Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
School choice is a highly controversial topic in Massachusetts' educational policy circles these days. In recent years, the Commonwealth has offered students and their families a variety of school choice options, but very little funding has been dedicated to studying the impact, availability and enrollment trends of school choice. As a result, policymakers are forced to shape a policy agenda based upon conjecture rather than evidence.
The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, with the support of the Boston Foundation, commissioned this school choice mapping research to fill the informational gap. With this study, prepared by the researchers at the University of Massachusetts' Center for Education Policy, we seek to provide independently gathered evidence to better inform policymakers and researchers and to draw attention to policy issues that require further attention and investigation. We believe that school choice will continue to play a central role in the education reform debate and that this initial mapping is essential to display and benchmark current school choice phenomena while providing a basis for future trend analysis.
This report describes the various school choice options in Massachusetts and details the extent to which each school choice option is available and exercised. School choice options that were examined include:
- Charter schools
- Private and parochial schools
- Inter-district school choice
- Home-schooling
- METCO
- Vocational options
- Intra-district school choice
- Special education programs
To the extent possible using current data, the report includes:
- Information on the national context;
- Statewide information on utilization of each of the options; and
- In-depth look at school choice dynamics in the metropolitan Boston area.
This report is intended to provide baseline data, rather than in-depth analysis of the status of school choice in Massachusetts. In addition, this report contains a policy brief that highlights the impact of trends in student enrollment and the availability of school choice in the Commonwealth.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston;North America / United States (New England)
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
School choice is a highly controversial topic in Massachusetts' educational policy circles these days. In recent years, the Commonwealth has offered students and their families a variety of school choice options, but very little funding has been dedicated to studying the impact, availability and enrollment trends of school choice. As a result, policymakers are forced to shape a policy agenda based upon conjecture rather than evidence.
The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, with the support of the Boston Foundation, commissioned this school choice mapping research to fill the informational gap. With this study, prepared by the researchers at the University of Massachusetts' Center for Education Policy, we seek to provide independently gathered evidence to better inform policymakers and researchers and to draw attention to policy issues that require further attention and investigation. We believe that school choice will continue to play a central role in the education reform debate and that this initial mapping is essential to display and benchmark current school choice phenomena while providing a basis for future trend analysis.
This report describes the various school choice options in Massachusetts and details the extent to which each school choice option is available and exercised. School choice options that were examined include:
- Charter schools
- Private and parochial schools
- Inter-district school choice
- Home-schooling
- METCO
- Vocational options
- Intra-district school choice
- Special education programs
To the extent possible using current data, the report includes:
- Information on the national context;
- Statewide information on utilization of each of the options; and
- In-depth look at school choice dynamics in the metropolitan Boston area.
This report is intended to provide baseline data, rather than in-depth analysis of the status of school choice in Massachusetts. In addition, this report contains a policy brief that highlights the impact of trends in student enrollment and the availability of school choice in the Commonwealth.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston;North America / United States (New England)
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
School choice is a highly controversial topic in Massachusetts' educational policy circles these days. In recent years, the Commonwealth has offered students and their families a variety of school choice options, but very little funding has been dedicated to studying the impact, availability and enrollment trends of school choice. As a result, policymakers are forced to shape a policy agenda based upon conjecture rather than evidence.
The Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy, with the support of the Boston Foundation, commissioned this school choice mapping research to fill the informational gap. With this study, prepared by the researchers at the University of Massachusetts' Center for Education Policy, we seek to provide independently gathered evidence to better inform policymakers and researchers and to draw attention to policy issues that require further attention and investigation. We believe that school choice will continue to play a central role in the education reform debate and that this initial mapping is essential to display and benchmark current school choice phenomena while providing a basis for future trend analysis.
This report describes the various school choice options in Massachusetts and details the extent to which each school choice option is available and exercised. School choice options that were examined include:
- Charter schools
- Private and parochial schools
- Inter-district school choice
- Home-schooling
- METCO
- Vocational options
- Intra-district school choice
- Special education programs
To the extent possible using current data, the report includes:
- Information on the national context;
- Statewide information on utilization of each of the options; and
- In-depth look at school choice dynamics in the metropolitan Boston area.
