Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA)
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From Centralization to Decentralization in Chinese Higher Education
Xiaohong Qian and Jef C. Verhoeven
Since the late 1970’s, the Chinese government has been gradually changing its traditional policy for providing higher education and has begun to emphasize the comprehensiveness of the universities. Interdisciplinary cooperation and the synergization of resources are being promoted, and institutional autonomy is gradually increasing. ...
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The Effect of Charter School Legislation on Market Share
Simona Kúscová and Jack Buckley
Many proponents of school choice use the claim of the market’s capability to enhance efficiency and improve performance to call for its expansion. But no markets are perfectly competitive, and the local market for public goods is filled with institutional arrangements that make it differ from the neoclassical ideal. In this paper, we look at a particular institution—the provisions of charter school legislation—and assess how it affects the ability of charter schools to gain market share. ...
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Tangible and Intangible Costs of "Protecting Human Subjects": The Impact of the National Research Act of 1974 on University Research Activities
Frederic Jacobs and Arina Zonnenberg
This article (1) examines the overall structure of regulatory research oversight in the United States; (2) details the origins and evolution of federal legislation pertaining to the protection of human subjects in biomedical and behavioral treatment and research; and (3) describes the expansion of oversight regulation from biomedical and behavioral treatment areas to the social sciences. ...
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Closing the Racial Achievement Gap: The Role of Reforming Instructional Practices
Harold Wenglinsky
No Child Left Behind calls for schools to close the achievement gap between races in math and reading. One possible way for schools to do so is to encourage their teachers to engage in practices that disproportionately benefit their minority students. The current study applies the technique of Hierarchical Linear Modeling to a nationally representative sample of 13,000 fourth graders who took the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress in mathematics to identify instructional practices that reduce the achievement gap. It finds that, even when taking student background into account, various instructional practices can make a substantial difference.
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Vínculos Entre Financiación y Organización Universitaria: Análisis Comparado de la Universidad Española
Sara Fernández López
… This article discusses the degree of marketization of Spanish universities and compares such processes with the changes occurring in the Netherlands. For this comparison economic policies and universities’ degrees of autonomy are specially considered.
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There is Another Way: The Faculty-developed Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Assessment for K-8 Pre-Service Teachers
David Squires, George F. Canney, and Michael S. Trevisan
… This paper provides a brief history of major events in the field of literacy including teacher testing initiatives and policies, which led to the creation of the ICLA [Idaho Comprehensive Literacy Assessment]. A description of the ICLA assessment and its construction is provided, along with a report of initial performance. Implications and policy consequences of this approach are explored.
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The Support Gap: New Teachers' Early Experiences in High-Income and Low-Income Schools
Susan Moore Johnson, Susan M. Kardos, David Kauffman, Edward Liu, and Morgaen L. Donaldson
In this article, the authors consider three sources of support for new teachers—hiring practices, relationships with colleagues, and curriculum—all found in earlier research to influence new teachers’ satisfaction with their work, their sense of success with students, and their eventual retention in their job. ...
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Systemic Reform in a Federated System: Los Angeles at the Turn of the Millennium
David Menefee-Libey
I synthesize some of the lessons we have learned about systemic school reform in order and derive two explicit hypotheses about when such reforms are likely to be more and less successful. The first hypothesis focuses on program implementation: to achieve success, any systemic reform must overcome challenges at each stage of the policy-making process, from agenda-setting to policy choice to implementation. The second hypothesis focuses on the federated nature of education policy- making in the United States: any successful systemic reform must offer a program that aligns local efforts with state and sometimes federal policy. ...
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A Educação Intercultural Na Escola e o Reconhecimento do Outro Diferente
Isabela Cabral Félix de Sousa
This article describes a potential project of intercultural education for schools. It begins by emphasizing the growing importance of this kind of project in an era of globalization. Then, I describe some educational proposals toward the construction of a new way to look to oneself and "the other." Third, I discuss the possibility that a project of this nature may be resisted since it challenges the status quo. Finally, the article stresses that the implementation of this project depends on educational policies and the efforts of the total society
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School Size, Achievement, and Achievement Gaps
Bradley J. McMillen
In order to examine the relationship between school size and achievement, a study was conducted using longitudinal achievement data from North Carolina for three separate cohorts of public school students (one elementary, one middle and one high school).
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Una Aproximación al Estudio de la Cultura Organizacional en Centros Educativos
Marcos R. Sarasola
The main goal of this research is to approach to the school’s culture and subcultures knowledge. Teachers, as learning communities’ members, should be conscious of their basic assumptions in order to accomplish effective change. ...
