What is the Tradeoff Between Smaller Classes and Teacher Quality?

What is the Tradeoff Between Smaller Classes and Teacher Quality?
Author: Christopher Jepsen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 45
Release: 2002
Genre: Class size
ISBN:

This paper investigates the effects of California's class size reduction program on teacher quality and student achievement in an effort to gain a comprehensive understanding of the impact of a large-scale decrease in class size. It uses year-to-year differences in class size generated by natural variation in enrollment and the state's class size reduction program to identify both the direct effects of class size reduction and accompanying changes in teacher quality. The results show that, all else equal, smaller classes raise third-grade mathematics and reading achievement, particularly for lower-income students. However, the expansion of the teaching force required to staff the additional classrooms appears to have led to a deterioration in average teacher quality in schools serving a predominantly black student body. This deterioration partially or, in some cases, fully offset the benefits of smaller classes, demonstrating the importance of considering all implications of any policy change

The Transformation of Title IX

The Transformation of Title IX
Author: R. Shep Melnick
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0815732406

One civil rights-era law has reshaped American society—and contributed to the country's ongoing culture wars Few laws have had such far-reaching impact as Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. Intended to give girls and women greater access to sports programs and other courses of study in schools and colleges, the law has since been used by judges and agencies to expand a wide range of antidiscrimination policies—most recently the Obama administration’s 2016 mandates on sexual harassment and transgender rights. In this comprehensive review of how Title IX has been implemented, Boston College political science professor R. Shep Melnick analyzes how interpretations of "equal educational opportunity" have changed over the years. In terms accessible to non-lawyers, Melnick examines how Title IX has become a central part of legal and political campaigns to correct gender stereotypes, not only in academic settings but in society at large. Title IX thus has become a major factor in America's culture wars—and almost certainly will remain so for years to come.

What Is Wrong With Our Schools? The ideology impoverishing education in America and how we can do better for our students

What Is Wrong With Our Schools? The ideology impoverishing education in America and how we can do better for our students
Author: Daniel Buck
Publisher: John Catt
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2022-12-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 191536180X

"What is wrong with our schools?" is the question everyone seems to be asking, or more like screaming nowadays. Standard answers point to everything from school funding to unions to bureaucracies and more. In this book, Daniel Buck provides a different answer: flawed ideas - ideas about instruction, curriculum, even human nature itself - are the root cause of American schooling's dysfunction. Touching on philosophy, contemporary educational studies, cognitive science, and his own experience in the classroom, Buck argues that so long as we build our system on incorrect first principles, all other reforms are for naught. In place of the progressive education that pervades our schools, Buck argues for a traditionalist approach - classic literature, direct instruction, sequenced curricula, clear rules and consequences - as the education we need for the future.

Educational Inequality and School Finance

Educational Inequality and School Finance
Author: Bruce D. Baker
Publisher: Harvard Education Press
Total Pages: 326
Release: 2021-02-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1682532445

In Educational Inequality and School Finance, Bruce D. Baker offers a comprehensive examination of how US public schools receive and spend money. Drawing on extensive longitudinal data and numerous studies of states and districts, he provides a vivid and dismaying portrait of the stagnation of state investment in public education and the continuing challenges of achieving equity and adequacy in school funding. Baker explores school finance, the school and classroom resources derived from school funding, and how and why those resources matter. He provides a critical examination of popular assumptions that undergird the policy discourse around school funding—notably, that money doesn’t matter and that we are spending more and getting less—and shows how these misunderstandings contribute to our reluctance to increase investment in education at a time when the demands on our educational system are rising. Through an introduction to the concepts of adequacy, equity, productivity, and efficiency, Baker shows how these can be used to evaluate policy reforms. He argues that we know a great deal about the role and importance of money in schools, the mechanisms through which money matters for student outcomes, and the trade-offs involved, and he presents a framework for designing and financing an equitable and adequate public education system, with balanced and stable sources of revenue. Educational Inequality and School Finance takes an issue all too often relegated to technical experts and makes it accessible for broader public empowerment and engagement.

