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School reform
The Road to High-Quality Early Learning: Lessons From the States
Marjorie Wechsler, David Kirp, Titilayo Tinubu Ali, Madelyn Gardner, Anna Maier, Hanna Melnick, Patrick M. Shields.Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceAlthough there is considerable research on the elements of high-quality preschool and its many benefits, particularly for low-income children and English learners, little information is available to policymakers about how to convert their visions of good early education into on-the-ground… more →
Community Schools as an Effective School Improvement Strategy: A Review of the Evidence
Topics: Student LearningTags: School reform, EquityThis report synthesizes the research evidence about the impact of community schools on student and school outcomes. Its aim is to support and inform school, community, district, and state leaders as they consider, propose, or implement community schools as a strategy for providing equitable,… more →
Is Effective Teacher Evaluation Sustainable? Evidence from DCPS
Topics: Teacher and Leader DevelopmentTen years ago, many policymakers viewed the reform of teacher evaluation as a highly promising mechanism to improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement. Recently, that enthusiasm has dimmed as the available evidence suggests the subsequent reforms had a mixed record of implementation… more →
Nearly three decades into the charter school movement, what has research told us about charter schools?
Topics: School ChoiceTags: Charter schools, School reformWhen charter schools first entered the landscape, the debate was contentious, with both advocates and critics using strong rhetoric. Advocates often sold charter schools as a silver bullet solution for not only the students who attend these schools, but the broader traditional public school… more →
Federalism, Race, and the Politics of Turnaround: U.S. Public Opinion on Improving Low-Performing Schools and Districts
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: School reformPublic support for school improvement policies can increase the success and durability of those reforms. However, little is known about public views on turnaround. We deployed questions and embedded experiments in a nationally representative 2017 survey (n=4,214) to uncover opinions regarding (a… more →
The Effects of Race to the Top School Turnaround in North Carolina
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: Assessment, School reformFederal education policies gave political and financial support for state education agencies to turnaround low-performing schools on an unprecedented scale. North Carolina’s ambitious program turned around over half of all schools nationwide that underwent turnaround funded by Race to the Top.… more →
Does a successful randomized experiment lead to successful policy? Project Challenge and what happened in Tennessee after Project STAR
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceTags: School reform, Class sizeEvidence-based policy is the practice of basing policy decisions on rigorous research evidence, such as randomized experiments. But it is unclear how often evidence-based decisions produce more effective policy. We evaluate an evidence-based policy implemented in 1989-93, after the state of… more →
The Next Generation of State Reforms to Improve their Lowest Performing Schools: An Evaluation of North Carolina’s School Transformation Initiative
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceIn contrast to prior federally mandated school reforms, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) allows states more discretion in reforming their lowest performing schools, removes requirements to disrupt the status quo, and does not allocate substantial additional funds. Using a regression… more →
Using a Text-as-Data Approach to Understand Reform Processes: A Deep Exploration of School Improvement Strategies
Topics: MethodsTags: School reformAlthough program evaluations using rigorous quasi-experimental or experimental designs can inform decisions about whether to continue or terminate a given program, they often have limited ability to reveal the mechanisms by which complex interventions achieve their effects. To illuminate these… more →
Accountability-Driven School Reform: Are There Unintended Effects on Younger Children in Untested Grades?
Topics: Student LearningTest-based accountability pressures have been shown to result in transferring less effective teachers into untested early grades and more effective teachers to tested grades. In this paper, we evaluate whether a state initiative to turnaround its lowest performing schools reproduced a similar… more →
General Equilibrium Effects of Recruiting High-Performing Teachers for School Turnaround: Evidence from Tennessee
Many districts and states have begun implementing incentives to attract high-performing teachers to low-performing schools. Previous research has found that these incentives are effective. However, effects on the schools and students these teachers leave behind has not been examined… more →
Can Successful Schools Replicate? Scaling Up Boston’s Charter School Sector
Topics: School ChoiceCan schools that boost student outcomes reproduce their success at new campuses? We study a policy reform that allowed effective charter schools in Boston, Massachusetts to replicate their school models at new locations. Estimates based on randomized admission lotteries show that replication… more →
Spending More on the Poor? A Comprehensive Summary of State-Specific Responses to School Finance Reforms from 1990–2014
Tags: School reform, PovertySixty-seven school finance reforms (SFRs), a combination of court-ordered and legislative reforms, have taken place since 1990; however, there is little empirical evidence on the heterogeneity of SFR effects. In this study, we estimate the effects of SFRs on revenues and expenditures between… more →
Push or Pull: School-Level Factors That Influence Teacher Mobility in Turnaround Schools
Recruiting and retaining teachers can be challenging for many schools, especially in low-performing urban schools in which teachers turn over at higher rates. In this study, we examine three types of school-level attributes that may influence teachers’ decisions to enter or transfer schools:… more →
Peeking into the Black Box of School Turnaround: A Formal Test of Mediators and Suppressors
Topics: Policy, Politics, and GovernanceA growing body of research evaluates the effects of turnaround on chronically low-performing schools. We extend this research to formally test factors that either mediate or suppress the effects of two turnaround initiatives in Tennessee: the Achievement School District (ASD) and local… more →
School Finance Reforms, Teachers’ Unions, and the Allocation of School Resources
School finance reforms caused some of the most dramatic increases in intergovernmental aid from states to local governments in U.S. history. We examine whether teachers’ unions affected the fraction of reform-induced state aid that passed through to local spending and the allocation of these… more →
Is Education Consumption or Investment? Implications for School Competition
Topics: School ChoiceFriedman (1955) argued that giving parents freedom to choose schools would improve education. His argument was simple and compelling because it extended results from markets for consumer goods to education. We review the evidence, which yields surprisingly mixed results on Friedman's prediction… more →