ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose
Author: Carlsson-Paige, Nancy
Date: 2015-01-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Reading Instruction,Kindergarten,Common Core State Standards,Developmentally Appropriate Practices,Play,Experiential Learning,Emergent Literacy,Accountability

Today, in conjunction with the Alliance for Childhood, we are thrilled to release our new report &quot;Reading Instruction in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose.&quot; In the report we concluded that Common Core reading requirements for kindergarten are inappropriate and not well-grounded in research. Under Common Core, students are expected to be able to read before entering first grade. The report maintains that the pressure of implementing the reading standard is leading many kindergarten teachers to resort to inappropriate drilling on specific skills and excessive testing. Teacher-led instruction in kindergartens has almost entirely replaced the active, play-based experiential learning that children need based on decades of research in cognitive and developmental psychology and neuroscience. In an effort to shift back to a developmentally appropriate, child-centered curriculum, Defending the Early Years and Alliance for Childhood call for the withdrawal of the kindergarten standards from the Common Core so they can be rethought along developmental lines.
Who Should Take College-Level Courses? Impact Findings from an Evaluation of a Multiple Measures Assessment Strategy
Author: Barnett, Elisabeth A.
Date: 2020-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Placement Tests,Grade Point Average,Student Placement,Community Colleges,Two Year College Students,College Mathematics,College English,Alternative Assessment,Remedial Instruction,Cost Effectiveness,Gender Differences,Racial Differences,Low Income Students

Virtually all community colleges and more than 90 percent of public four-year colleges use the results of placement tests--either alone or in concert with other information--to determine whether students are ready for college-level coursework or need remedial help in math or English. Evidence suggests that placement tests do a poor job of indicating which students need remediation. The Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR) is studying an alternative placement system that uses multiple measures--including both placement test scores and high school GPAs--in predictive algorithms to place incoming students into remedial or college-level courses. Seven community colleges in the State University of New York system participated in the random assignment study to determine whether multiple measures placement leads to better student outcomes than a system based on test scores alone. Using multiple measures placement, many more students were assigned to college-level courses. In math, gains in college-level enrollment and completion were small and short-lived. But in English, the effects were much larger and lasted through at least three semesters. Regardless of whether they were predicted to succeed, students did better when they were allowed to start in college-level courses. A report on longer-term outcomes from the study will be released in summer 2022.
The Road to 500,000 Apprentices: Ideas for Expanding Apprenticeship in California
Author: Parton, Brent
Date: 2020-00-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Apprenticeships,Job Skills,Labor Force Development,Nontraditional Education,State Policy,Government Role,State Government,Program Development,Sustainability,Investment,Youth Programs,Alignment (Education),Occupations,Statewide Planning,Teacher Shortage,Early Childhood Education,Child Care,Labor Needs,Grants,State Aid,Elementary Secondary Education

In 2018, California Governor Gavin Newsom set an ambitious goal of reaching 500,000 active apprentices by 2029. He did so because apprenticeship is a proven model and clear strategy for connecting Californians to good jobs. It has a strong track record for workers and employers in the skilled trades and in firefighting, but apprenticeship innovations are also emerging in new sectors, such as health care, information technology, advanced manufacturing, and education, opening up access to good jobs for workers and students through a combination of paid, on-the-job training, and debt-free postsecondary credentials. Access to a good job and family sustaining career is a critical cornerstone for building a more inclusive economy for communities that have always been cut off, or who today find themselves today increasingly distant from opportunities to share in the state's prosperity. But paths to a good job for California's workers and students have only narrowed. The ongoing impact of COVID-19 is making the important work of creating more clear pathways to good jobs and care simultaneously more complicated, more urgent, and more expansive in scale. COVID-19's impacts on the state's economy, especially on the small businesses which employ nearly half of Californian workers, mean more uncertainty for workers in the coming years, especially for those who were already on the fringes of a changing labor market. Like all other states, California will have many policy priorities to manage with diminished budget resources. Reaching a half a million apprentices by 2029 will rest on a strong base of apprenticeship in the building trades and firefighting, where the majority of the state's apprentices are concentrated today. But it will also demand a more expansive and inclusive apprenticeship system, where today nearly 70 percent of Californian apprentices are racial minorities, but only 7 percent are women. Apprenticeship is a strategy that can and should be applied much more broadly across California's workforce. Despite its ambition, the 10-year goal of a 500,000-apprentice system creates the necessary time and space for policymakers to evaluate and implement the necessary actions. At the same time, many of the policy ideas outlined in this report are mutually reinforcing, and as such will have the greatest potential when taken together as part of a comprehensive roadmap for expanding the availability of high-quality apprenticeship opportunities in new and emerging nontraditional industry sectors.
The Comeback Story: How Adults Return to School to Complete Their Degrees
Author: Sheffer, Hadass
Date: 2020-09-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: College Students,Adult Students,Reentry Students,Academic Persistence,Student Characteristics,Enrollment,Education Work Relationship,Acceleration (Education),Student Financial Aid,Academic Support Services,College Credits,Credentials

The new majority of college students have adult responsibilities, such as parenting, earning a living, and paying for college. Unfortunately, adult students are often treated as an afterthought by colleges and policymakers. Over the last 20 years, more than 37 million students have left without receiving a degree that would greatly improve their economic prospects. This joint report from the Graduate! Network and New America examines the journeys of determined individuals who get back on track, persevere, and earn their degree--known as comebackers--to show how policy makers and postsecondary institutions can design systems that support success for this new majority and better serve all students. [This report was written with the New America Center on Education, Labor, &amp; Skills and the Graduate! Network.]
Thinking about Quality and Schools
Author: Smith, Tami Kopischke
Date: 2018-11-00
Type: Reports - Research-practitioner Partnerships
Subjects: Educational Quality,School Effectiveness,School Safety,Parent School Relationship,Teacher Effectiveness,Instructional Leadership,Partnerships in Education,Outcomes of Education,Elementary Secondary Education

Previous work around school &quot;quality&quot; has typically identified schools that are &quot;beating the odds.&quot; Such an approach finds &quot;outlier schools&quot; by analyzing student outcomes, and studies these schools to determine what they appear to be doing well. However, in our early thinking about improving school quality, we began reframing quality around adult behaviors and inputs and the context they build in a school -- factors we can leverage. This redefining of &quot;quality&quot; around adults resonates with us because of problems we perceive with approaches that place the most weight on student outcomes, which are biased by family poverty and factors outside of schools' control. Next, we asked &quot;If we have metrics on adults, can we predict the student outcomes used in previous accountability metrics?&quot; Eventually this reframing could serve as a new nomenclature for quality and a model for guiding improvement.
The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Evaluation Report. NCEE 2021-002
Author: Troppe, Patricia
Date: 2020-12-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Elementary Secondary Education,Academic Standards,Low Income Students,Teacher Effectiveness,Administrator Effectiveness,Educational Change,Educational Assessment,School Districts,Educational Improvement,Accountability,School Effectiveness,Data Use,Preservice Teacher Education,Faculty Development

In 2017-18, states and districts began to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the current authorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). ESSA continues to call for states to set academic content standards, assess student achievement, identify and support low-performing schools, and improve educator effectiveness. ESSA departs from prior law, however, in giving states more discretion about how they accomplish these objectives. This report provides a brief look at the transition toward ESSA, as the foundation for an ongoing assessment of how the law is being carried out. The report uses survey data to examine how key policies and initiatives related to two large ESEA programs were implemented in 2017-18, and contrasts that with four years earlier. Key findings indicate that: (1) Most states had not significantly changed their content standards by 2017-18, and districts increasingly provided supports, such as standards-aligned instructional materials, to implement them; (2) States broadened the measures they used to identify struggling schools, while more districts reported that these schools implemented activities to support improvement, particularly teacher professional development; and (3) States and districts increasingly used performance data as a means to support effective teaching. [For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Supplemental Volume. NCEE 2021-002sv,&quot; see ED609180. For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Study Highlights. NCEE 2021-002,&quot; see ED609181.]
The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Supplemental Volume. NCEE 2021-002sv
Author: Troppe, Patricia
Date: 2020-12-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Elementary Secondary Education,Academic Standards,Teacher Effectiveness,Administrator Effectiveness,Educational Change,Educational Assessment,School Districts,Educational Improvement,Accountability,School Effectiveness,Data Use,Faculty Development,Graduation Requirements,School Choice,Teacher Evaluation,Administrator Evaluation,Surveys