The Evidential Basis of “Evidence-Based Education”

The Evidential Basis of “Evidence-Based Education”
Author: Adrian Simpson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2020-09-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000093859

"Evidence-based education" (EBE) is a catchline for policy makers and school leaders alike, with its advocates promoting their work as being "rigorous" and "scientific". The chapters in this book, written by leading educators and philosophers, place this approach in context and challenge whether the arguments it leads to live up to the hype. EBE advocates promote particular, restricted approaches to determining policy and practice in schools, with only some forms of evidence accepted as legitimate. Experimental methods designed for the well-controlled environments of science and medicine in which subjects and treatments can be isolated are nonetheless promoted as ‘the gold standard’ even when transposed to complex social situations of interacting teachers and learners. This book explores some of the problems with this approach. It examines the background to disputes about evidence, the reasons EBE arguments have become so powerful in modern bureaucracies, the way practitioners might reason using evidence and the concerns about key notions of rigour, science, representativeness and effect size, which are often mistakenly interpreted in EBE. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of the journal, Educational Research and Evaluation.

International Handbook on the Economics of Education

International Handbook on the Economics of Education
Author: Geraint Johnes
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 873
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1845421698

. . . is a voluminous and timely collection of 18 essays that addresses a number of core issues on the economics of education. . . An exhaustive survey of the literature on the role of universities as multi-product firms at various levels and disciplines identifies the nature of the economies of scope and scale. This enriches the volume further. Economic Analysis & Policy . . . the endeavour of bringing together very knowledgeable contributors, including some of the leading contributors to the literature in the UK and beyond, to write a handbook on the economics of education is highly appreciated. The Handbook contains 18 substantive chapters, encapsulated by a brief introduction and an extensive and a very useful index. . . the Handbook should be praised as a useful overview of the field of economics of education as it stands today. Ludger Wößmann, Economic Issues This major Handbook comprehensively surveys the rapidly growing field of the economics of education. It is unique in that it comprises original contributions on an exceptional range of topics from a review of human capital, signalling and screening models, to consideration of issues such as educational externalities and economic growth, funding models, determinants of educational success, the educational production function, educational standards and efficiency measurement. Labour market issues such as the market for teachers and the transition of students from school to work are also explored. The International Handbook on the Economics of Education will be warmly welcomed by academic economists, educational researchers and practitioners in educational management as well as policymakers. Comprising specially commissioned articles, the Handbook will become indispensable reference for this ever topical field of study.

Improving Student Achievement

Improving Student Achievement
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Education and the Workforce. Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, Training, and Life-long Learning
Publisher:
Total Pages: 144
Release: 1999
Genre: Education
ISBN:

The Cost-Effectiveness of 22 Approaches for Raising Student Achievement

The Cost-Effectiveness of 22 Approaches for Raising Student Achievement
Author: Stuart S. Yeh
Publisher: IAP
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2011-03-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 161735404X

As a consequence of the federal "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) law, there is tremendous pressure on school principals, teachers, school superintendents, district staff, state departments of education and governors to maximize the increase in student achievement that is obtained with every dollar of expenditure. Currently, teachers are forced to rely on extremely inefficient approaches that take enormous amounts of time, both during the school day and throughout the K-12 learning years. This is experienced in terms of the reduced time that is available to teach subjects other than math and reading, as schools resort to double periods of math, double periods of reading, and enormous amounts of remedial instruction that directly reduce the time available for other subjects including science, art, and music. In contrast, this book suggests that student achievement may be increased in a way that is not only cost-effective in dollar terms, but efficient in the sense that it does not rely on unusual investments in the time required to obtain results. The book draws upon a wealth of cost-effectiveness data to dispel common notions about "what works" in addressing the achievement gap: increased expenditure per pupil, charter schools, voucher programs, increased educational accountability, class size reduction, comprehensive school reform, increased teacher salaries, more selective teacher recruitment, the use of "value-added" methods to measure and reward teacher performance, the use of National Board teacher certification to identify high-performing teachers, and a host of other approaches.

Ahead of the Curve

Ahead of the Curve
Author: Douglas B. Reeves
Publisher: Solution Tree Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2009-11-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1934009849

This anthology brings the ideas and recommendations of many of the world’s education leaders into one resource that illustrates the many perspectives on effective assessment design and implementation. From involving students in the assessment process to ensuring accuracy and applying assessments to English learners and students with special needs, you will find compelling insights and proven strategies.

Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy

Handbook of Research in Education Finance and Policy
Author: Helen F. Ladd
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 786
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1135863881

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), this groundbreaking new handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, thereby helping to define this evolving field of research and practice. It provides a readily available resource for anyone seriously involved in education finance and policy in the United States and around the world. The Handbook traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and the revenue sources used to finance these inputs to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. It shows how the current decision-making context in school finance inevitably interacts with those of governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of the important contemporary issues requires input from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a variety of disciplines. While many of the chapters cover complex state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand.