Studies of Reading First released in 2008 found no overall effect on student reading comprehension, and the program was eliminated in 2009. However, the research findings were more nuanced than was widely reported, and they offer lessons for policymakers making critical choices today about how the federal government can best support the teaching of reading to young children.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Arts and Culture, Education and Literacy
Questions about district leadership and capacity -- particularly in light of the new funding -- served as the impetus for this study. Through a survey of leaders in 385 districts, we assessed districts' capacity with respect to arts education, explored early spending choices, and examined the relationship between the two. We also studied changes in arts education since the new resources became available and worked to understand the barriers that continue to stand in the way of comprehensive arts education for all California students.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Western)-California
Education and Literacy;Parenting and Families
School choice is increasingly the new normal in urban education. But in cities with multiple public school options, how can civic leaders create a choice system that works for all families, whether they choose a charter or district public school?
To answer this question, CRPE researchers surveyed 4,000 parents in eight cities (Baltimore, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.) with high degrees of school choice. The researchers also conducted interviews with government officials, choice advocates, and community leaders in four cities, and looked at how many different agencies oversee schools in 35 cities.
The study found that:
- In the eight cities surveyed, the majority of parents are actively choosing a school for their children.
- Parents face significant barriers to choosing schools, including inadequate information, transportation, and lack of quality options.
- Challenges facing families are not confined to the charter or district sector.
- Responsibility for schools often falls to multiple parties, including school districts, charter school authorizers, and state agencies, weakening accountability and making it difficult for leaders to address the challenges facing parents.
The report finds that a more transparent, accountable, and fair system will require action from all parties, including school districts, charter authorizers, charter operators, and states. State and city leaders may need to change laws to ensure that districts and charter authorizers oversee schools responsibly and that families do not face large barriers to choice. In some cases, formal governance changes may be necessary to address the challenges to making school choice work for all families.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
New Teacher Center worked collaboratively with nine state coalitions - including governors, state education agencies, teacher associations, stakeholder groups and practitioners - to implement the Teaching, Empowering, Leading and Learning (TELL) survey statewide in nine states from the spring of 2012 to the spring of 2103. The TELL survey is a full-population survey of school-based licensed educators designed to report the perceptions about the presence of teaching and learning conditions that research has shown increase student learning and teacher retention.
The conditions assessed in the TELL survey include:
- Time
- Facilities and Resources
- Professional Development
- School Leadership
- Teacher Leadership
- Instructional Practices and Support
- Managing Student Conduct
- Community Support and Involvement
- New Teacher Support (for teachers in their first three years in the profession)
This report compares the results of the TELL survey at the state level across the country, providing an additional contextual lens for interpreting the results from each participating state to better understand their own findings.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: North America-United States;North America-United States (Western)-Colorado;North America-United States (Southern)-Tennessee;North America-United States (Midwestern)-Ohio;North America-United States (Southern)-North Carolina;North America-United States (Southern)-Maryland;North America-United States (Southern)-Kentucky;North America-United States (Northeastern)-Vermont;North America-United States (Northeastern)-Massachusetts;North America-United States (Northeastern)-Delaware
We compare two alternative methods to account for the sorting of students into academic tracks. Using data from an urban school district, we investigate whether including track indicators or accounting for classroom characteristics in the value-added model is sufficient to eliminate potential bias resulting from the sorting of students into academic tracks.
We find that accounting for two classroom characteristics -- mean classroom achievement and the standard deviation of classroom achievement -- may reduce bias for middle school math teachers, whereas track indicators help for high school reading teachers. However, including both of these measures simultaneously reduces the precision of the value-added estimates in our context. In addition, we find that while these different specifications produce substantially different value-added estimates, they produce small changes in the tails of value-added distribution.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Southern)-District of Columbia-Washington
Education and Literacy;Parenting and Families
Are parents an untapped resource in improving and reimagining K -- 12 education in Kansas City? What do they think would enhance student learning and what are they willing to do to help their children get the education they deserve? These are among the questions explored in an in-depth survey of 1,566 parents with children now in public school in the Kansas City metropolitan area. This study finds the majority of parents in the Kansas City area ready, willing and able to be more engaged in their children's education at some level. For communities to reap the most benefit from additional parental involvement, it is important to understand that different parents can be involved and seek to be involved in different ways.
The results of this research, detailed in the following pages, show that nearly a third of the region's parents may be ready to take on a greater role in shaping how local schools operate and advocating for reform in K -- 12 education. These parents say they would be very comfortable serving on committees focused on teacher selection and the use of school resources. Their sense of "parental engagement" extends beyond such traditional activities as attending PTA meetings, coaching sports, volunteering for bake sales, chaperoning school trips and seeing that their children are prepared for school each day. Yet, despite their broad interest in a deeper, more substantive involvement in shaping the region's school systems, relatively few of these "potential transformers" have actually participated in policy-oriented activities in the past year.
Moreover, this survey finds that even though the majority of parents seem less inclined to jump into school policy debates, many say they could do more to support local schools in the more traditional school parent roles.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Missouri-Platte County;North America-United States (Midwestern)-Missouri-Jackson County-Kansas City;North America-United States (Midwestern)-Missouri-Clay County;North America-United States (Midwestern)-Missouri-Cass County;North America-United States (Midwestern)-Kansas-Wyandotte County-Kansas City
Outlines best practices in education and recommendations for expanding India's secondary education, including a modernized curriculum utilizing technology, increased school accountability, and international benchmarking, from a March 2008 conference.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: Asia;Asia (Southeastern)-India
One of a series of guides for school district leaders on optimizing resource allocation, explains how to cut budgets with the least impact on the neediest, shift funds to effective programs and where most needed, and invest stimulus funds in improvements.
December 1969
Geographic Focus: North America-United States