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Making Research Matter More
Ben Levin
Interest in strengthening the impact and value of education research has been growing around the world. Here I outline a view of the nature of “impact” and point to instances where research has had a positive impact in education, but always within a larger social and political framework. A three element “model” of research impact is developed and used as the basis to assess current situations and to suggest steps that could be taken to support a fuller contribution to education and learning from research.
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High School Graduation Rates: Alternative Methods and Implications
Jing Miao and Walt Haney
… This study reviews literature on and practices in reporting high school graduation rates, compares graduation rate estimates yielded from alternative methods, and estimates discrepancies between alternative results at national, state, and state ethnic group levels. ...
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Music Education for the 21st Century: Epistemology and Ontology as Bases for Student Aesthetic Education
José Luis Aróstegui, Robert Stake, and Helen Simons
We seek to understand why persons develop their musical preferences by identifying with a particular cultural group and social background. This identification is greatly shaped by experience in their environment. Resources employed for this identification are mostly different from those employed in schools to foster academic knowledge. ...
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School Size and the Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Student Achievement: Confronting the Threat of Size Bias in National Data Sets
Craig B. Howley and Aimee A. Howley
Most of the recent literature on the achievement effects of school size has examined school and district performance. These studies have demonstrated substantial benefits of smaller school and district size in impoverished settings. To date, however, no work has adequately examined the relationship of size and socioeconomic status (SES) with students as the unit of analysis. ... The present study, based on the same large data set, but with size issues in the rural circumstance clearly in focus, reaches rather different conclusions, extending previous work for the first time to a more adequate examination of size effects on individual students.
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Effects of High-School Size on Student Outcomes: Response to Howley and Howley
Valerie E. Lee
I take issue with several points in the Howleys' reanalysis of "High School Size: Which Works Best and for Whom?" (Lee & Smith, 1997).
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América Latina: Educación, Conocimiento y Competitividad
Eduardo M. Andere
This article attempts to demonstrate that Latin America faces a somber future in its external trade and external investment because it doesn’t support education and knowledge production and distribution as key strategies in a global world highly competitive. This article will contend that Latin America is not ready for a global and international competition, and that the strategy of opening the national economies and their deregulation were not enough to create a model of sustainable development.
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After Exit: Academic Achievement Patterns of Former English Language Learners
Ester J. de Jong
… The study was concerned with the achievement patterns in English language arts, Math, and Science of former ELLs who attended a bilingual and a English as a Second Language (ESL) program. It also explored whether length of program participation and grade level exited played a significant role in predicting academic achievement patterns for these exited students. ...
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Age and Achievement
James B. Grissom
There is continuing controversy about the optimal or appropriate age at which children should start school. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between age and achievement. It is an attempt to evaluate the hypothesis that older students fare better academically than their younger classmates.
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Identifying Teacher, School and District Characteristics Associated with Elementary Teachers' Use of Technology: A Multilevel Perspective
Laura M. O'Dwyer, Michael Russell, and Damian J. Bebell
... Previous research examining technology use has focused on teacher characteristics and has neglected to explore the potentially alterable, organizational characteristics that may be affecting the adoption and use of technology in the classroom. In light of this argument and using survey data collected from 1490 elementary classroom teachers in 96 schools in 22 Massachusetts districts, this research examines how technology is being used by elementary school teachers, and examines the school and district organizational characteristics that are associated with increased use of technology as a teaching and learning tool.
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Políticas Públicas De Privatización: Una Mirada A La Experiencia De Las Escuelas Autogestionadas De San Luis
Myriam Feldfeber, Analía Jaimovich, and Fernanda Saforcada
... This paper aims at analyzing the project “Escuelas 2001” which seeks to implement charter schools in San Luis, Argentina. The analysis is based on a two-fold approach: on the one hand, it takes into consideration the logic underlying the design and implementation of this policy; on the other hand, it focuses on the actors’ views about education, the State and public institutions.
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National Board Certified Teachers and Their Students' Achievement
Leslie G. Vandevoort, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, and David C. Berliner
… In this study we compare the academic performance of students in the elementary classrooms of 35 National Board Certified teachers and their non-certified peers, in 14 Arizona school districts. Board Certified teachers and their principals provide additional information about these teachers and their schools. ...
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The Relationship between State and District Content Standards: Issues of Alignment, Influence and Utility
Elizabeth Dutro and Sheila Valencia
... In this article we report on a study of the relationship between state and local content standards in reading in four states and districts. Through interviews with key personnel in each state, and district and analyses of state and local content standards in reading, we explored the alignment between state and district content standards, the path of influence between the two, and the role of high-stakes tests in state and districts reform efforts. ...
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Gramsci: La Tradición Crítica y el Estudio Social De La Educación
Daniel Suárez
In this essay, I review two of the most significant contributions of Antonio Gramsci to a sociological analysis of schooling.