This report is intended to provide baseline data, rather than in-depth analysis of the status of school choice in Massachusetts. In addition, this report contains a policy brief that highlights the impact of trends in student enrollment and the availability of school choice in the Commonwealth.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston;North America / United States (New England)
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy
Developed by the Institute of HeartMath (IHM), the Early HeartSmarts (EHS) program is designed to train teachers to guide and support young children (3 -- 6 years old) in learning emotional self-regulation and key age-appropriate socioemotional competencies, with the goal of facilitating their emotional, social and cognitive development. This work reports the results of an evaluation study conducted to assess the efficacy of the EHS program in a pilot implementation of the program carried out during the 2006 -- 2007 academic year in schools of the Salt Lake City School District. The study was conducted using a quasi-experimental longitudinal field research design with three measurement moments (baseline and pre- and post-intervention panels) using The Creative Curriculum Assessment (TCCA) instrument, a teacher-scored, 50-item instrument measuring student growth in four areas of development -- social/emotional, physical, cognitive and language development. Children in nineteen preschool classrooms were divided into intervention and control group samples (N = 66 and 309, respectively; mean age = 3.6 years), in which classes in the former were specifically selected to target children of lower socioeconomic and ethnic minority family backgrounds. Overall, there is compelling evidence of the efficacy of the EHS program in increasing total psychosocial development and each of the four development areas measured by the TCCA: the results of a series of ANCOVAs found a strong, consistent pattern of significant differences on the development measures favoring preschool children who received the EHS program over those in the control group who did not.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
NACSA's Policy Guide series is intended to support state legislatures and charter school advocates in creating policy environments that result in high quality authorizing and high quality schools. This guide outlines key considerations for policymakers committed to supporting the replication of existing successful charter school models.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
The purpose of this brief is to guide the reader in the effective use of data for measuring student academic growth. It explores the use of different measurement models in school accountability systems. While targeted to the authorizers of charter schools, the brief is helpful to anyone who evaluates the performance of a portfolio of schools.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
In recent years, we have seen a rapid expansion of policies and resources devoted to new teacher induction. Most of these policies are based on an assumption that induction programs have a positive influence on teacher quality and student learning. Yet there is little evidence to support claims for such policies regarding the distinct components of induction programs or their effectiveness (Wang, Odell & Schwille, 2008). Scholars have argued for targeted mentoring that addresses the learning needs of beginning teachers with regard to instructional practice (Feiman-Nemser, 2001). Some suggest that induction efforts may increase teacher knowledge, student achievement, teacher satisfaction, and retention (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Fletcher, Strong & Villar, 2008; Smith & Ingersoll, 2004).
There is, however, insufficient data to assist educators and policy makers in determining the most effective or critical components of induction programs. There is scant consensus around a number of induction issues, for example: the most effective mentoring condition (full-time or add-on mentoring); the amount of time required to enhance the development of beginning teachers; the amount of professional development mentors need to be effective; and the level of match (subject or grade level) required between mentor and beginning teacher. Furthermore, few studies explore the different components of induction and their effects on teacher and student outcomes.
Given such a dearth of evidence and the current state of induction policy, this study was developed to examine differences in student engagement and teacher instructional practice in two types of induction conditions: comprehensive full-time induction and add-on induction. These two conditions differed in
- the amount of mentor participation in professional development on induction;
- the amount of time mentors could spend on structured observations, reflection, and feedback focused on pedagogy;
- mentors' abilities to prioritize induction efforts;
- mentors' abilities to serve as liaisons between beginning teachers and administrators; and
- the amount of professional development mentors could offer beginning teachers.
The goal of this study was to examine the instructional practice of beginning teachers who were mentored in these two conditions and to explore differences in instructional practice and student engagement.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Education and Literacy;Race and Ethnicity
Educators and policy makers are calling for increasing the racial and cultural diversity of the teacher workforce, given the widening cultural gap between students and teachers (see Figure 1), and the widening achievement gap between students of color and White students. Some research suggests teachers of color can address the needs of students of color through culturally relevant practices (Quiocho & Rios, 2000). However, recent studies reveal teachers of color suffer greater job dissatisfaction and higher turnover than White teachers (Ingersoll & Connor, 2008; Marvel et al., 2007).
Furthermore, cultural practices of teachers of color, if valued in our schools, need to be developed rather than assumed (Sheets, 2000). Given these circumstances, educators are faced with the following questions:
- What factors impact retention and attrition of new teachers of color?
- What factors support new teachers of color to develop and implement practices that address the needs of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds?
These questions are addressed by a team of researchers at the New Teacher Center, UCSC in a study that followed 21 teachers of color over five years, from preparation through four years of teaching in high-need California schools serving low-income and high-minority student populations.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
