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Articles 1 - 30 of 37
Full-Text Articles in Education
Arkansas Teacher Salaries, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Teacher Salaries, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Policy Briefs
This brief examines teacher salaries in Arkansas. Using data publicly available from the Arkansas Department of Education, we examine how teacher salaries compare to the nation and surrounding states. Further analyses examine differences in teacher salary within and between the regions of Arkansas. We identify the district factors most related to and make recommendations for utilizing this information.
Comprehensive Analysis Of Arkansas Teacher Salaries: State, Region, And District, Katherine M. Kopotic, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Comprehensive Analysis Of Arkansas Teacher Salaries: State, Region, And District, Katherine M. Kopotic, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
School funding has been an area of contention in the courts of nearly every state. Many of these court cases have challenged the constitutionality of state funding formulas, arguing the funding system was inadequate or inequitable because poor urban or rural districts often faced a disadvantage in garnering tax dollars for education. Specific to Arkansas, in the 1983 decision Dupree v. Alma School District, the Arkansas Supreme Court declared the state’s funding system was not meeting its constitutional requirements.
Gender Gaps In Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability And College Stem Education: The Role Of Parental Occupation, Lina Anaya, Frank P. Stafford, Gema Zamarro
Gender Gaps In Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability And College Stem Education: The Role Of Parental Occupation, Lina Anaya, Frank P. Stafford, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Employment opportunities in occupations related to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, the so-called STEM fields, are predicted to continue growing through time. In addition, STEM occupations also enjoy higher wages on average. Despite these advantages, women remain under-represented in STEM college degree completion and occupations. Encouraging women into the STEM fields has become an important policy concern. We use longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study gender differences in math achievement and self-perceived math ability and how they may differ by parental occupation type, specifically science related versus non-science related parental occupations. We then study their …
Does Private Islamic Schooling Promote Terrorism? An Analysis Of The Educational Background Of Successful American Homegrown Terrorists, M. Danish Shakeel, Patrick Wolf
Does Private Islamic Schooling Promote Terrorism? An Analysis Of The Educational Background Of Successful American Homegrown Terrorists, M. Danish Shakeel, Patrick Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Some commentators argue that private religious schools are less likely to inculcate the attributes of good citizenship than traditional public schools, specifically proposing that private Islamic schools are relatively more likely to produce individuals sympathetic to terrorism. This study offers a preliminary examination of the question by studying the educational backgrounds of Western educated terrorists. While data are limited, in accord with prior work findings indicate the vast majority of both Islamic and reactionary terrorists attended traditional public schools and had no religious education; hence findings suggest that early religious training and identification may actually encourage prosocial behavior.
Alternative Measures Of Non-Cognitive Skills And Their Effect On Retirement Preparation And Financial Capability, Gema Zamarro
Alternative Measures Of Non-Cognitive Skills And Their Effect On Retirement Preparation And Financial Capability, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Social science, more than ever, is drawing upon the insights of personality psychology. Though researchers now know that non-cognitive skills and personality traits, such as conscientiousness, grit, self-control, or a growth mindset could be important for life outcomes, they struggle to find reliable measures of these skills. Self-reports are often used for analysis but these measures have been found to be affected by important biases. We study the validity of innovative more robust measures of non-cognitive skills based on performance tasks. Our first proposed measure is an adaptation, for the adult population, of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT) developed and …
Silencing The Seventh Trumpet: Analyzing The Effect Of Private Schooling On Voting Behavior, Ian Kingsbury
Silencing The Seventh Trumpet: Analyzing The Effect Of Private Schooling On Voting Behavior, Ian Kingsbury
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The United States has one of the lowest election turnout rates in the developed world. Consequently, social scientists are perpetually seeking to expand upon their knowledge of what factors are associated with voting, or the lack thereof. Commonly identified factors including age, income, educational attainment and race have been studied extensively. However, there is one plausible factor associated with voting that might be underappreciated: the effect of private schooling. The limited literature that exists on the topic suggests that private schools, the majority of them Catholic, have a positive effect on civic outcomes, including voter participation. In using a rich, …
