Education Commons^™

Examining Inequities In Teacher Pension Benefits, James V. Shuls

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

From funding to teacher quality, inequities exist between school districts. This paper adds to the literature on inequities by examining the impact of pension plan formulas on pension benefits. Using data from the salary schedules of 464 Missouri school districts, this paper analyzes how various final average salary calculations would impact the benefits of teachers in different districts. All of the schools in this analysis belong to Missouri’s Public Employee Retirement System, which is a defined-benefit pension plan. A teacher’s benefit in this plan is based on her years of experience and her final average salary. The system uses a …

An Exploration Of Performance-Based Funding At Four-Year Public Colleges In The North Central Association Of Colleges And Schools, Samuel Fincher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Performance-based funding has been used to help alleviate state and public calls for higher education accountability and more states have adopted this type of funding model (Tandberg & Hillman, 2014; Dougherty, Natow, & Vega, 2012). The purpose of this study was to explore performance-based funding and examine the relationship between types of funding and performance indicators in the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (NCA). The state funding trends were examined for all of the states in the NCA. The correlations for state funding and four performance outcomes for all four-year higher education institutions were compared for three states …

Examining Employability As Associated With Ic3, Mos, And Aca Certifications, Kelley Leigh Todd

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Forrier and Sels (2003) define employability as “an individual’s chance of a job on the internal and/or external labor market” (p. 106) and is important (Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010). Possessing an industry certification may be considered an example of human capital skill. The human capital theory suggests qualifications, knowledge, skills, and experience of individuals may lead to increased earnings or productivity (Becker, 1993; Rosen, 1987; Schultz, 1971). As such, the human capital theory provides a framework for studying perceived employability (Wittekind, Raeder, & Grote, 2010; Verhaar & Smulders, 1999) as associated with IC3, MOS, and ACA industry certifications.

Randall …

A Comparison Of Academic Performance And Persistence Of Incoming Freshman Participants In A First-Year Experience Program, David Lee Stevens

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to compare first-time, full-time incoming freshmen from 2008 to 2011 who participated in an extended orientation, first-year experience (FYE) program at the University of Arkansas Fort Smith known as Cub Camp with incoming freshman from the same time period who did not participate. The study was designed to identify possible significant differences in the persistence rates and the academic performance of these two groups.

The study utilized a series of two proportion z-tests and two tailed t-test to compare persistence and academic performance data for the two groups. The two groups were further compared …

National Assessment Of Educational Progress (Naep) Results For 2015, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The National Center for Education Statistics has released this year’s NAEP results which measure nationwide student performance in 4th and 8th grade Reading and Math. NAEP is administered nationally to a representative sample of students from all 50 states, so acts as a standard measure of student performance across states and time. This policy brief will examine Arkansas’ 2015 results and consider possible causes and implications.

Education Funding Equity In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Thanks to the landmark Lake View case, Arkansas has doubled-down on its commitment to ensuring an equitable education to all students. This brief examines the equity of current education spending in Arkansas.

Education Funding Adequacy In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

Over the past decade and a half, Arkansas has made enormous strides in ensuring that every child in the state is has access to a quality learning experience. This brief examines the adequacy of current education spending in Arkansas

The State Of Education In Arkansas 2015 – How Much Are Arkansas’ Schools Spending?, Elise Swanson, Gary W. Ritter, Sarah C. Mckenzie

Arkansas Education Reports

When considering the quality of an education system, it is important to understand the resources available to students. Without proper resources, schools are unable to provide a quality educational experience, and students leave school unprepared to be fulfilled, productive members of society. School funding is therefore an important, and often controversial, topic in education policy. Arkansas’ public education system first ran into constitutional trouble over school funding in 1983 when the Supreme Court decided in Dupree v. Alma that the school funding formula was unconstitutional because it was based on valuations of the local tax base, not on the needs …

The Effect Of Public And Private Schooling On Anti-Semitism, Jay P. Greene, Cari A. Bogulski

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Most major American Jewish organizations oppose voucher and other school choice programs based in part on the fear that private, mostly religious, schools do not check the development of anti-Semitism as well as do government-operated public schools. To examine whether private and public schools differ in their effect on the emergence of anti-Semitic attitudes in adults later in life, we conducted a large survey of a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States. Subjects were asked to provide details on the type of school they attended each year between 1st and 12th grade, including whether the school was …

When You Say Nothing At All: The Predictive Power Of Student Effort On Surveys, Collin Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Character traits and noncognitive skills are important for human capital development and longrun life outcomes. Research in economics and psychology now shows this clearly. But research into the exact determinants of noncognitive skills have been slowed by a common data limitation: most large-scale datasets do not contain adequate measures of noncognitive skills. This is a particularly acute problem in education policy evaluation. We demonstrate that there are important latent data within any survey dataset that can be used as proxy measures of noncognitive skills. Specifically, we examine the amount of conscientious effort that students exhibit on surveys, as measured by …

Second Year Results From Razor C.O.A.C.H., Sarah Moore, Josh Raney, Gary W. Ritter, Kristin K. Higgins

Arkansas Education Reports

In this paper, we present the results of a random assignment evaluation on the Razor C.O.A.C.H. (Creating Opportunities for Arkansan’s Career Hopes) program. As the program started in the 2012-13 school year, this evaluation analyzes the impact of the program in its second year of operation and includes two cohorts of students. The focus of the comprehensive evaluation is the impacts of the program on students’ academic outcomes, short-term noncognitive outcomes, short-term college and career readiness outcomes, and post-secondary outcomes.

