipality revenues in Greece for the period 2003–2010. The misallocation of resources for political gain represents a waste of resources with significant negative effects on local growth and effective decentralization. The focus of our analysis is municipality mayors since they mediate the relationship between central government and voters and hence can influence the effectiveness of any potential pork-barrelling activity. A novel panel data set combining the results of two local and three national elections with annual municipality budgets is used to run a fixed-effects econometric model. This allows us to identify whether the political alignment between mayors and central government affects municipality financing. We examine this at different stages of local and national electoral cycles, investigating both direct intergovernmental transfers (grants) and the remaining sources of local revenues (own revenues, loans). We find that total revenues are significantly higher for aligned municipalities in the run-up to elections due to higher intergovernmental transfers. We also find evidence that the 2008 crisis has reduced such pork-barrelling activity. This significant resource misallocation increases vertical networking dependency and calls for policy changes promoting greater decentralization and encouraging innovation in local revenue raising.

Cultural Variability in the Educational and Learning Capitals of Australian Families and Its Relationship With Children’s Numeracy Outcomes

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sivanes Phillipson ◽  
Shane N. Phillipson ◽  
Sarika Kewalramani
Keyword(s):  
Regression Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Stepwise Regression ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Multiple Comparison ◽  
Comparison Analysis ◽  
The Family

This article explored the variability of parental educational mind-sets among Australian parents toward the accessible educational and learning capitals that may affect their children’s educational achievement. The participants ( N = 1,917) responded to the Family Educational and Learning Capitals Questionnaire as well as their ethnic identity. Parents also reported their children’s numeracy scores in a standardized test of achievement. Six major groups were adequate for statistical analysis, including Australians, British, Chinese, Indian, Other Asian, and Other European. A multiple comparison analysis was performed on the responses by parents from the six ethnic groups to examine the differences in parent responses to access to capitals. Controlled for ethnic groups, stepwise regression analysis showed which capitals predicted numeracy achievement of their children. The results indicated that within this sample of Australian parents, there is variability across different ethnic groups in what is considered important in their children’s educational achievement and this variability is associated with differences in numeracy outcomes.

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