Cross-Subsidization Of Teacher Pension Costs: The Impact Of Assumed Market Returns, Robert M. Costrell, Josh B. Mcgee
Cross-Subsidization Of Teacher Pension Costs: The Impact Of Assumed Market Returns, Robert M. Costrell, Josh B. Mcgee
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
It is well-known that public pension plans exhibit substantial cross-subsidies, both within cohorts, e.g. from early leavers to those who retire at the “sweet spot”, and across cohorts, through unfunded liabilities. However, the cross-subsidies within and across cohorts have never been provided in an integrated format. This paper provides such a framework, based on the gaps between normal cost rates for individuals and the uniform contribution rates for the cohort. Since the unfunded liabilities and associated cross-subsidies across cohorts derive from overly optimistic actuarial assumptions, we focus on the historically most important such assumption, the rate of return. We present …
Does Private Schooling Improve International Test Scores? Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Corey A. Deangelis
Does Private Schooling Improve International Test Scores? Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Corey A. Deangelis
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
I estimate the effect of private schooling on Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores of 62 countries across the globe from 2000 to 2012. I employ time and country-fixed effects regression models and also use the short-run demand for schooling within a country and year as an instrument for private share of schooling enrollment. I find evidence to suggest that increased private schooling leads to improved PISA scores around the world. Specifically, the model using control variables alongside country and year fixed effects finds that a one percentage point increase in the private share of schooling enrollment is associated …
What Leads To Successful School Choice Programs? A Review Of The Theories And Evidence, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson
What Leads To Successful School Choice Programs? A Review Of The Theories And Evidence, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
There is a large body of thorough research showing many positive benefits of school choice. However, many questions remain on how school choice works. Rigorous school choice experiments can only determine if access to school choice programs alters student outcomes; they cannot confidently identify the specific mechanisms that mediate various outcomes. Two commonly theorized mechanisms in school choice programs that lead to positive outcomes are (1) an increased access to higher-quality schools and (2) an improved match between schools and students. We examine the existing empirical evidence and the theoretical arguments for these two primary mechanisms. While there is evidence …
Does Regulation Induce Homogenization? An Analysis Of Three Voucher Programs In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Lindsey Burke
Does Regulation Induce Homogenization? An Analysis Of Three Voucher Programs In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Lindsey Burke
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
We employ school and year fixed-effects regression to determine the effect of voucher programs on the supply of private schools. In particular, we examine individual private schools in Washington, D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana as they transition into voucher program environments. We leverage the Private School Universe Survey to examine how schools self-identify before and after switching into voucher environments. We find that upon switching into school voucher programs, private schools in more heavily regulated programs are more likely to identify as less specialized than they were prior to entering the program, and that those schools in more lightly regulated environments …
The Play’S The Thing: Experimentally Examining The Social And Cognitive Effects Of School Field Trips To Live Theater Performances, Jay P. Greene, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Angela R. Watson, Molly I. Beck
The Play’S The Thing: Experimentally Examining The Social And Cognitive Effects Of School Field Trips To Live Theater Performances, Jay P. Greene, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Angela R. Watson, Molly I. Beck
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Field trips to see theater performances are a long-standing educational practice, however, there is little systematic evidence demonstrating educational benefits. This article describes the results of five random assignment experiments spanning two years where school groups were assigned by lottery to attend a live theater performance, or for some groups, watch a movie-version of the same story. We find significant educational benefits from seeing live theater, including higher levels of tolerance, social perspective taking, and stronger command of the plot and vocabulary of those plays. Students randomly assigned to watch a movie did not experience these benefits. Our findings also …
2016 Northwest Arkansas Education Report Card, Sarah Mckenzie, Gary Ritter
2016 Northwest Arkansas Education Report Card, Sarah Mckenzie, Gary Ritter
Education Report Card
This report card presents a regional overview of districts in Benton and Washington counties as well as key performance indicators for each of the 15 traditional public school districts and 5 public charter schools.
