A new Think Twice review released today finds that a recent report on the effect of Florida's class-size reduction reform on student achievement does not actually study the impact of class-size reduction.
The Impact of a Universal Class-Size Reduction Policy: Evidence from Florida's Statewide Mandate, written by Matthew M. Chingos for the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University's Kennedy School, was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by Professor Jeremy Finn of the University at Buffalo-SUNY. Finn, a statistics expert, was a lead researcher of Tennessee's Project STAR, a large, randomized experiment in class-size reduction (CSR). In 2002, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment mandating CSR throughout that state's schools.
The Chingos study compares student test scores in districts that already had average class sizes smaller than required by the amendment with student scores in districts with average class sizes larger than required by the amendment. Districts that already had smaller class sizes received the same additional funding but could use the money as they saw fit, while those with larger class sizes were required to use the state CSR funds to reduce class sizes. Chingos concludes that "mandated CSR in Florida had little, if any, effect on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes" in the students examined. Finn, however, points out that the study doesn't actually address the effect of CSR on student achievement. Instead the study compares the results of schools that reduced class size with a group of schools that received monies to use as they wished. Both sets of districts in the study had small class sizes. According to Finn, the study's finding would more accurately be stated as "administrative discretion in spending state class-size reduction funds did not affect students' academic performance."
Finn's review also points out that there are other flaws in the Chingos study: It uses the broad brush of school and district averages rather than student-level information about class sizes and test scores. Also, the actual class-size differences between the two groups were too small to make an educational difference; both of the groups had small average class sizes.
Finn concludes, "Despite its title, this report does not address the issue of class-size reduction. By being presented as an evaluation of Florida's mandated class size limits, it may lead parents, educators, or policy makers to draw faulty conclusions about the impact of the program."
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America / United States
We use non-experimental data from a large panel of schools and districts in Indiana to evaluate the impacts of math curricula on student achievement. Using matching methods, we obtain causal estimates of curriculum effects at just a fraction of what it would cost to produce experimental estimates. Furthermore, external validity concerns that are particularly cogent in experimental curricular evaluations suggest that our non-experimental estimates may be preferred. In the short term, we find large differences in effectiveness across some math curricula. However, as with many other educational inputs, the effects of math curricula do not persist over time. Across curriculum adoption cycles, publishers that produce less effective curricula in one cycle do not lose market share in the next cycle. One explanation for this result is the dearth of information available to administrators about curricular effectiveness.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Indiana
For the 23rd consecutive year, the Public Policy Forum has compiled and analyzed data from Southeastern Wisconsin's school districts in order to better inform policymakers and the public about progress-or lack thereof-on commonly utilized measures of academic achievement. This year's analysis of the 2008-09 academic year indicates cause for encouragement in some areas, but also cause for significant concern.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: North America-United States (Midwestern)-Wisconsin (Southeastern), North America-United States (Midwestern)-Wisconsin-Milwaukee County-Milwaukee
Education and Literacy, Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Communicating social metrics efficiently can be a challenging but essential component of effective program or advocacy strategy. Our research highlights eight types of communication tools, which demonstrate options to convey complex data to a wide range of users. While most of these tools highlight education-related metrics, each can be adapted and used in other fields as well.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy;Employment and Labor
This White Paper on post secondary access and persistence of career and technical education (CTE) graduates, particularly those with disabilities, is produced in collaboration with the Center for Labor and Market Studies at Northeastern University. Currently, little is known about the actual post secondary enrollment of graduates from Massachusetts public high schools and less is known about the post secondary outcomes of the subset of high school graduates with disabilities. Yet, the labor market environment that these young adults will enter is one characterized by a large and growing lifetime earnings advantage to earning a college degree. The findings are based on data about nearly 4,600 high school students from the Classes of 2004 through 2006 who graduated from seven vocational-technical high schools in Massachusetts.
August 1970
Geographic Focus:
Children and Youth;Education and Literacy
Of the Massachusetts graduates from the Class of 2005 who enrolled in public colleges, an appalling 29 percent enrolled in a developmental (remedial) math course during the fall semester. Nationally, 63 percent of college students who remediate in mathematics do not earn a 2- or 4-year degree. At a time when a college degree is one of the critical components of one's ability to afford a home and support a family, that such high rates of Massachusetts' high school graduates require remediation in math is cause for alarm - and action. The Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy has produced a policy brief that proposes a new pathway in high school mathematics aimed at eliminating the need for college remediation in math.
The policy brief, entitled Alternative High School Math Pathways in Massachusetts: Developing an On-Ramp to Minimize College Remediation in Mathematics, proposes a plan designed to significantly reduce, and ultimately, eliminate the number of students who require college remediation in mathematics.
Rather than the traditional progression of math courses (Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Calculus), we propose three new math courses at the middle and high school levels - including a new fourth year math course titled: Topics in Applied Mathematics for College Preparation that would provide an alternative to Pre-calculus/Calculus for students pursuing non-math related majors. We recommend that Massachusetts policymakers and school and district leaders should take the following steps toward establishing to a well-aligned, effective system that ensures all students are ready for college-level mathematics:
- Ensure mastery of arithmetic by the end of seventh grade;
- Focus on mastery and application of algebraic concepts;
- Offer the ACCUPLACER(R) test to high school juniors;
- Provide guidance based on the Elementary Algebra ACCUPLACER(R) score; and
- Encourage all students to take mathematics during their first college semester.
August 1970
Geographic Focus: 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:
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
