Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Volunteer One-on-One Tutoring Model for Early Elementary Reading Intervention: A Randomized Controlled Trial Replication Study

This study examines the impacts of two AmeriCorps programs, Minnesota Reading Corps and Wisconsin Reading Corps, where AmeriCorps volunteers provide literacy tutoring to at-risk kindergarten through third-grade (K–3) students utilizing a response-to-intervention framework. This evaluation replicates a prior randomized controlled trial evaluation of the program 4 years later and for the first time evaluates the program model replicated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The results of the two evaluations showed that kindergarten and first-grade students who received a single semester of Reading Corps tutoring achieved significantly higher literacy assessment scores, and demonstrated meaningful and significant effects after a full-school year of the intervention for second- and third-grade students.

Supporting Syrian Refugee Children’s Academic and Social-Emotional Learning in National Education Systems: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Nonformal Remedial Support and Mindfulness Programs in Lebanon

Experimental evidence on strategies to support refugee children's integration into host-country public schools is needed. We employ a three-arm, site-randomized controlled trial to test the impact of short-term access to two versions of nonformal remedial programming infused with social-emotional learning (SEL) among Syrian refugee children in Lebanese public schools. Remedial programming with classroom climate-targeted SEL practices improved children's perceptions of public schools (effect sizes [ES] = 0.48–0.66) only. The remedial program with both classroom climate-targeted SEL and skill-targeted activities had positive impacts on children's perceptions of public schools (ES = 0.43–0.50) and on certain basic academic skills (ES = 0.08–0.14), and marginally significant positive and negative impacts on some SEL outcomes (ES = 0.16–0.31). We found no impacts of either version on children's global literacy or numeracy competence.

Restorative for All? Racial Disproportionality and School Discipline Under Restorative Justice

A growing number of schools are adopting restorative justice (RJ) practices that de–emphasize exclusionary discipline and aim for racial equity. We examine student discipline as RJ programs matured in Meadowview Public Schools from 2008 to 2017. Our difference–in–difference estimates show that students in RJ schools experienced a profound decline in their suspension rates during the first 5 years of implementation. However, the benefits of RJ were not shared by all students, as disciplinary outcomes for Black students were largely unchanged. While the overall effects of RJ in this context are promising, racial disproportionality widened. Our results suggest that the racial equity intentions of RJ may be diluted as schools integrate RJ into their existing practices.

Is Kindergarten Ability Group Placement Biased? New Data, New Methods, New Answers

Half of kindergarten teachers split children into higher and lower ability groups for reading or math. In national data, we predicted kindergarten ability group placement using linear and ordinal logistic regression with classroom fixed effects. In fall, test scores were the best predictors of group placement, but there was bias favoring girls, high-SES (socioeconomic status) children, and Asian Americans, who received higher placements than their scores alone would predict. Net of SES, there was no bias against placing black children in higher groups. By spring, one third of kindergartners moved groups, and high-SES children moved up more than their score gains alone would predict. Teacher-reported behaviors (e.g., attentiveness, approaches to learning) helped explain girls’ higher placements, but did little to explain the higher placements of Asian American and high-SES children.

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

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.

Did States’ Adoption of More Rigorous Standards Lead to Improved Student Achievement? Evidence From a Comparative Interrupted Time Series Study of Standards-Based Reform

This study was designed to assess the effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards as part of the current wave of standards-based reform on student achievement using comparative interrupted time series analyses based on state-level NAEP data from 1990 to 2017. Results show that the effects of adopting more rigorous standards on students’ mathematics achievement were generally small and not significant. The effects on students’ reading achievement were also generally small, but negative and statistically significant for Grade 4. The study also revealed that the effects of states’ adoption of more rigorous standards varied across NAEP subscales and student subgroups.

Accountability and (In)Congruence in a No-Excuses School College-Going Culture

This study explores how the college-going culture at a no-excuses charter school with high college enrollment rates shaped students’ worldviews and trajectories. Drawing on 7 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I found that the school boosted college enrollment through student compliance to the college accountability policies rather than through the transmission of dominant cultural resources. Alignment between a student’s worldview and the school’s approach mediated their ability to draw on their full range of resources to participate in the college choice process and forge postsecondary trajectories they believed in. These findings foreshadow the potential impacts of “College for All” accountability structures and underscore the importance of cultural congruence in college-going cultures.

Dual Language as White Property: Examining a Secondary Bilingual-Education Program and Latinx Equity

This critical race ethnography examines a secondary-level dual-language (DL) program, a bilingual-education model thought to provide Latinxs educational equity. Drawing from a three-stage recursive analytic approach, I present evidence that a DL program’s policies and practices valued offering Latinx youth biliterate schooling only so long as DL was available and advantageous to Whites—which ultimately excluded some Latinx students from bilingual education and/or accessing its benefits. I theorize DL functions as white property when DL perpetuates racial hierarchies and preserves the value of a white racial identity, thereby maintaining Whites’ inequitable material accumulation. I problematize the logic of DL—highlighting that DL has the elitist tendencies of world-language education—and assess DL’s potential to deliver educational justice to Latinxs.

How Finance Reform May Alter Teacher and School Quality: California’s $23 Billion Initiative

Gains in school spending helped to lift achievement over the past half century. But California’s ambitious effort—progressively distributing $23 billion in yearly funding to poorer districts—has yet to reduce disparities in learning. We theorize how administrators in districts and schools, given organizational habits and labor constraints, may fail to move quality resources to disadvantaged students. We identify the exogenous portion of California’s post-2013 reform, finding that schools receiving progressively targeted funding tended to hire inexperienced teachers and disproportionately assign novices to courses serving English learners. New funding expanded the array of courses in high schools, as access to college-preparatory classes by English learners declined. These unfair mechanisms operated most strongly in high-needs schools serving larger concentrations of poor students.

Public School Teacher Contracts and State-Level Reforms: Assessing Changes to Collective Bargaining Restrictiveness Across Three States

In many school districts, the policies that regulate teaching personnel are governed by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). While there is significant policy attention that has affected the scope of these agreements, there is relatively little research on how CBAs vary over time, or whether they change in response to states’ legislative reforms. Using a panel data set of over 1,200 CBAs across three states, we compare CBA change before and after reforms in two states (Michigan and Washington) relative to a state with no statutory changes (California). We show that the state policy reforms lessened the restrictiveness of CBAs, as intended. The results suggest when reforms limit bargaining negotiations, unions are unable to compensate for the substantial reductions in working conditions.