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), originally passed in 1965, is the primary federal law related to K-12 schooling. Title I and Title II-A are core ESEA programs, and they intend to help provide all students with equal access to education by providing financial assistance to schools and districts with a high percentage of students from low-income families (Title I) and by improving teacher and principal quality (Title II-A). ESEA's latest reauthorization as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015 changed a number of policies related to Title I and Title II-A. How states and districts respond to these changes will determine whether ESSA stimulates educational improvement as intended. This document comprehensively presents national information from a study conducted by the National Center for Education Evaluation (NCEE). The study tracks the implementation of Title I and Title II-A across several key time points. This document covers the 2017-18 school year, as states and districts were transitioning to ESSA. It also includes information to compare implementation with the 2013-14 school year, prior to ESSA. Chapter 1 provides information on the study methodology, including the sample, data sources, and statistical tests used. Chapter 2 includes a comprehensive compendium of tables using the 2017-18 data, and where feasible, includes comparisons to the 2013-14 data. Chapter 3 includes the survey instruments used to collect the implementation data from 2017-18 and 2013-14. This document is a supplemental companion to the report entitled, The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. The report synthesizes the data in this document into a set of key findings. [For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Evaluation Report. NCEE 2021-002,&quot; see ED609179. For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Study Highlights. NCEE 2021-002,&quot; see ED609181.]
The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Study Highlights. NCEE 2021-002
Author: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance (ED)
Date: 2020-12-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Elementary Secondary Education,Academic Standards,Teacher Effectiveness,Educational Change,School Districts,Educational Improvement,School Effectiveness,Data Use,Faculty Development

When the primary federal law governing K-12 schooling was updated in 2015 as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), it shifted many decisions to states and districts. However, through two of its core programs (Title I and Title II-A), ESSA retained federal requirements for states to set challenging content standards, assess student performance, identify and support low-performing schools, and promote the development of the educator workforce. Title I encourages equal access to education by funding districts and schools serving a high percentage of students from low-income families. Title II-A aims to improve the effectiveness of teachers and principals. How states and districts respond to the combination of flexibility and requirements will determine whether ESSA stimulates educational improvement as intended. This report is part of a study describing the implementation of Title I and Title II-A at key timepoints, through surveys of all states and a nationally representative sample of districts. The report compares the actions of states and districts from the 2013-14 school year (prior to ESSA) to the 2017-18 school year (during the transition to ESSA). A future report will examine implementation in the 2021-22 school year, after districts have had more time to implement any state policy changes. [For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Evaluation Report. NCEE 2021-002,&quot; see ED609179. For &quot;The Transition to ESSA: State and District Approaches to Implementing Title I and Title II-A in 2017-18. Supplemental Volume. NCEE 2021-002sv,&quot; see ED609180.]
Straight Talk about Kindergarten Readiness Assessment
Author: Feeney, Stephanie
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: School Readiness,Kindergarten,Student Evaluation,Evaluation Methods,Child Development,Family Needs,Student Needs,Test Validity,Test Reliability,Alignment (Education),Developmental Stages,Cultural Relevance,Student Characteristics,Developmentally Appropriate Practices,Participative Decision Making,Social Emotional Learning,Cognitive Development,Play,Experiential Learning,Teaching Methods,School Role

It is difficult to get a good grasp of the topic of kindergarten entry assessment because there are such great differences in the purpose for the instruments, how they are constructed, and how the data is used. Even so, in many states and communities, there is cause for concern. Until the paradigm of education moves from a preoccupation with accountability to a focus on meaningful learning, based on what is known about child development, readiness is likely to continue to be assessed to inform policy and guide program funding. To provide more information on this discussion, the following questions are addressed in this report: (1) What is kindergarten readiness assessment? (2) Why is Defending the Early Years (DEY) concerned about the current state of readiness assessment? and (3) What can parents, teachers, and policymakers do about inappropriate kindergarten assessment?
Assessment of the Relationship between Physical Fitness and Student Academic and Non-Academic Outcomes for 2014-15 and 2015-16. Policy Brief
Author: Booth, Eric
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Physical Fitness,Academic Achievement,Outcomes of Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Attendance,Obesity,Discipline Problems,Lunch Programs,Gender Differences

