WWC quick reviews are based on the evidence published in the report cited and rely on effect size... more WWC quick reviews are based on the evidence published in the report cited and rely on effect sizes and significance levels as reported by study authors. WWC does not confirm study authors' findings or contact authors for additional information about the study. The WWC rating refers only to the results summarized above and not necessarily to all results presented in the study.
Oates, and participants in the NBER Economics of Education program for a number of helpful sugges... more Oates, and participants in the NBER Economics of Education program for a number of helpful suggestions. All errors are solely our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
New York City's public specialized high schools have a long history of offering a rigorous, colle... more New York City's public specialized high schools have a long history of offering a rigorous, college preparatory education to the city's most academically talented students. Though immensely popular and highly selective, their policy of admitting students using a single entrance exam has raised questions about diversity and equity in access. In this paper, we provide a descriptive analysis of the "pipeline" from middle school to matriculation at a specialized high school, identifying group-level differences in application, admission, and enrollment. In doing so, we highlight potential points of intervention to improve access for underrepresented groups. Controlling for other measures of prior achievement, we find black, Hispanic, low-income, and female students are significantly less likely to qualify for admission to a specialized high school. Differences in application and matriculation rates also affect the diversity in these schools, and we find evidence of middle school "effects" on both application and admission. Simulated policies that offer admissions using alternative measures, such as state test scores and grades, suggest many more girls, Hispanics, and white students would be admitted under these alternatives. They would not, however, appreciably increase the share of offers given to black or low-income students.
New York City's universal pre-kindergarten program, which increased full-day enrollment from 19,0... more New York City's universal pre-kindergarten program, which increased full-day enrollment from 19,000 to almost 70,000 children, is ambitious in both scale and implementation speed. We provide new evidence on the distribution of pre-K quality in NYC by student race/ethnicity, and investigate the extent to which observed differences are associated with the spatial distribution of higher-quality providers. Relative to other jurisdictions, we find the average quality of public pre-K providers is high. However, we identify large disparities in the average quality of providers experienced by black and white students, which is partially explained by differential proximity to higher-quality providers. Taken together, current racial disparities in the quality of pre-K providers may limit the program's ability to reduce racial achievement gaps.
Given the dominance of residentially based school assignment, prior researchers have conceptualiz... more Given the dominance of residentially based school assignment, prior researchers have conceptualized K-12 enrollment decisions as beyond the purview of school actors. This paper questions the continued relevance of this assumption by studying the behavior of guidance counselors charged with implementing New York City's universal high school choice policy. Drawing on structured interviews with 88 middle school counselors and administrative data on choice outcomes at these middle schools, we find that counselors generally believe lower-income students are on their own in making high school choices and need additional adult support. However, they largely refrain from giving action-guiding advice to students about which schools to attend. We elaborate street-level bureaucracy theory by showing how the majority of counselors reduce cognitive dissonance between their understanding of students' needs and their inability to meet these needs adequately given existing resources. They do so by drawing selectively on competing policy logics of school choice, narrowly delineating their conception of their role, and relegating decisions to parents. Importantly, we also find departures from the predictions of this theory as approximately one in four counselors sought to meet the needs of individual students by enlarging their role despite the resource constraints they faced. Finally, we quantify the impact of variation in counselors' approaches, finding that the absence of actionguiding advice is associated with students being admitted to lower-quality schools, on average. Keywords school choice, school counseling, school/parent relationships, schools as bureaucracies Sociologists have demonstrated that higher-income parents attempt to transmit advantage from one generation to the next through enrolling their children in higher-quality schools (Lareau and Goyette 2014). Existing studies also document considerable variation by socioeconomic status in how parents approach and experience school selection. Higherincome parents are more likely to make residential decisions to access particular schools (Holme 2002;
» READ MORE ABOUT GROWTH MODELS "Sizing Up Test Í Next 2 (Summer 2002): 10-15. www.hoover.or... more » READ MORE ABOUT GROWTH MODELS "Sizing Up Test Í Next 2 (Summer 2002): 10-15. www.hoover.org/ publications/ednext/3365706.html. Koretz, Daniel."A Measured Approach." American Educator (Fall 2008): 18-39. www.aft.org/ ...