You Can’T Always Get What You Want: Using “Broken Lotteries” To Check The Validity Of Charter School Evaluations Using Matching Designs, Leesa M. Foreman, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Patrick J. Wolf
You Can’T Always Get What You Want: Using “Broken Lotteries” To Check The Validity Of Charter School Evaluations Using Matching Designs, Leesa M. Foreman, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Patrick J. Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
We consider situations in which public charter school lotteries are neither universally conducted nor consistently documented. Such lotteries produce “broken” Randomized Control Trials, but provide opportunities to assess the internal validity of quasi-experimental research designs. Here, we present the results of a statewide charter school evaluation using a broad-based student matching evaluation design, and run two additional analyses using the charter application wait-lists as robustness checks. Our additional models, which address concerns of self-selection by using only charter applicants as matched comparison students, yield similar effect estimates and thus provide support for the use of matching designs in charter school …
Educational Attainment Effects Of Public And Private School Choice, Leesa M. Foreman
Educational Attainment Effects Of Public And Private School Choice, Leesa M. Foreman
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
The two fastest growing school choice options are charter schools and private school voucher programs (independently, as tax credit scholarships, and as part of educational savings accounts). Most of the research assessing the effects of these programs focuses on student achievement. I review the literature to determine the impact public and private school choice programs are having on high school completion, college enrollment, and college persistence which, ultimately, may be different and of greater consequence than test scores. Furthermore, as educational attainment affects earnings and other life outcomes, those findings are reported when available. In sum, of the 12 studies …
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Growth Arkansas Schools, 2017, Charlene A. Reid, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High-Growth Arkansas Schools, 2017, Charlene A. Reid, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights [middle] schools across the state whose students demonstrated high growth on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades [5] through [8] in April 2017 in Math and ELA courses which include English, Writing, and Reading. Each table in this section presents the Top 20 schools for the noted subject area and school level. In addition, these tables include the region in which the schools are located, the grades served at the school, the weighted achievement score, and the content growth score in that particular subject. The level of the schools, …
The Wisconsin Role In The School Choice Movement, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf
The Wisconsin Role In The School Choice Movement, John F. Witte, Patrick J. Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson led a Midwestern policy revolution in the late 1980s and early 1990s centered on providing parents with more school choices. Since those early years, school choice in the forms of private school vouchers, public charter schools, and public school open enrollment have spread across almost all of the country. Longitudinal evaluations of the effects of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the voucher program initiated by Governor Thompson, indicate that student achievement outcomes were not consistently affected by vouchers but other vital student outcomes, including educational attainment, civic values, criminal proclivities as well as parent and …
School Discipline In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
School Discipline In Arkansas, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Policy Briefs
This brief examines school discipline practices and outcomes in Arkansas. Using data publicly available from the Arkansas Department of Education, we examine state-wide discipline trends, summarize the analysis on school-level data demonstrating disparities in student discipline, and make recommendations for utilizing this information.
Understanding A Vicious Cycle: Do Out-Of-School Suspensions Impact Student Test Scores?, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Gema Zamarro
Understanding A Vicious Cycle: Do Out-Of-School Suspensions Impact Student Test Scores?, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Gary W. Ritter, Gema Zamarro
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
A vast body of research has proven the correlation between exclusionary discipline (out-of-school suspensions and expulsions) and student outcomes such as lower test scores, dropout, grade retention, and involvement in the juvenile justice system, but there is no consensus on the causal impacts of exclusionary discipline. This study uses six years of de-identified demographic, achievement, and disciplinary data from all K-12 public schools in Arkansas to estimate the causal relationship. We conduct dynamic panel data models incorporating student fixed effects using Anderson-Hsiao (1981) estimation. We find, counter-intuitively, a null to positive impact of out-of-school suspensions on test scores. Therefore, while …
2016 Arkansas Education Report Card, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary Ritter
2016 Arkansas Education Report Card, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary Ritter
Education Report Card
In addition to performance on annual assessments, we present information on the state’s student growth on these assessments, as well as high school graduation rates, school discipline, National Board Certified Teachers, and school finance. The data are intended to provide a snapshot of K-12 education in our state.