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2015, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these “top 25 lists” will contain more than 25 schools as some schools’ GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

Science exams were only administered in grades 5, 7, and to students completing Biology. There are very different performance patterns by grade: Fifth …

Discipline Disproportionalities In Schools: The Relationship Between Student Characteristics And School Disciplinary Outcomes, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

According to a 2014 report from the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, black students represent only 15% of students across the nation, but 35% of students suspended once are black, 44% of students suspended more than once are black, and 36% of expelled students are black. These disparate disciplinary aggregate outcomes, while troubling, do not provide as much information as policymakers need. In this study, we exploit three years of student-level discipline data from Arkansas to assess the extent to which black students or other minority students were more likely to receive certain types of punishments, even …

Effects Of Dual-Language Immersion On Students’ Academic Performance, Jennifer L. Steele, Robert O. Slater, Gema Zamarro, Trey Miller, Jennifer Li, Susan Burkhauser, Michael Bacon

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Using data from seven cohorts of language immersion lottery applicants in a large, urban school district, we estimate the causal effects of immersion on students’ test scores in reading, mathematics, and science, and on English learners’ (EL) reclassification. We estimate positive intent-to-treat (ITT) effects on reading performance in fifth and eighth grades, ranging from 13 to 22 percent of a standard deviation, reflecting 7 to 9 months of learning. We find little benefit in terms of mathematics and science performance, but also no detriment. By sixth and seventh grade, lottery winners’ probabilities of remaining classified as EL are three to …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2015, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these “top 25 lists” will contain more than 25 schools as some schools’ GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

Science exams were only administered in grades 5, 7, and to students completing Biology. There are very different performance patterns by grade: Fifth …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2015, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these “top 25 lists” will contain more than 25 schools as some schools’ GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

Science exams were only administered in grades 5, 7, and to students completing Biology. There are very different performance patterns by grade: Fifth …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2015, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these “top 25 lists” will contain more than 25 schools as some schools’ GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

Science exams were only administered in grades 5, 7, and to students completing Biology. There are very different performance patterns by grade: Fifth …

Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2015, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter

Arkansas Education Reports

In this report, we are presenting a list of the top 25 schools in each area. In some cases, these “top 25 lists” will contain more than 25 schools as some schools’ GPA scores will be identical. This is not a new phenomenon, as we also exceeded 25 schools in previous reports when using the percent proficient and advanced metric as an indicator for student achievement; however, there are fewer ties using the more precise GPA measure.

Science exams were only administered in grades 5, 7, and to students completing Biology. There are very different performance patterns by grade: Fifth …

Arkansas Science Benchmark, Eoc Biology And Itbs Test Results 2014-15, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

The Arkansas Department of Education (ADE) has released the 2014-15 Benchmark Science and ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) results. PARCC results of Literacy and Math will be released later this fall. The following brief highlights the results of these tests, compares achievement scores over time, and provides a glimpse of regional achievement results for the following exams:  Benchmark Science Exam (Grades 5 and 7)  End-of-Course Biology Exam  Iowa Test of Basic Skills (Grades 1 and 2)

Falling Below The Line: Minimum Subgroup Size And Special Education Enrollment, Sivan Tuchman

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) brought high-stakes accountability testing into every American public school with the goal of 100 percent proficiency for all students. Making annual yearly progress (AYP) toward this proficiency goal for the total student population as well as at-risk subgroups was required in order for schools to avoid possible sanctions, such as school restructuring. In implementing NCLB, states had flexibility to determine the minimum size of these subgroups as to provide statistical reliability and accountability for as many schools as possible. If a school did not meet the state’s minimum subgroup size, the …

Aspire In Arkansas?, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter

Policy Briefs

On June 22, 2015, Governor Hutchinson communicated with Johnny Key, State Commissioner of Education, his request for the state’s removal from PARCC by June 30th. This back and forth over student assessment has raised many questions for educators, students, and parents. This brief will review the history behind annual assessments, address the differences between PARCC and ACT/ACT Aspire, and suggest the scores Arkansas’ students would receive if ACT Aspire is administered next school year

No Excuses Charter Schools: A Meta-Analysis Of The Experimental Evidence On Student Achievement, Albert Cheng, Collin Hitt, Brian Kisida, Jonathan N. Mills

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

While charter schools differ widely in philosophy and pedagogical views, the United States’s most famous urban charter schools typically use the No Excuses approach. Enrolling mainly poor and minority students, these schools feature high academic standards, strict disciplinary codes, extended instructional time, and targeted supports for low-performing students. The strenuous and regimented style is controversial amongst some scholars, but others contend that the No Excuses approach is needed to rapidly close the achievement gap. We conduct the first meta-analysis of the achievement impacts of No Excuses charter schools. Focusing on experimental studies, we find that No Excuses charter schools significantly …

The Educational Benefits Of Cultural Institutions, Brian Kisida

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A significant portion of the education children receive occurs outside of the traditional classroom and produces outcomes not typically captured by standardized achievement tests. This dissertation is part of an effort to expand the educational venues and outcomes educational researchers rigorously examine. In particular, I present the key results from experimental studies of the effects of school tours to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR., and to the Museum of Discovery in Little Rock, AR.

