Early to rise? The effect of daily start times on academic performance

Local school districts often stagger daily start times for their schools in order to reduce busing costs. This paper uses data on all middle school students in Wake County, NC from 1999 to 2006 to identify the causal effect of daily start times on academic performance. Using variation in start times within schools over time, the effect is a two percentile point gain in math test scores – roughly fourteen percent of the black–white test score gap. I find similar results for reading scores and using variation in start times across schools. The effect is stronger for students in the lower end of the distribution of test scores. I find evidence supporting increased sleep as a mechanism through which start times affect test scores. Later start times compare favorably on cost grounds to other education interventions which result in similar test score gains.     

An examination of inter-district public school transfers in Wisconsin

Using data for all Wisconsin school districts over the 2003/04 through 2006/07 school years, we evaluate the state of Wisconsin's Open Enrollment (inter-district transfer) program to determine which school district characteristics influence parental transfer decisions. To our knowledge, this is the first study of school choice in a public school setting that evaluates transfer decisions controlling for district characteristics from which the students are transferring. The main result of our research indicates that parents of transfer students reside in districts with high property values but low taxes, and they choose to send their children to higher spending school districts. Other key findings are that parents send their children to districts with lower percentages of minorities, and are more likely to transfer from districts with fewer extracurricular opportunities.     

Going Charter? A Study of School District Competition in Wisconsin

The question that drives this article is why some school districts decide to open up charter schools and others do not. Several answers are plausible: (a) entrepreneurial initiative, (b) structural explanations, and (c) spatial competition. We use data for the state of Wisconsin derived from extensive case studies of 19 charter schools and quantitative data on Wisconsin school district from state files and the U.S. Department of Education common core databases. We find evidence to support all three explanations for why districts “go charter.” First, in almost every school and district we visited for case studies, at the heart of either the district or the charter school, and often both, there were entrepreneurial administrators, school board members, teachers, or parents. Our evidence was anecdotal but very consistent across 19 case studies. Second, there are two general sets of structural characteristics that were shown to be quantitatively correlated with becoming a charter district. The first set comprised resource characteristics (size, federal revenue, and available seats); the second set comprised indicators of unmet students needs (the percentage of students eligible for free lunch). Finally, we argue and believe we provide significant evidence that competition is also a motivation for going charter. We posit that open enrollment and charter schools are working together to enhance the flows of students from homeschooling, private schools, dropouts, and other public school districts into charter school districts. Thus using several different indicators and models, estimating both which districts become charter districts and the flow and net gain directly from open enrollment, there is no question that charter schools are increasing competition for students in Wisconsin.     

Educator‐Reported Instructional Characteristics of Grade 1 Reading Interventions within a CBM Assessment System

We used data from the 2014–2015 easyCBM assessment system to explore the applied reading intervention characteristics in a sample of 3,074 Grade 1 students (and 5,145 interventions) in school districts applying a multitiered systems of support (MTSS) framework. We describe the number of interventions, number of assessments, the intervention start dates, curricula, instructional strategies, tier, group size, frequency, dosage, total time, and quantitative intensity. We found variance across all instructional variables, with 156 curricula and 59 instructional strategies applied. Based on our data, a “typical” intervention was a Tier 2 intervention that began before October, was delivered for 30 minutes/day for 5 days/week in a group with three to five students, was changed once if at all, and student progress was most likely monitored with word reading fluency measures.     

To what extent does Hong Kong primary school students’ Chinese reading comprehension benefit from after-school private tuition?

The reading attainment of the 3,875 primary 4 Hong Kong primary school students participating in the 2011 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study ranked first among 49 countries and regions surveyed worldwide. Analysis of the association between (a) participating students’ reading attainment and (b) responses to questionnaires completed by the students and their parents revealed that classroom teaching, the school curriculum, the reader’s social and economic background and support from home had all helped shape reading performance. It is not unusual for school students in many Asian countries to receive after-school tuition in various areas of the curriculum to boost performance in impending examinations. The study reported here focussed (1) on the Chinese language reading attainment of students who had attended private tutoring classes after school in this subject against the scores of fellow students who had not and (2) asking whether such after-school tutoring had been of any notable benefit to their reading. Although a majority of the parents questioned said they paid for extra tuition for their children after school, analyses of the data found there was a statistically significant difference between the scores of students who received extra tuition and those who did not, the score of the latter group being superior. It is suggested that the Hong Kong education authorities reassure parents about the quality of teaching in primary schools and publicly pronounce on the potential value of after-school private tutoring.     

