Most American first-grade classrooms are pretty happy places to be. Children smile and enjoy working with one another and have positive interactions with their teachers, who recognize their students' cues for help and offer timely responses.
But that doesn't mean that all of the students are getting the academic content they need, according to a new study being published by two University of Virginia researchers in the March issue of The Elementary School Journal.
Robert Pianta, dean of the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education and director of its Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning, and Megan Stuhlman, a senior research scientist at the center, based their study on data collected from direct observations of 820 first-grade classrooms in nearly 700 private and public schools in 32 states.
Trained raters used scoring guidelines to assess the types and frequency of social and instructional interactions between teachers and students. For example, a teacher ignoring a student with a question would score low on "sensitivity," while a teacher who responds quickly would score high.
Based upon those observations, Pianta and Stuhlman grouped the classrooms into four major categories. Teachers who worked to both create a positive social climate and strong instructional support - 23 percent of classrooms - were given the score of "high overall quality." Twenty-eight percent of classrooms had teachers scoring just below the mean and were thus deemed "mediocre." Seventeen percent of the classrooms were "low overall quality."
The largest category in the sample, accounting for 31 percent of the classrooms, was labeled "positive emotional climate, low academic demand." Stuhlman, who earned a Ph.D. from U.Va. in 2004, explained that in these classrooms, teachers interacted warmly with the students and did not discipline with threats. However, their "low academic demand" was revealed in their tendency to not give constructive feedback - for instance, not asking students to think a little bit harder about their questions, or by making basic facts more real to students in ways that would expand their understanding of those facts.
"We found that quality, particularly instructional features of teacher behavior, was rather low across the sample," said Pianta, the study's lead investigator. "In other studies, we have demonstrated the connection between these observed teacher-child interactions and student learning gains. So what we are seeing here may influence the extent to which children can perform at standards consistent with accountability frameworks such as No Child Left Behind."
Part of a 17-year longitudinal study funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, this study sought to identify factors that measure teacher quality based on the evidence in the data collected from the large classroom sample.
Interestingly, the study found that factors traditionally thought to influence quality, such as class size and teacher credentials, had little influence on classroom quality. Instead, the study found that high classroom quality is linked more strongly to teachers who are both creating a positive social climate and offering strong instructional support.
"The results of this study point to incredible variation in educational opportunities for children in our country," Pianta said. "To increase the chances that more children will receive a high-quality education, we have to provide teachers with effective and targeted support to help them promote their students' learning and understanding."
For more on Pianta's work on teacher quality, visit http://www.virginia.edu/vpr/CASTL .
The Accountability Illusion
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Kingsbury Center at Northwest Evaluation Association have released a new study, The Accountability Illusion. It examines the No Child Left Behind Act as implemented and reveals an enormously uneven and misleading system of school accountability.
Analysts took 36 real schools (18 elementary, 18 middle) and “moved” them from state to state (28 states in all) to see how many would make “adequate yearly progress” under each state's NCLB rules. The alarming results? In some states, nearly all of the elementary schools would make AYP while in others practically none of them would. These are the exact same schools. This tells us that the present system isn’t working.
A school’s AYP status depends at least as much on what state it's in as on the performance of its students.
Full report and state reports:
http://edexcellence.net/index.cfm/news_the-accountability-illusion
HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMAS MORE MEANINGFUL TODAY THAN FOUR YEARS AGO
Achieve has released, “Closing the Expectations Gap,” its fourth annual report on the progress of high school reform efforts in all 50 states. The report, which tracks efforts by states to set expectations for high school graduates that are in line with the demands of college and careers, shows progress in a majority of states towards making the high school diploma more meaningful – particularly in the area of standards – though there is still considerable work to be done.
Since Achieve launched the American Diploma Project (ADP) Network in 2005 to challenge states to work together to align their standards, graduation requirements, assessments and accountability systems with the realities of college and the workplace, Achieve has surveyed all 50 states and the District of Columbia about the status of their efforts to adopt and implement the rigorous ADP agenda.
The 50-state survey looks at the number of states that have raised standards and adjusted their graduation requirements, P-20 data systems, assessments and accountability systems to support the college- and career-ready agenda.
Specifically, the report’s findings include:
• All but six states have aligned, or plan to align, their end of high school standards in English and mathematics with college and career readiness expectations. Twenty-three states have completed this work.
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• In 2005, only two states required students to complete a college- and career-ready curriculum in order to earn a high school diploma. Today, 20 states and the District of Columbia have set their graduation requirements at the college- and career-ready level.
