School Choice

All Research

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SYNOPSIS
CITATION
Accountability and flexibility in public schools: Evidence from Boston's charters and pilots

The authors use student assignment lotteries to estimate the effect of charter school attendance on student achievement in Boston. They also evaluate a related alternative, Boston's pilot schools.

Abdulkadiroğlu, A., Angrist, J. D., Dynarski, S. M., Kane, T. J., & Pathak, P. A. (2011). Accountability and flexibility in public schools: Evidence from Boston's charters and pilots. The Quarterly Journal of Economics126(2), 699-748.

The Effect of Voucher Programs on Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis examines the effectiveness of school voucher programs for improving student achievement. The research is of special interest for three important reasons; (1) it examines an important policy issue relevant to educators and the public, (2) it is an example of a study designed to replicate previous research on an important topic, and (3) it highlights the importance of examining the cost effectiveness associated with implementing practices in real world settings.

 

Bennett, M., Banerjee, H. L.,  Doan, L. N., Geib, T., and Burley, A. (2018). The Effect of Voucher Programs on Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis. AERA Conference New York, NY. 10.302/1302823

Where it all comes together: How partnerships connect communities and schools.

This article outlines how far the community schools movement has come since the AFT made community schools a priority in 2008. It explains why the movement has grown, clarifies what exactly makes a community school different from other schools, lays out how community schools work, and shows the positive results that community schools are attaining.

Blank, M. J., & Villarreal, L. (2015). Where It All Comes Together: How Partnerships Connect Communities and Schools. American Educator39(3), 4.

Dilemmas and solutions regarding principal evaluation.

School reform embraced the American psyche in the 1980s, and waves of initiatives emerged to revitalize and improve a system perceived as not meeting the country's needs. Today, ideas such as school choice, for-profit
schools, site-based management, participatory decision-making, teacher empowerment, school restructuring, and an array of other reforms fill the educational lexicon as reformers seek alternative means for better educating the nation's youth.

Ginsberg, R., & Thompson, T. (1990). Dilemmas and solutions regarding principal evaluation. Peabody Journal of Education68(1), 58-74.

Teachers, schools, and academic achievement.

This paper disentangles the impact of schools and teachers in influencing achievement with special attention given to the potential problems of omitted or mismeasured variables and of student and school selection. 

Rivkin, S. G., Hanushek, E. A., & Kain, J. F. (2005). Teachers, schools, and academic achievement. Econometrica73(2), 417-458.

The participant effects of private school vouchers across the globe: A meta-analytic and systematic review

Our focus throughout this study will be to see what impact, if any, school voucher programs, in the United States and throughout the world, have had on student test scores. If the findings are mixed, we shall try to determine unique patterns that are driven either by geography or relevant program design components. We will also compare overall outcomes for reading and math scores for programs within the US vs. outside the US and publically funded vs. privately funded programs. This can be helpful for policymakers designing future private school voucher programs. Reading assessments will only be included if they were in English, regardless of the language of the country in which they were administered. We do this to ensure commonality in the international reading assessments and also because the international voucher evaluations in the meta-analysis come from developing countries where English language skills are highly valued.

Shakeel, M., Anderson, K., & Wolf, P. (2016). The participant effects of private school vouchers across the globe: A meta-analytic and systematic review.

A uniform, comparable graduation rate: How the final regulations for Title I hold schools, districts, and states accountable for improving graduation rates

The final regulations establish a uniform and more accurate measure of calculating high school graduation rate that is comparable across states; strengthen public school choice and supplemental educational services requirements; and increase accountability and transparency.

U.S. Department of Education. (2008). A uniform, comparable graduation rate: How the final regulations for Title I hold schools, districts, and states accountable for improving graduation rates. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/reg/proposal/uniform-grad-rate.pdf

U.S. Education in 2017 in 10 Charts

This article provide charts, graphs, maps, and visualizations of all feature data that Education Week released in 2017 and convey some big takeaways about U.S. schools, students, and teachers in 2017.

 

U.S. Education in 2017 in 10 Charts. Education Week, December. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/us-education-in-2017-in-10-charts.html

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