Achievement of English as New Language Learners in Monitor Status: A Cross Sector Comparison from Denver

This study uses administrative data to measure the effect of attending a charter school in Denver, Colorado on the achievement of reclassified English as New Language (ENL) students during their monitor period in the mainstream classroom environment. We utilize school choice data from Denver’s Common Enrollment System (CES) to control for each school a family selected entering grade six, a typical time for a structural move, in order to better control of unobserved variable bias. Results indicate charter attendance increases achievement in mathematics and English on state testing. Charter school success in the CES environment provides insights for districts serving large numbers of ENL students.     

Do reading practices make a difference? Evidence from PIRLS data for Hong Kong and Taiwan primary school Grade 4 students

This study examined the influence of classroom pedagogic reading practices and out-of-school practices in explaining why the reading attainment of Hong Kong Grade 4 students was superior to that of their counterparts in Taiwan in the 2006 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study. Analyses of scores from 9301 students (4712 from Hong Kong and 4589 from Taiwan) revealed that independent reading in school made a distinctive contribution to the reading performance of Hong Kong and Taiwan students after controlling for the effects of students’ and parents’ reading attitudes, the availability of supportive home educational resources and student engagement in a range of reading practices. Out-of-school informational reading was found to be negatively associated with students’ reading attainment for both Hong Kong and Taiwan students. There was evidence that reading aloud in class in Taiwan classrooms significantly contributed to the Taiwan students’ poor reading performance.     

Right from the Start: Critical Classroom Practices for Building Teacher–Student Trust in the First 10 Weeks of Ninth Grade

Teacher–student trust is associated with the social and emotional development of students, their school connectedness and engagement, and their academic achievement. However, few studies have examined how trust develops between teachers and students in ninth grade, a critical year in high school for students to start off on-track. Even less research has examined how teacher–student trust develops from the perspective of students to help identify specific teacher classroom practices that are effective at doing so, particularly at the start of the school year when students’ relationships and connections to high school are just beginning to take shape. Drawing on data from a longitudinal, qualitative study of ninth-grade teacher–student relationships in one neighborhood public high school in Chicago, this study highlights three critical classroom practices that appear particularly effective for helping to build trusting teacher–student relationships during the first 10 weeks of high school. Highlighting the perspectives and insights of ninth grade students, this analysis finds that (1) the priority that teachers place on specific classroom practices, and (2) the timing of when these practices are used by teachers, are both critical in establishing teacher–student trust—an essential ingredient in helping ninth grade students gain important social and school connections during their transition to high school. By highlighting the voices of ninth grade youth, this study provides valuable insights for educators aiming to use specific classroom-based practices that are essential for helping ninth grade students make valuable school connections and get on-track right from the start of the year.

     

Influence of Cost and Demographic Factors on Reading Achievement

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if selected noninstructional variables affect the reading achievement of fourth-grade students in Arkansas. Data for 332 of the state's 333 school districts for the 1986-87 school year were analyzed. The relationships between achievement of students, as measured by the Metropolitan Achievement Test-6 (MAT-6) and eight variables were analyzed. Four variables studied had significant relationships to fourth-grade reading scores, as measured by the MAT-6. The percentage of minority students and the percentage of students eligible for free or reduced lunches had negative relationships. The percentage of staff holding master’s degrees or above and the relative wealth of the school districts had positive relationships.     

Classroom Behavior and Learning Environment Differences Between Resilient and Nonresilient..

