Education and Literacy;Parenting and Families
Between America's long-standing national objective of improving the strength of the public school system to prepare students for college and careers and the focus of the Obama administration on education as a pathway to economic security for the middle class and improving the economy, education issues and policy are in the spotlight. A central focus of the policy discussion is the measurement of quality and the utilization of quality data to improve student outcomes. This quality-focused policy agenda covers a range of high-profile issues, from standardized testing to teacher evaluation to early childhood education, and involves a range of stakeholders.
While regular survey research is conducted with a variety of stakeholders, including teachers, very few nationally representative surveys of parents have been conducted recently. Often cited as a key determinant of student outcomes, parents represent an important perspective that policymakers need to understand in the design, articulation, and implementation of quality-focused education initiatives.
This study provides a comprehensive description of parents' perspectives on education in America today, with a specific focus on understanding what quality education and teaching means to parents and how it should be measured and rewarded.
With funding from the Joyce Foundation, the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted a national survey of 1,025 parents or guardians of children who completed a grade between kindergarten and 12th during the 2012-2013 school year.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
American society reflects considerable class immobility, much of which is due to the wide gap in college completion rates between advantaged and disadvantaged groups of students. This report discusses the factors that cause unequal college completion rates and introduces assets as an explanation stratification scholars often ignore. The following chapters are included in this report:
- From a Debt-Dependent to an Asset-Based Financial Aid Model
- Institutional Facilitation and CSA (Child Savings Account) Effects
- CSAs as an Early Commitment Financial Aid Strategy
- From Disadvantaged Students to College Graduates: The Role of CSAs
- How CSAs Facilitate Saving and Asset Accumulation
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
Children and Youth, Education and Literacy
This new report developed by FSG with support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, distills a set of 48 early childhood indicators that reflect healthy development of young children. The report also highlights 10 emerging themes, areas that are not sufficiently addressed by existing indicators and where further inquiry is needed.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
In 1988, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) developed a private school data collection that improved on the sporadic collection of private school data dating back to 1890 bydeveloping an alternative to commercially available private school sampling frames. Since 1989, the U.S. Bureau of the Census has conducted the biennial Private School Universe Survey (PSS) for NCES. The PSS is designed to generate biennial data on the total number of private schools, students, and teachers, and to build a universe of private schools to serve as a sampling frame of private schools for NCES sample surveys. For more information about the methodology and design of the PSS, please see the Technical Notes in appendix B of this report.
The target population for the PSS is all schools in the 50 states and the District of Columbia that are not supported primarily by public funds, provide classroom instruction for one or more of grades kindergarten through 12 (or comparable ungraded levels), and have one or more teachers. Organizations or institutions that provide support for home schooling, but do not provide classroom instruction, are not included.
The 2011 -- 12 PSS data were collected between September 2011 and May 2012. All data are for the 2011 -- 12 school year except the high school graduate data, which are for the 2010 -- 11 school year.Because the purpose of this report is to introduce new NCES survey data through the presentation of tables containing descriptive information, only selected findings are listed below. These findings are purely descriptive in nature and are not meant to imply causality. These findings have been chosen to demonstrate the range of information available from the 2011 -- 12 PSS rather than to discuss all of the observed differences, emphasize any particular issue, or make comparisons over time.
The tables in this report contain counts and percentages demonstrating bivariate relationships. All of the results have been weighted to reflect the sample design and to account for nonresponse and other adjustments. Comparisons drawn in the selected findings have been tested for statistical significance at the .05 level using Student's t statistics to ensure that the differences are larger than those that might be expected due to sampling variation. No adjustments were made for multiple comparisons.
Many of the variables examined are related to one another, and complex interactions and relationships have not been explored. Statistical Analysis Software (SAS 9.2) and SUDAAN (10.0) were used to compute the statistics for this report.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
The analysis here focuses on Boston's charter high schools. For the purpose of this report, an analysis of high schools is both a necessity and a virtue. It is necessary to study high schools because most students applying to charters in earlier grades are not yet old enough to generate data on postsecondary outcomes. Charter high schools are also of substantial policy interest: a growing body of research argues that high school may be too late for cost-effective human capital interventions. Indeed, impact analyses of interventions for urban youth have mostly generated disappointing results.
This report is interested in ascertaining whether charter schools, which in Massachusetts are largely budget-neutral, can have a substantial impact on the life course of affected students. The set of schools studied here comes from an earlier investigation of the effects of charter attendance in Boston on test scores.
The high schools from the earlier study, which enroll the bulk of charter high school students in Boston, generate statistically and socially significant gains on state assessments in the 10th grade. This report questions whether these gains are sustained.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / Massachusetts / Suffolk County / Boston
In recent years, 'continuous improvement' has become a popular catchphrase in the field of education. However, while continuous improvement has become commonplace and well-documented in other industries, such as healthcare and manufacturing, little is known about how this work has manifested itself in education.
This white paper attempts to map the landscape of this terrain by identifying and describing organizations engaged in continuous improvement, and by highlighting commonalities and differences among them. The findings classify three types of organizations engaged in continuous improvement: those focused on instructional improvement at the classroom level; those concentrating on system-wide improvement; and those addressing collective impact. Each type is described in turn and illustrated by an organizational case study. Through the analysis, six common themes that characterize all three types of organizations (e.g., leadership and strategy, communication and engagement, organizational infrastructure, methodology, data collection and analysis, and building capacity) are enumerated.
This white paper makes four concluding observations. First, the three case studies provide evidence of organizations conducting continuous improvement work in the field of education, albeit at different levels and in different ways. Second, entry points to continuous improvement work are not mutually exclusive, but are nested and, hence, mutually informative and comparative. Third, continuous improvement is not synonymous with improving all organizational processes simultaneously; rather, research and learning cycles are iterative and gradual in nature. Fourth, despite being both iterative and gradual, it is imperative that improvement work is planned and undertaken in a rigorous, thoughtful, and transparent fashion.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Southern)-Maryland-Montgomery County, North America-United States (Midwestern)-Wisconsin-Waukesha County-Menomonee Falls, North America-United States (Midwestern)-Ohio-Hamilton County-Cincinnati
Education and Literacy, Parenting and Families
The James Irvine Foundation launched the Families Improving Education (FIE) initiative in 2008 by funding eleven community-based organizations in California's Central Valley and Inland Empire to support parent involvement in K-12 educational policymaking. Families In Schools, a Los Angeles-based advocacy organization was selected to serve as a technical assistance provider and grant-making intermediary. The FIE initiative is based on the premise that parent-engagement efforts can foster more responsive and appropriate school policies that enhance student success. This report, prepared by Harder+Company Community Research, highlights the insights and promising strategies of the FIE initiative, looking closely at three core components: increasing the involvement of parents in K-12 decision-making; influencing educational decisions, policies, and practices that lead to improved academic outcomes; and strengthening the capacity of community-based organizations to engage in educational advocacy.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Western)-California
Education and Literacy;Prison and Judicial Reform
This guide for practitioners is one of four manuals that, together, explain how drug court teams can create a program to help drug court participants pursue higher education. The Practitioners Manual provides a road map for the entire program, which gives step-by-step guidance to participants enrolling in and seeking financial aid for college.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States (Northeastern) / New York
