School choice: The issues and the options

Conclusion I would like to close with a plea for more research on the effects of competition and choice on the functioning of the education system. Despite the large proportion of national budgets devoted to education, the issue is only very rarely addressed. One important exception to this rule is Hoxby (1994). This paper uses instrumental variable econometric techniques to determine the independent effect of the existence of choice among public schools on per-pupil expenditure, educational productivity, average student performance, student educational attainment and post-graduation wages.Hoxby found strong evidence that increased parental choice availability led to improvement on each of these measures of educational performance. Hoxby also found that the existence of choice among public schools leads to more mixing of students by social class, race and ethnicity. This mixing, she found, did not hurt the scholastic performance of any group, but improved the performance of several groups, including white non-Hispanic males, and students of parents with at least a high school degree.Original language: EnglishHe has jointly authoredDemocracy and market: participation, accountability and efficiency (with Samuel Bowles and Bo Gustafsson, 1993). He is editor ofMacroeconomic policy after the conservative era: studies in investment, savings and finance (1995) and has written numerous journal articles. He is currently co-chair with Paul Romer of the MacArthur Foundation research project on The human side of economic analysis: economic environments and the evolution of norms and preferences.     

“Doing the Math”: Maternal Beliefs About Early Mathematics Versus Language Learning

Research Findings: Little is known about how parents approach preschoolers' mathematics learning and how this aligns with early mathematics education research and policy. This study examined these questions by contrasting parents' approaches to early mathematics and language and by exploring key themes in parents' talk about mathematics learning and education. Consistent with current research and policy, parents reported helping preschoolers learn mathematics and attempting to connect this learning to children's interests and everyday experiences. However, parents admitted to lacking goals for and knowledge about early mathematics. In addition, compared to language, parents reported that mathematics was taught less often at home, should be emphasized less in preschools, was less interesting to preschoolers, required more direct instruction, and was less of a personal interest and strength. Practice or Policy: Parent interventions could capitalize on parents' beliefs and practices by providing parents with concrete examples of what mathematics preschoolers learn through daily activities, how to maximize children's mathematics interests, and what the similarities are between early mathematics and language. These efforts will also need to help parents overcome their mathematics anxieties and show parents why early mathematics education is important. Similar strategies could be used to help early childhood teachers improve their mathematics practice.     

A modern everyman

In modern tragedy, there is often a similarity between the form of the play and the typical form of the English morality drama. This similarity is typified in Arthur Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN which bears a distinct resemblance to the major English Morality drama, EVERYMAN.     

IDEALS AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR THE COMING WORLD ORDER∗

This article brings to bear on our understanding of learning many insights from the field of psychology

     

Confirmatory factor analysis models of factorial invariance: A multifaceted approach

Typical confirmatory factor analysis studies of factorial invariance test parameter (factor loadings, factor variances/covariances, and uniquenesses) invariance across only two groups (e.g., males and females) or, perhaps, across more than two groups reflecting different levels of a single design facet (e.g., age). The present investigation extends this approach by considering invariance across groups from a two‐facet design. Data consist of multiple dimensions of self‐concept collected from eight groups of students (total N = 4,000) representing a 2 (Gender) × 4 (Age) design. The gender‐stereotypic model posits a particular pattern of gender differences in structure that varies with age. Adopting analysis‐of‐variance terminology, the model posits that structural differences will vary as a function of gender but that this gender effect interacts with age. In testing this model, I consider the lack of invariance in different sets of parameters attributable to gender, age, and their interaction.