In education, conceptual work on resilience has recently gained recognition as an important framework from which we can understand why some students become successful in school, whereas similar students from the same disadvantaged family backgrounds and neighborhoods have not been successful in school. The purpose of this study was to compare the classroom instruction and learning environment of resilient and nonresilient students in elementary schools consisting of predominantly minority students. The participants were 4th- and 5th-grade students and their teachers. Near the end of the school year, all the 4th- and 5th-grade students from 3 elementary schools located in a major metropolitan area in the south central region of the United States completed the My Class learning environment survey. Trained observers also systematically observed the resilient and nonresilient students identified by teachers during regular reading classes, language classes, or both. The results from this study indicate that resilient elementary school students perceive a more positive instructional learning environment and they are more satisfied with their reading and language arts classrooms than nonresilient students. In addition, nonresilient students indicated that they have more difficulty in their classwork than both average students and resilient students. The observational results revealed that resilient students spent significantly more time interacting with teachers for instructional purposes, whereas nonresilient students spent more time interacting with other students for social or personal purposes. Resilient students were also observed watching or listening significantly more often than nonresilient students, whereas nonresilient students were observed more often not attending to task. The percentage of time that resilient students were on task was much higher than that for nonresilient students.     

Students’ writing and reading preferences in a paperless classroom

ABSTRACT

This study took place in a school which adopted a “paperless classroom” policy. The purpose of the study was to examine whether students who learn in a paperless classroom really prefer reading and writing on computers rather than on paper and whether their preferences differ according to contextual conditions and personal differences. The findings show that students’ reading and writing preferences depended on the context in which the reading or writing was performed. The boys preferred to read and write on the computer significantly more than girls. Conversely, the girls’ handwriting skills and preference for handwriting were higher than the boys’. Reading and writing on computer was found to be favored among strong students, while weak students tended to prefer using paper. This research also revealed a rapid decrease in favoring computer over paper in both reading and writing over time. Students who had experienced the paperless classroom policy in this school for three years were less supportive of the use of computers for reading and writing than younger students.     

School Start Time Change: An In‐Depth Examination of School Districts in the United States

In response to the scientific evidence documenting both profound developmental changes in sleep and circadian biology during adolescence and the myriad of negative health, performance, and safety outcomes risks associated with chronic sleep loss, at least 70 public school districts in the United States, representing approximately 1,000 schools, have successfully implemented a delay in high school start times. However, despite the compelling evidence supporting school start time change as a key strategy in addressing the epidemic of adolescent sleep loss, many school districts across the country with early high school start times have not considered the option to implement later bell schedules for adolescents. Moreover, while the current scientific literature has clearly documented the positive outcomes associated with delayed high school start times, these studies contain limited information regarding the process by which school districts consider, approve and implement bell schedule changes. Thus, this in‐depth examination of those school districts that have been successful in changing their bell schedules is intended to support the efforts of other districts in various stages of contemplating this measure. We utilized a multi‐pronged approach (literature review, case studies, telephone interviews, online survey) to summarize the experiences of school districts across the United States in regard to challenges faced, strategies employed, and lessons learned in the hope that this information will be a useful tool for other school districts looking to chart a course forward to promote the health, safety, and academic opportunities of their students.     

Using computer-assisted instruction to enhance achievement of English language learners

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) in English-Language environments offer practice time, motivates students, enhance student learning, increase authentic materials that students can study, and has the potential to encourage teamwork between students. The findings from this particular study suggested that students who used computer assisted program had a greater chance of closing achievement gap and meeting NCLB requirements than those students who did not use computer-assisted instruction. Additionally, the students that used computer-assisted classroom instruction gained scores in reading and math. Based on these findings, teachers, school administrators, and other educational stakeholder should explore strategies for technology integration to close the achievement gap.     

中学图书馆怎样为学生课外阅读打造优质平台——以青田中学图书馆为例

课外阅读能使学生丰富知识,增长见识,提高修养,学校图书馆能为学生的课外阅读积极提供平台。作为中学图书馆,要为学生课外阅读提供优质服务,应做好三方面工作：阵地建设是基础,方法指导是关键,活动组织是手段。     

Middle School Students Need More Opportunities to Read Across the Curriculum

Independent reading in the content areas is essential for advancing students’ literacy growth through the grades. Middle school students, in particular, profit from opportunities to engage in actual reading and, simultaneously, to be supported from an appropriate structure. Specifically, they need substantial time to read, frequent immersion in a variety of texts, easy access to balanced classroom libraries to support in-school and at-home reading, active participation in drama-based activities, and interesting contexts for learning word meanings. These and other sources of support increase the effectiveness of independent reading across the curriculum by helping middle school students not only improve their reading, but also enjoy reading as a lifetime activity.     