?, uses hourly earnings from the 2005 National Compensation Survey (NCS) to contend that teachers... more ?, uses hourly earnings from the 2005 National Compensation Survey (NCS) to contend that teachers are better paid than most white-collar professionals, including many in occupations commonly understood to be quite lucrative. 1 The report relies on hourly earnings data in an attempt to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of pay for a standard unit of work. Unfortunately, this approach is fundamentally flawed because the NCS calculation of weeks and hours worked is very different for teachers and other professionals. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics-which publishes the NCS-has explicitly warned its users not to use hourly rates of pay in this exact same context. It is unclear why the authors of this report have apparently have chosen to ignore that warning, but what remains is a measure of compensation that is of very little use in informing policy discussions of teacher pay.
evaluation-of-teachers Summary of Review A new Mathematica Policy Research report finds that stud... more evaluation-of-teachers Summary of Review A new Mathematica Policy Research report finds that students randomly assigned an alternatively certified teacher did no worse on achievement tests than students whose teacher came through a traditional teacher-education route. Moreover, the report concludes that there is no association between greater amounts of teacher training coursework and effectiveness in the classroom. These findings are likely to be warmly received by commentators calling for the scaling-up of alternatives to traditional teacher certification. Such a reception is not warranted, however, because few if any valid conclusions about certification policy can be drawn from the study. For reasons documented in this review, the study: • Did not fully report and acknowledge in its conclusions the many analyses from the study finding that traditionally trained teachers outperformed alternative route teachers in both math and reading.
evaluation-of-teachers Summary of Review A new Mathematica Policy Research report finds that stud... more evaluation-of-teachers Summary of Review A new Mathematica Policy Research report finds that students randomly assigned an alternatively certified teacher did no worse on achievement tests than students whose teacher came through a traditional teacher-education route. Moreover, the report concludes that there is no association between greater amounts of teacher training coursework and effectiveness in the classroom. These findings are likely to be warmly received by commentators calling for the scaling-up of alternatives to traditional teacher certification. Such a reception is not warranted, however, because few if any valid conclusions about certification policy can be drawn from the study. For reasons documented in this review, the study: • Did not fully report and acknowledge in its conclusions the many analyses from the study finding that traditionally trained teachers outperformed alternative route teachers in both math and reading.
Many studies have investigated whether students in charter schools differ systematically from tho... more Many studies have investigated whether students in charter schools differ systematically from those in traditional public schools with respect to prior achievement, special education, or English Language Learner status. None, however, has examined gender differences in charter school enrollment. Using data for all U.S. public schools over 11 years, we find charters enroll a higher fraction of girls, a gap that has grown steadily over time and is larger in secondary grades and KIPP schools. We then analyze longitudinal studentlevel data from North Carolina to examine whether differential rates of attrition explain this gap. We find boys are more likely than girls to exit charters once enrolled, and gender differences in attrition are larger than in traditional schools. However, the difference is not large enough to explain the full enrollment gap between charter and traditional schools in North Carolina, suggesting gaps exist from initial matriculation.
?, uses hourly earnings from the 2005 National Compensation Survey (NCS) to contend that teachers... more ?, uses hourly earnings from the 2005 National Compensation Survey (NCS) to contend that teachers are better paid than most white-collar professionals, including many in occupations commonly understood to be quite lucrative. 1 The report relies on hourly earnings data in an attempt to provide an apples-to-apples comparison of pay for a standard unit of work. Unfortunately, this approach is fundamentally flawed because the NCS calculation of weeks and hours worked is very different for teachers and other professionals. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics-which publishes the NCS-has explicitly warned its users not to use hourly rates of pay in this exact same context. It is unclear why the authors of this report have apparently have chosen to ignore that warning, but what remains is a measure of compensation that is of very little use in informing policy discussions of teacher pay.
Research Alliance publications are made possible by the support of a generous group of funders wh... more Research Alliance publications are made possible by the support of a generous group of funders who underwrite the Research Alliance's core operations, including flexible research capacity, communications, and public engagement efforts.
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