Examining The Impacts Of Middle School Disciplinary Policies On 9th Grade Retention, Elise Swanson, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter
Examining The Impacts Of Middle School Disciplinary Policies On 9th Grade Retention, Elise Swanson, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
In this paper we estimate the impact of exclusionary discipline given in 8th grade on the probability of 9th grade retention. We use a rich seven year, student level, panel dataset from Arkansas. We use a novel approach by limiting our sample to students who switch schools between 8th and 9th grade. This movement gives each student a fresh start, and removes the potential confound of a student’s reputation as a “problem student” that could influence teachers to be harsher on students who already have a disciplinary record. We find that students who receive exclusionary discipline in 8th grade are …
Evaluating School Vouchers: Evidence From A Within-Study Comparison, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Patrick J. Wolf
Evaluating School Vouchers: Evidence From A Within-Study Comparison, Kaitlin P. Anderson, Patrick J. Wolf
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are the “gold-standard” for estimating causal impacts of educational programs. Students subject to lotteries, however, often are not representative of the broader population of students experiencing the educational treatment. With few exceptions, researchers are not able to determine how much selection bias exists when various quasi-experimental approaches are used in place of experimental ones within a school choice context. We are left wondering about the magnitude of the internal-for-external validity tradeoff that education researchers often face. This study assesses the extent to which methods such as propensity score matching or observational models with control variables can …
Do School Discipline Policies Treat Students Fairly? A Second Look At School Discipline Rate Disparities, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter
Do School Discipline Policies Treat Students Fairly? A Second Look At School Discipline Rate Disparities, Kaitlin Anderson, Gary W. Ritter
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Much work has documented that African-American students are more likely to receive expulsions and suspensions than their white peers. These disparities are troubling, but researchers and policymakers need more information to fully understand this issue. We use three years of student level discipline data for an entire state to assess whether non-white students are receiving different disciplinary consequences from their white peers in the same schools, for similar infractions and with similar behavioral history. We find that Black students received more severe (longer) punishments than their White peers in the state for the same types of infractions. These differences are …
National Board Certified Teacher Incentive Bonuses: Senate Bill 555, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
National Board Certified Teacher Incentive Bonuses: Senate Bill 555, Sarah C. Mckenzie, Gary W. Ritter
Policy Briefs
National Board Certification is a voluntary process that, according to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, certifies that they “have developed and demonstrated the advanced knowledge, skills, and practices required of an outstanding educator.” Currently, National Board Certified (NBC) teachers in an Arkansas public school receive an annual bonus of $5,000 for up to 10 years. In this brief, we examine NBC in Arkansas and Senate Bill 555, which proposes the modification and enhancement of NBC incentive bonuses for teachers receiving certification after January 2018.
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights high-achieving schools across Arkansas based on the ACT Aspire examinations in Math, English Language Arts (ELA) and Science for the 20115-16 academic year. For these awards, we consider schools that serve free or reduced lunch to at least 66% of the student body.
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights high-achieving schools across Arkansas based on the ACT Aspire Math, ELA and Science examinations for the 2015-16 academic year. These are the schools that serve primarily 9th through 12th graders.
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights high-performing Middle schools across the state based on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire examinations in Math, Reading, Writing, English and Science were administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2016.
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights high-achieving junior high schools across Arkansas based on the ACT Aspire Math, ELA (which includes Reading, Writing and English exams) and Science examinations of the 2015-16 academic year.
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Outstanding Educational Performance Awards: Highlighting High Achieving Arkansas Schools, 2016, Charlene A. Reid, Gary W. Ritter
Arkansas Education Reports
This section highlights high-performing elementary schools across the state based on the Arkansas ACT Aspire exams. The ACT Aspire was administered to students in grades 3 through 10 in April 2016 in Math, ELA courses (which includes English, Writing and Reading) and Science.
Is Pre-Kindergarten An Educational Panacea? A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Scaled-Up Pre-Kindergarten In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter
Is Pre-Kindergarten An Educational Panacea? A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Scaled-Up Pre-Kindergarten In The United States, Corey A. Deangelis, Heidi Holmes Erickson, Gary W. Ritter
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
We synthesize the existing research and compute meta-analytic averages for the effects of scaled-up, publicly funded pre-kindergarten (pre-K) programs on student pre-kindergarten achievement in math and reading. Other systematic reviews of pre-K programs have focused on the effects for specific groups of students from various types of pre-K programs. We add to the literature by focusing on scaled-up pre-K often provided at the state level, which is of growing policy interest. Scaled-up programs are large state or district run programs that are available to a large portion of children before they enter kindergarten. We limit our analysis to state and …
More Graduates, Less Criminals? The Economic Impacts Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Will Flanders, Corey A. Deangelis
More Graduates, Less Criminals? The Economic Impacts Of The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, Will Flanders, Corey A. Deangelis
Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications
Although an abundance of research indicates that private schooling can benefit individual children through higher test scores, the effects on society are less clear. We monetize and forecast the social impacts of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) in the United States. We use existing literature on the impacts of the MPCP on criminal activity and graduation rates. Between 2016 and 2035, students who use a voucher in the MPCP will generate additional economic benefits of $473 million associated with higher graduation rates, and $26 million associated with fewer felonies and misdemeanors, relative to their traditional public school peers.