Intervening with Struggling Readers in Seventh Grade: Impact Evidence from Six School Districts

Abstract

This study uses a regression discontinuity design to evaluate the impact of seventh-grade interventions delivered by 25 schools on the reading and school engagement outcomes of struggling readers. Students in participating schools were assigned to intervention (n?=?1,495) or comparison (n?=?4,397) conditions, based on their state reading performance and reading fluency scores in sixth grade. On the state reading test, intervention impact favoring the treatment group approached, but did not reach, statistical significance (p?=?.056, g?=?.15). On a measure of reading fluency, there was a significant interaction between the cut points schools chose for condition assignment and intervention impact (p?=?.015). In schools that chose a lower cut point, intervention students outperformed comparison students, while in schools that chose a higher cut point, comparison students outperformed intervention students. On a student self-report measure of school engagement, no significant differences between the intervention and comparison groups were observed (p?=?.83, g?=?.02). Implications for rigorous evaluation of interventions implemented by districts and schools under naturalistic conditions are discussed.     

Principal Hiring Practices: Toward a Reduction of Uncertainty

Teachers, parents, and librarians are constantly looking for methods and materials that engage students as readers and motivate them to increase the time they spend reading. In this article we describe findings from a study of middle schoolers’ magazine reading habits that gave us a close look at the power of magazines as supplemental supports for struggling and reluctant readers as well as the specific reasons students gravitate toward magazines for leisure reading. We provide suggestions for the ways in which classroom teachers can leverage student interest in magazine reading to increase independent reading in school, and validate students’ out of school literacies.     

Development of low-stakes mathematics and literacy test scores during lower secondary school – A multilevel pattern-centered analysis of student and classroom differences

The development of students’ learning and test-taking behavior may derive from the social context and the group of peers they associate with daily for years. Consequently, it is assumed that students’ academic achievements are to some degree affected by their classmates and the composition of the classroom. The present study provides evidence on how Finnish students (N = 5071) from different classrooms (N = 435) develop distinct patterns regarding their mathematics and literacy achievement during lower secondary school. We analysed longitudinal large-scale educational assessment data using a multilevel latent profile analysis (MLPA) to investigate the impact of classroom effect on students’ achievement patterns, that is, on the development of students’ low-stakes mathematics and literacy test scores from 7th to 9th grade. The results demonstrated the added value of modelling the multilevel structure inherent in educational assessment data: we identified four student achievement patterns that displayed different distributions across the school classes. More precisely, besides individual characteristics, the development of students’ low-stakes mathematics and literacy test scores was associated with class-level factors and some of the classrooms seemed to have a stronger effect on students’ test scores. These results suggest that classroom context is associated with students’ achievement patterns, especially regarding the worst achieving students. The findings may reflect a combination of class placement practices as well as classroom and peer effect. Although the differences between Finnish schools have been one of the lowest in the OECD countries, the findings of the present study suggest that the classroom membership may create class level quality differences in both the preconditions and the development of learning.     

Social capital and student learning: Empirical results from Latin American primary schools

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between social capital and student math and language achievement and the probability of promotion, using data gathered from fourth grade classrooms in public schools in four Latin American cities. The results suggest that social capital among teachers in a school, between teacher and students, and among the students in a classroom contribute significantly to learning achievement and the probability of promotion. Furthermore, social capital between the students matters at least as much as the teacher's social capital. Children learn from each other and the networks allowing that to happen can be very important. The current pressure on teachers to achieve results on reading and math scores has tended to push teachers to “teach to the test”. Ironically, this study's results indicate that spending time in creating social capital within the classroom environment is associated with higher language and math test scores.     

Governing for Results on a Postcollective Bargaining Wisconsin School Board

The popular narrative of Wisconsin’s collective bargaining battle started out being about money. Should public employees pay more toward their healthcare? Can school districts offset state aid cuts using the additional revenue from employee healthcare contributions? Does collective bargaining have a cost? This article gives an overview of Wisconsin school boards, explains exactly how Act 10 increased their power, demonstrates why and how improved school board governance can have an impact on student achievement, reviews the changes Wisconsin school boards are making because of Act 10, and provides policy recommendations to improve both board governance behaviors, and the quality of policies enacted by school boards in the postcollective bargaining era.