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• Only 10 states have assessments rigorous enough to measure whether high school students have met college and career readiness standards. Twenty-three additional states are planning to put such assessments in place in the next several years.
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• Before 2006, only three states had P-20 longitudinal data systems and regularly matched student-level K-12 and postsecondary data to measure progress and improve the transition from high school into college or the workplace. Now, 12 states have P-20 data systems, and all but one state are working to put such a system in place.
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• School accountability systems in most states are currently not anchored in the goal of graduating all students college- and career-ready. In most cases, the expectations for schools are much lower. States are beginning to develop more ambitious goals and broaden the indicators used to report on school progress and hold schools accountable for improvement.
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To see a full copy of the report, go to
http://www.achieve.org/files/50-state-2009.pdf
Impact of For-Profit and Nonprofit Management on Student Achievement:
The Philadelphia Intervention, 2002-2008
The School District of Philadelphia, in the summer of 2002 contracted out thirty elementary and middle schools to for-profit management organizations; 16 schools to nonprofit organizations. Using individual student test-score data made available by the School District of Philadelphia, the authors estimated the impact of for-profit and nonprofit management on student achievement by tracking the performance of students in math and reading from 2001 to 2008.
Of the 30 schools included in the study that were under for-profit management, 20 were managed by Edison Schools, five by Victory Schools, and five by Chancellor Beacon Academies. Of the 16 schools included in the study that were managed by nonprofits, five were managed by Foundations, three by the University of Pennsylvania, five by Temple University, and three by Universal Companies. the authors compare the performance of the privately managed schools to that of 71 schools that remained under regular school district management whose students performed below the district median.
This paper includes information for two more years (school years ending in 2007 and 2008) beyond what was previously reported in Peterson and Chingos (2007). It also examines the impact on test scores of the five schools for whom the for-profit contract was revoked by the school district.
Nonprofit Management
The impact of nonprofit management appears to have been negative. At schools under nonprofit management, students learned, on average for the six years, 21 percent of a standard deviation less in math each year than they would have had their school remained under regular district management. Calculated in terms of years of schooling, the negative impacts on math performance were, on average, approximately 50 percent of a year’s worth of learning annually, a large impact. However, the negative impact was statistically significant in only the first year after the intervention began. In reading the average adverse impact of nonprofit management was roughly 10 percent of a standard deviation less annually, about 32 percent of a year’s worth of learning each year. However, the effect on reading performance was statistically significant in only the first year after the intervention began.
For-profit Management
The impact of for-profit management was generally positive, though only the math impacts are statistically significant. At schools under for-profit management, students learned in math, on average, 25 percent of a standard deviation more each year of the six years of the intervention than they would have had the school been under district management. The estimated impact each year was roughly 60 percent of a year’s worth of learning, a large, statistically significant impact.
Full report:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/PDF/Papers/PEPG09-02_Peterson_Chingos.pdf
Lots of Education $ in Recovery Act
The ARRA provides more than $100 billion in education funding and college grants and tuition tax credits, as well as billions more for school modernization. It includes:
• $40 billion in state stabilization funds to help avert education cuts. Funds will be given to states in exchange for a commitment to begin advancing education reforms. School systems have discretion to use some of this money for school modernization.
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• $13 billion for Title I, including $3 billion for Title I school improvement programs.
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• $12 billion for Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) programs.
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• $5 billion in incentive grants to be distributed on a competitive basis to states that most aggressively pursue higher standards, quality assessments, robust data systems and teacher quality initiatives. This includes $650 million to fund school systems and non-profits with strong track records of improving student achievement.
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• $5 billion for Early Childhood, including Head Start, early Head Start, child care block grants, and programs for infants with disabilities. (Includes Department of Health and Human Services programs).
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• $2 billion for other education investments, including pay for performance, data systems, teacher quality investments, technology grants, vocational rehab, work study, and Impact Aid.
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College Affordability — $30.8 Billion:
• $17 billion to close the shortfall in the Pell Grant program and boost grant amounts by $500 to $5350 in the first year and more in the second year, serving an estimated 7 million low and moderate-income young people and adults.
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• $13.8 billion to boost the tuition tax credit from $1800 to $2500 for families earning up to $180,000.
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Additional School Modernization — (up to) $33.6 Billion:
• An additional $8.8 billion in state stabilization funds are available for other state services including education. School modernization is an eligible use of this funding.
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Authority for states and school systems to issue $24.8 billion dollars in bonds over the next 10 years for renovation, repairs and school construction that will be retired through a combination of local, state and federal dollars.
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