Education Policy Commons^™

Site Visitation: School Leaders' Perceptions Of A Diagnostic Tool For School Improvement, Mary Shannon C. Chiasson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This case study explored the use of site-visitation as a diagnostic tool for school improvement. Nine charter schools in New Orleans were selected for the study. Based on qualitative research and systems theory, a within- and cross-case analysis of nine semi-structured interviews with school leaders were conducted. The school leaders’ experiences with the state-run site-visitation model and their use of the findings for school improvement was explored. The findings led to the development of a hybrid accountability model that encompasses the components school leaders believe will lead to school improvement. This study aims to assist educators, policy makers, and researchers …

Educational Effects Of State Actions Banning Access To In-State Resident Tuition Rates For Unauthorized Immigrant Students, Luis Alexander Villarraga Orjuela

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research studies the effects of state laws banning access to in-state resident tuition (ISRT) rates and other educational benefits for unauthorized immigrant students (UIS) in five states: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, and Ohio. It measures the overall effect of policies denying ISRT that were implemented between 2005-2012 in the United States.

Three potential effects are evaluated. First, the study estimates the policy effects on the college enrollment of UIS. Because the policy does not deny access to higher education institutions, the possibility exists for this population to attend public or private colleges. However, facing higher costs (i.e., out-of-state tuition) …

State Funding Decision-Making For Higher Education Institutions During Capital Campaigns, Everrett Alexander Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Public higher education has experienced a decline in state funding in real dollars. This has created financial challenges for many students and their families, as well as institutions.

Tax revenue has decreased as a result of the economic recession, causing state leaders to reprioritize their fiscal responsibilities. Higher education has been viewed as a discretionary expense in competition with other state programs, so funding can, and often, does vary. Colleges and universities use alternative financial resources, most notably private fundraising, to meet their goals. The study was conducted to identify college leaders' perceptions of state funding during their institution's mega-capital …

Swimming Against The Tide? Teaching In An Anti-Teacher Policy Environment, Sarah Hainds

Public Policy and Administration Lecture Series

Sarah Hainds is a researcher at the Chicago Teachers Union, where she focuses on equity issues in school planning and funding, fighting against school privatization, advocating for state policies that support strong public schools, and helping the public and politicians understand best practices in educational policy. Ms. Hainds holds a master’s in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a co-author of several CTU reports available at www.ctunet.com

Changing Times: Population Movements And Education Quality, Nicholas J. Cordonier

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research aims to examine the relationship between population change and college readiness in Nebraska. Nebraska as well as three counties: Box Butte County, Lancaster County, and Scotts Bluff County were used as locations for this study. The process for analyzing the relationship is done in three parts. First, data was collected from the Nebraska Department of Education about high school variables such as teacher characteristics and attendance rates. Next, U.S. Census Bureau data was used to create socio-economic standards for the various locations. Finally, the high school variables and socio-economic standards were compared to several college readiness indicators to …

What Can Pisa Tell Us About U.S. Education Policy?, Linda Darling-Hammond

New England Journal of Public Policy

Despite years of attention to “reform” in the United States, overall achievement on international assessments such as PISA has not improved during the period from 2000 to 2012. Reforms focused on high-stakes testing attached to sanctions, expansions of charter schools, and a market-based approach to teaching have been unsuccessful in changing outcomes. Meanwhile, growing childhood poverty, along with increasing segregation, income inequality, and disparities in school spending, have expanded the opportunity gap. Lessons from other nations and successful states indicate that systematic government investments in high-need schools along with capacity-building that improves the knowledge and skills of educators and the …

Interview With Andreas Schleicher, Padraig O'Malley, Andreas Schleicher

New England Journal of Public Policy

This interview took place on March 17, 2014, in Washington, DC, with Andreas Schleicher, Director of Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Schleicher is responsible for the Directorate of Education and Skills’ research, analysis, and publication of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), and the development and analysis of benchmarks on the performance of education systems. The OECD reports on PISA, PIAAC, and TALIS were released between December 3, …

Sustaining The Teaching Profession, Ronald Thorpe

New England Journal of Public Policy

Within the United States and across nations, there seems to be consensus that teacher quality is the most important school-based variable in determining how well a child learns. While such an observation hardly sounds like headline news, it is a milestone in the development of teaching as a profession. It suggests where investments should be made if people really are serious about student learning. It also explains why policymakers and the public should care about what it means to be an effective teacher and what it will take to create and sustain a teaching workforce defined by accomplished practice. Teachers, …

Poverty, Educational Achievement, And The Role Of The Courts, Michael A. Rebell

New England Journal of Public Policy

The large and growing proportion of U.S. students who come from poverty backgrounds explains this country’s relatively low performance on international achievement tests. These students need a broad range of comprehensive educational services if they are to have a meaningful opportunity to succeed in school. These opportunities include not only adequate resources for basic K–12 educational services but also parent engagement, health and other services, and additional early education, after-school, and summer programs. In most states, the schools attended by students with the greatest needs tend to receive the fewest resources because of the inequitable systems most states use for …