Chapter 1 focuses on arts exposure and critical thinking outcomes. A problem for the arts’ role in education has been a …

The Effectiveness Of Cash Transfers As A Policy Instrument In K-16 Education, Jonathan Norman Mills

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cash transfers, defined as direct transfers of purchasing power from an institution or individual to another individual, are an increasingly popular policy instrument both abroad and in the United States. This dissertation investigates how two educational interventions utilizing cash transfers affect participating students. The first, the Louisiana Scholarship Program, is a statewide program offering publicly financed scholarships for low income students attending poorly performing public schools to attend K-12 private schools. The second program, the Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarship, is a state financed broad-based merit-aid scholarship for students in college within the state of Arkansas. In general, the results presented …

Differentiation Revealed: A Multiple-Methods Qualitative Study On The Implementation Of Differentiated Instruction In A Mixed-Ability Elementary Classroom, Curtis James Cunningham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Differentiated instruction as a philosophical approach to teaching has been around for decades. In recent weeks differentiation has come under fire as being an approach to teaching that is simply too difficult for teachers to implement. While teachers may attend a workshop or take a graduate class on the topic of differentiation and choose not to embrace the philosophy, there are also teachers who have successfully implemented differentiation. The argument against differentiation is based on the amount of effort required to simultaneously implement all components of differentiation.

To address these concerns the following question provided guidance for the present multi-method …

The Intergenerational Transmission Of Noncognitive Skills And Their Effect On Education And Employment Outcomes, Ildefonso Mendez, Gema Zamarro

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

We use information on second-generation migrants to study the existence of a cultural component on the formation process of noncognitive skills and its effect on education and employment outcomes. Our measures of noncognitive skills include: personality traits that children are encouraged to learn and civic capital. Individuals whose cultural heritage places a lower value on child qualities positively associated to the conscientiousness personality factor report lower education, worse occupational status and lower wages on average. Individuals with a higher inherited civic capital declare a higher educational level, but we find no effect of civic capital on adult labor market outcomes.

Non-Cognitive Abilities And Spanish Regional Differences In Student Performance In Pisa 2009, Ildefonso Mendez, Gema Zamarro, Jose G. Clavel, Collin Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The goal of this paper is to analyze the role that non-cognitive skills and, in particular, regional differences in those skills, play on the observed differences in 15-year-old student’s academic performance, across Spanish regions, on PISA 2009. Previous research has shown the relevance of differences in student’s personal, family and school characteristics in accounting for academic differences across Spanish regions but it has also found that a sizeable part of the observed differences remained unexplained. We have found that differences in the distribution of certain non-cognitive skills associated to academic performance like focus, perseverance and resilience play a prominent role …

How Can We Accurately Measure Whether Students Are Gaining Relevant Outcomes In Higher Education?, Tatiana Melguizo, Gema Zamarro, Tatiana Velasco, Fabio Sanchez

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

The main objective of this study is to empirically test a number of theory-based models (i.e. fixed effects (FE), random effects (RE), and aggregated residuals (AR)) to measure both, the generic knowledge as well as the degree attainment rates and early labor outcomes, gained by students in different programs and institutions in higher education. There are four main findings: First, the results of the paper confirm the need of using models that address the issue of student selection into programs and institutions in order to avoid biased estimates. Second, our findings provide suggestive evidence in favor of using FE models. …

Comparisons Of Student Perceptions Of Teacher's Performance In The Classroom: Using Parametric Anchoring Vignette Methods For Improving Comparability, Hana Vonkova, Gema Zamarro, Vera Deberg, Collin Hitt

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Self-reports are an indispensable source of information in education research but might be affected by reference group bias if the frame of reference (i.e. implicit standards), used to answer the questions, differs across students. The anchoring vignettes method was introduced, in other areas of social science, precisely to correct for this source of bias. However, studies that make use of this approach in education are rare and more research is needed to study its potential. This paper uses data from PISA 2012 to investigate the use of the parametric model of the anchoring vignettes method to correct for differential implicit …

Collective Bargaining And District Costs For Teacher Health Insurance: An Examination Of The Data From The Bls And Wisconsin, Robert M. Costrell

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

District costs for teachers’ health insurance are, on average, higher than employer costs for private-sector professionals. How much of this is attributable to collective bargaining? This paper examines the question using data from the National Compensation Survey (NCS) of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the state of Wisconsin. In addition, the impact of collective bargaining on employer costs is decomposed into the impact on total premiums and the employer’s share of those premiums. The BLS data show that unionization is associated with higher total premiums, higher employer costs, and lower employee contributions in both the public and private …