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Full-Text Articles in Education

Pulaski County Education Report Card 2021, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Josh B. Mcgee, Charlene Reid, Christine L. Magness Mar 2022

Pulaski County Education Report Card 2021, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Josh B. Mcgee, Charlene Reid, Christine L. Magness

Education Report Card

The goal of this report is to help parents, school personnel, community members, and policy makers understand how effectively the students in their community are being served by public schools. The past two years have been difficult for families, teachers, and students, and throughout the challenging context, Pulaski County students demonstrated lower growth in achievement on the ACT Aspire than students in the state overall, and are performing below the state average in achievement, graduation rates, and School Quality and Student Success scores. Acknowledging the unprecedented circumstances presented by the COVID virus, Arkansas schools were not assigned an overall letter …


Nwarkansas Education Report Card 2021, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Josh B. Mcgee, Charlene Reid, Christine L. Magness Mar 2022

Nwarkansas Education Report Card 2021, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Josh B. Mcgee, Charlene Reid, Christine L. Magness

Education Report Card

The goal of this report is to help parents, school personnel, community members, and policy makers understand how effectively the students in their community are being served by public schools. The past two years have been difficult for families, teachers, and students, but despite the challenging context, Northwest Arkansas students are demonstrating greater growth in achievement and earning higher scores on the ACT Aspire than are the students in the state overall. Schools in NWA also have received higher School Quality and Student Success scores and are graduating a greater percentage of high school students. Acknowledging the unprecedented circumstances presented …


Did Spending Cuts During The Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes To Decline?, Jessica Goldstein, Josh B. Mcgee Mar 2021

Did Spending Cuts During The Great Recession Really Cause Student Outcomes To Decline?, Jessica Goldstein, Josh B. Mcgee

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Jackson, Wigger, and Xiong (2020a, JWX) provide evidence that education spending reductions following the Great Recession had widespread negative impacts on student achievement and attainment. This paper describes our process of duplicating JWX and highlights a variety of tests we employ to investigate the nature and robustness of the relationship between school spending reductions and student outcomes. Though per-pupil expenditures undoubtedly shifted downward due to the Great Recession, contrary to JWX, our findings indicate there is not a clear and compelling story about the impact of those reductions on student achievement. Moreover, we find that the relationship between K-12 spending …


The Effect Of School District Consolidation On Student Achievement: Evidence From Arkansas, Josh B. Mcgee, Jonathan N. Mills, Jessica Goldstein Mar 2021

The Effect Of School District Consolidation On Student Achievement: Evidence From Arkansas, Josh B. Mcgee, Jonathan N. Mills, Jessica Goldstein

Arkansas Education Reports

School district consolidation is one of the most widespread education reforms of the last century, but surprisingly little research has directly investigated its effectiveness. To examine the impact of consolidation on student achievement, this study takes advantage of a policy that requires the consolidation of all Arkansas school districts with enrollment of fewer than 350 students for two consecutive school years. Using a regression discontinuity model, we find that consolidation has either null or small positive impacts on student achievement in math and English Language Arts (ELA). We do not find evidence that consolidation in Arkansas results in positive economies …


Heterogeneous Impacts Across Schools In The First Four Years Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program, Patrick J. Wolf Apr 2019

Heterogeneous Impacts Across Schools In The First Four Years Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a school voucher initiative that offers publicly- funded scholarships to students from economically-disadvantaged families to attend a participating private school of their choice. While school choice theory suggests that market- based reforms such as the LSP should improve student outcomes, experimental evaluations of the program instead find significant negative effects of the program on math and reading scores after its first year. Those effects diminish to insignificant differences by the end of the third year before becoming negative again in the fourth year. Our study builds on previous work with an exploratory analysis of …


The Effects Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On Student Achievement After Four Years, Jonathan Mills, Patrick J. Wolf Apr 2019

The Effects Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On Student Achievement After Four Years, Jonathan Mills, Patrick J. Wolf

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) offers publicly-funded vouchers to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line, allowing them to enroll in participating private schools. Established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. In this study, we estimate the achievement impacts of ever using an LSP voucher to enroll in one’s first-choice private school over the four year period spanning from 2012-13 (Year 1) through 2015-16 (Year 4). In contrast to our previous research, which indicated large initial negative achievement effects of the …


Characteristics And Behaviors Of School Board Members In "Grade A" Arkansas Public School Districts, Bridget Lynn Polk May 2017