School Reform In Canada And Florida: A Study Of Contrast, Catherine S. Boehme

New England Journal of Public Policy

Alberta and Florida have instituted school reform initiatives over the past fifteen years in an effort to improve the quality of their schools. Alberta has focused on systemic improvement by engaging the community in educational needs assessment, raising the high standards of teacher preparation, and improving effective instructional practices through professional development. Florida’s efforts have concentrated on holding students, teachers, schools, and districts accountable for high-stakes testing results by increasing the number and rigor of required assessments and increasing the negative consequences for low achievement scores. The 2012 PISA scores reveal that Alberta’s students are maintaining their high rankings relative …

The Development And Design Of The Common Core State Standards For Mathematics, Jason Zimba

New England Journal of Public Policy

As one of the lead writers of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, I begin by explaining what the standards are, what they are not, and how they were developed. Then I detail some ways in which the standards differ from previous state standards. Finally, I describe some of the developments I have seen in the implementation of the standards and the key developments I would like to see in the future.

Getting To The Core And Evolving The Education Reform Movement To A System Of Continuous Improvement, Fernando M. Reimers, Eleonora Villegas-Reimers

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article places the most recent study of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) in historical perspective, reviewing the role of international comparisons in efforts to build public education systems as key institutions of democratic societies. It discusses the findings for the United States, examining differences with other participating countries. It also looks at a paradox. Despite the high priority education has received in the United States in the past two decades, the country underperformed in a number of indicators in the PISA in comparison with many other countries participating in the study. The authors explain the findings as the …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

On December 3, 2013, when the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) scores, the ranking of the United States as number 27 on the global scoreboard elicited little surprise among teachers, educational professionals, academics, and educational policymakers. The usual platitudes were trotted out—no mention that the United States’ standing was getting any worse, just which other countries were passing us by. We were stuck at a perennial average.

The results are in a sense a metaphor of the slow decline of the United State since the 1970s from a position of …

The National Commission On Education Excellence And Equity: Hypotheses About Movement Building, Christopher Edley Jr.

New England Journal of Public Policy

In 2013, the congressionally chartered national Commission on Education Equity and Excellence issued unanimous recommendations for P–12 policy changes at the federal, state, and local levels. This remarkably broad consensus, with unusual pragmatism and concreteness, is comprehensive in its scope and predominantly research based. As a clarion call and reform strategy, the commission report, For Each and Every Child, is a successor to A Nation at Risk (1983); the commission’s grand if not grandiose intention was to provide a framework for the next decade or more of nationwide policy struggle. This article, after briefly summarizing the recommendations, focuses on …

International Education Comparisons: How American Education Reform Is The New Status Quo, Randi Weingarten

New England Journal of Public Policy

The United States participates in international studies comparing school systems across the world. Reformers have largely ignored the lessons from these studies about what works best to educate children, and a strategy of test-based accountability has become the new status quo. This article analyzes the failed policy ideas reformers keep pushing on our schools that have been shown across the globe to be unsuccessful in the areas of school choice and competition, teacher quality and evaluation, an engaging curriculum, and equity. Research examines what top performing countries do to help students succeed, as well as what works in districts across …

Transforming Public Education: The Need For An Educational Justice Movement, Mark R. Warren

New England Journal of Public Policy

Nearly fifteen years after the passage of No Child Left Behind, the failures of our educational system with regard to low-income children of color remain profound. Traditional reform efforts have sought improvements solely within the confines of the school system, failing to realize how deeply educational failure is part of and linked to broader structures of poverty and racism. A social movement that creates political and cultural change is necessary to transform the racial inequities in public education itself and to connect this transformational effort to a larger movement to combat poverty and racism. The seeds of a new educational …

Massachusetts Schooling Matters: Good News, Contributing Factors, Challenges, Persistent Problems, Kathleen J. Skinner, Paul Toner

New England Journal of Public Policy

Massachusetts public schools have performed at the highest levels on national and international benchmarked reading, mathematics, and science assessments. The Commonwealth’s population demographics related to educational attainment, employment, and family income coupled with factors within the control of the state, districts, or schools, such as highly qualified and unionized teachers, average school-district size, defined time on learning, universal health care coverage for all children, state funding for pre-K–12 schooling, curriculum articulation through statewide standards, and high participation in college admissions exams, have contributed to academic success. Massachusetts schools, however, still face challenges in narrowing existing achievement gaps, reducing the emphasis …

Double Segregation, Julian Maxwell Hayter

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Opinion: On the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, how many of our youth are we willing to sacrifice at the altar of educational inequality?