Characteristics And Behaviors Of School Board Members In "Grade A" Arkansas Public School Districts, Bridget Lynn Polk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to describe characteristics and behaviors of school board members in Arkansas school districts where 50% or more of their campuses earned a letter grade of “A” on the 2014 Arkansas School Performance Report (Arkansas Department of Education [ADE], 2015). This purpose was achieved through analysis of artifacts from selected school districts including: achievement patterns; board minutes; and board member professional development records. A web-based survey of school board members was also utilized to gather demographic and background information. Finally, personal interviews were completed with a small group of board members to collect …


The Effects Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On Student Achievement After Two Years, Jonathan N. Mills Feb 2016

The Effects Of The Louisiana Scholarship Program On Student Achievement After Two Years, Jonathan N. Mills

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) is a statewide initiative offering publicly-funded vouchers to enroll in local private schools to students in low-performing schools with family income no greater than 250 percent of the poverty line. Initially established in 2008 as a pilot program in New Orleans, the LSP was expanded statewide in 2012. This paper examines the experimental effects of using an LSP scholarship to enroll in a private school on student achievement in the first two years following the program’s expansion. Our results indicate that the use of an LSP scholarship has negatively impacted both ELA and math achievement, …


Teachers' Sense Of Efficacy: Examining The Relationship Of Teacher Efficacy And Student Achievement, Nouf Abdullah Alrefaei May 2015

Teachers' Sense Of Efficacy: Examining The Relationship Of Teacher Efficacy And Student Achievement, Nouf Abdullah Alrefaei

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate which teachers’ characteristics have an impact on teachers’ sense of efficacy. In addition, the relationship between mathematics and science fifth grade teachers’ sense of efficacy and student achievement was examined. Two characteristics related to teachers were examined: teachers’ years of teaching experience and teachers’ highest degree. Participants included 62 mathematics and science teachers from three school districts in Northwest Arkansas. When comparing fifth grade mathematics and science teachers’ efficacy beliefs based on their highest degree, a significant difference in teachers’ efficacy beliefs was found based on their degrees. Teachers with a Bachelor …


Teacher Effectiveness In Urban High Schools, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro Aug 2009

Teacher Effectiveness In Urban High Schools, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect high school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in English Language Arts (ELA) or math. Similarly, teacher aptitude and subject-matter knowledge, as measured on state licensure tests, have no significant effects on student achievement. Achievement outcomes differ substantially from teacher to teacher, however, and the …


Teacher Qualifications And Middle School Student Achievement, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro Jun 2009

Teacher Qualifications And Middle School Student Achievement, Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher qualifications affect middle school student achievement. The results are based on longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles. The achievement analysis uses a value-added approach that adjusts for both student and teacher fixed effects. The results show little relationship between traditional measures of teacher quality (e.g., experience and education level) and student achievement in reading or math. Similarly, licensure test scores in general aptitude, subject-matter knowledge, and reading pedagogy had no significant effects on student achievement. Teachers with elementary school credentials had slightly better success in the classroom than did …


Supplemental Education Services In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter May 2006

Supplemental Education Services In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 gives eligible students who attend Title I schools not making adequate yearly progress (AYP) for at least three consecutive years the right to receive free supplemental education services, such as after-school tutoring. Under NCLB, states must provide a list of approved supplemental services providers to districts, who then, theoretically, provide the list to parents of eligible students prior to the start of the school year, so that they can choose the best provider for their children (U. S. Department of Education, 2005).


Comprehensive School Reform: A Proven School Improvement Method For Troubled Schools, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Apr 2006

Comprehensive School Reform: A Proven School Improvement Method For Troubled Schools, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

As legislators in Arkansas begin to consider options for spending both Title I and categorical funds and as school leaders in Arkansas look for proven options that will increase student performance, especially for low performing schools that serve low income students, comprehensive school reform (CSR) is one researchsupported option to consider.


Education Week’S Report On Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Jan 2005

Education Week’S Report On Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

As schools open their doors for the spring 2005 semester, many legislatures around the nation are meeting to discuss accountability standards, equity and adequacy issues, and the link between money and student performance. While the education issues of 2005 are not unique, in that they have been discussed for years, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) deadline for schools to begin performing at higher standards increases the urgency. In addition to the increased standards, state policymakers are facing difficult legal challenges to their school funding systems. In an attempt to gauge the status of the nation and each state, Education …


Understanding Adequate Yearly Progress, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter Sep 2004

Understanding Adequate Yearly Progress, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

No abstract provided.