School Spending Matters!, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

The Productivity Of Public Charter Schools, Patrick J. Wolf, Albert Cheng, Meagan Batdorf, Larry D. Maloney, Jay F. May, Sheree T. Speakman

School Choice Demonstration Project

This is the first national study of the productivity of public charter schools relative to district schools. This report is a follow up to the charter school revenue study, Charter School Funding: Inequity Expands, released in April 2014 by the School Choice Demonstration Project at the University of Arkansas. That study was authored by the same research team that crafted this report. In the revenue study, per pupil revenues for public charter schools and traditional public schools (TPS) were compared. The research team found that during the 2010-11 school year (FY11), charter-school students across 30 states and the District of …

The Final Verdict On Star?, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

The Graduation Rate Tragedy In New York State, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

The Impact Of Education Finance Reform On Student Achievement In Massachusetts, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Charter School Funding: Inequity Expands, Meagan Batdorf, Larry D. Maloney, Jay F. May, Sheree T. Speakman, Patrick J. Wolf, Albert Cheng

School Choice Demonstration Project

The revenue study is based on Fiscal Year 2010‒11 (FY11) data for each of 30 selected states plus the District of Columbia (D.C.). Traditional school districts and public charter schools were analyzed and aggregated “statewide.” For each state, one to three “focus areas” were selected based on larger concentrations of charter students – most focus areas are large cities, some are metropolitan counties. Traditional school districts and charter schools were analyzed separately in each focus area. The analytic team collected and analyzed all revenues, public and private, flowing to traditional district and public charter schools. FY11 funding includes Federal, State, …

Poverty And Proficiency In New York State, John Yinger

Center for Policy Research

It’s Elementary is a series of essays on topics in education and education policy. The main focus is on education finance in New York State, but general research findings in education and education policy issues in several other states are also discussed. John Yinger, Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University is the author of most of these essays, although a few are written by or co-authored with other scholars.

Cosee Ocean Inquiry Group Report: Opportunities For Creating Lifelong Ocean Science Literacy, Paul Boyle, Vince Breslin, Lisa Craig Brisson, John Fraser, Alan J. Friedman, Katie Gardner, Sarah Schoedinger, Jerry Schubel, Steve Uzzo, Steven Yalowitz

School for the Environment Publications

This Inquiry Group Report for the Centers for Ocean Sciences Education Excellence Ocean Communities in Education And Social Networks (COSEE OCEAN) provides a fresh look at how broader ocean science literacy can be developed, especially through less-recognized channels such as opportunistic learning, the private and “third” sectors, and the enormously varied activities under the heading of informal science education. The 10 authors of this report (see Contributors section) have been working together for two years to find and review a range of issues and resources for current and potential ocean science literacy providers, both professional and volunteer.

Several chapters provide …

English Language Learners In Nevada, Robin Gonzales

Brookings Mountain West Publications

While leading the rest of the country in population growth, immigration, and increasing ethnic and linguistic diversity, Nevada’s mostly Latin American population experiences high poverty, low educational attainment, and high employment. As a result, Nevada has increasingly high numbers of English Language Learner students (ELLs) – students who speak a language other than English at home – and show low educational attainment compared to their English speaking counterparts. According to a 2013 report from the Lincy Institute of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, if the state wants to reverse its populations’ dismal educational attainment and poor national rankings in …

Later School Start Times In Adolescence: Time For A Change, Paul Kelley, Clark Lee

Homeland Security Publications

This briefing paper summarizes the latest research on the subject of chronic sleep deprivation on education and health in adolescents, explores policy options to address this education and public health issue, and sets forth the recommendation that education start times be adjusted appropriately for U.S adolescents.

Contested Narratives: Theoretical Foundations For A Predictive Model Of Policy Content, Raul Antonio Medellin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This work introduces a model to analyze policy making as an iterative narrative contestation process from which policy content can be forecasted. A theoretical foundation for the validity of introducing the Contested Narratives Forecast Model (CNF) as a new theoretical model for policy analysis is established using Lakatos' Methodology of Scientific Research Programs (MSRP). Next, an argument is made that the theoretical frameworks on which the CNF is based are not only ontologically compatible, but they also complement each other to neutralize some of their greatest weaknesses. Finally, the CNF is described using Lakatos' concepts of a negative heuristic, a …

Charter School Locations Across The U.S. And Their Influence On Public School District Revenues, Peter A. Jones

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Since Minnesota passed the first charter school law in 1991, charter schools have become one of the most prominent school reforms in the U.S. While charter schools educate a small portion of public school enrollments, their existence has prompted various responses from traditional public school districts. For example, districts may change expenditure patterns or work to increase test scores in an effort to retain enrollments. In this sense, a charter school’s most significant impact on public school students may work indirectly through the traditional public school reactions they invoke.

This dissertation explores education finance implications for charter schools and their …