In 2015, the United States Congress replaced the &quot;No Child Left Behind Elementary and Secondary Act&quot; with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (P.L. 114-95), which identifies health and physical education as key components of a well-rounded education (Cooper, Greenberg, Castelli, Barton, Martin &amp; Morrow, 2016). This followed a national trend of state legislators adopting legislation to target childhood obesity through statewide physical education and physical activity initiatives (Boehmer, Brownson, Haire-Joshu, &amp; Dreisinger, 2007). As part of this initiative, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) uses FitnessGram® to assess student health. This assessment and reporting software program allows school districts to gather and report students' physical fitness data to the TEA. All Texas students in grades 3-12 enrolled in a physical education course or substitute activity must be assessed once annually using the FitnessGram® assessment instrument. This instrument consists of six Health Fitness Zones (HFZs), which are different aspects of health where students are assessed as being in the HFZ or not. This provides a rich data source to explore questions about the relationship between physical fitness and academic and non-academic outcomes. The relationships between fitness and non-academic student outcomes (e.g., absenteeism and disciplinary action) have not been extensively explored or published, and the results are generally mixed. In this study, the authors build upon existing research by using multi-level regression models to explore the relationship between being in a HFZ and academic and non-academic outcomes.
Evaluating Hypotheses to Maximize Success for Special Populations of Early Learners. Policy Brief
Author: Texas Education Research Center
Date: 2020-07-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Early Childhood Education,School Readiness,Kindergarten,Socioeconomic Status,Racial Differences,Low Income Students,Preschool Education,Public Education,School Schedules,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,English Language Learners

E3 Alliance is a regional, data-driven education collaborative based in Austin, Texas. They are helping to build the strongest educational pipeline in the country to drive regional economic prosperity. They are focused on educational systems change, and use data to inform those efforts. Given that their approach to supporting educational improvement is fundamentally 'data driven', data from the University of Texas Education Research Center (ERC) plays a key role in their ability to provide objective, actionable data to practitioners in the region. E3 Alliance has developed a comprehensive set of education and related workforce statistics over the past decade that provide the region with critical information necessary to understand the education and related workforce issues facing the region, to develop well-grounded strategies in response, to change instructional policies and practices, and to allow the assessment of progress over time. Each year, E3 Alliance produces the Annual Central Texas Education Profile, the most comprehensive regional view of educational trends and outcomes in Texas. A key priority of their work has always focused on early learners. E3 Alliance's early childhood research includes (1) creation of &quot;Ready, Set, K!,&quot; a Kindergarten Readiness Assessment designed to measure children's Kindergarten Readiness across the Social-Emotional Development, Emerging Literacy, Language and Communication, and Early Numeracy domains; (2) the Kindergarten Readiness Study, launched in 2010 to determine what portion of Central Texas children enter kindergarten ready for school using the &quot;Ready, Set, K!&quot; Assessment as well as factors associated with readiness (e.g. full-day, low-ratio Pre-K); (3) Longitudinal correlation of readiness with later outcomes including 3rd grade reading and math proficiency, and (4) annual updates to the Central Texas Profile, which tracks various early childhood education metrics. [The policy brief is written by the E3 Alliance.]
Mississippi&apos;s Multifaceted Approach to Tackling Teacher Shortages
Author: Garcia, Amaya
Date: 2020-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Shortage,Teacher Recruitment,Teacher Education,Teacher Selection,Teacher Education Programs,Teacher Certification,State Programs,Preschool Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Alternative Teacher Certification,Diversity (Faculty),Minority Group Teachers,Partnerships in Education,COVID-19,Pandemics

In a time of localized teacher shortages, declining interest in teaching, and calls to diversify the educator workforce, states across the country are innovating to transform teacher recruitment, preparation, and hiring. Mississippi stands out for taking a creative approach to addressing critical shortages by piloting three initiatives: Grow Your Own programs to develop local teachers, a state-run teacher residency program, and a pilot program exploring the possibility for teachers to earn a license based on their performance. Though still early, these initiatives provide four key lessons that may help other states create opportunities for growing and diversifying a teacher workforce.
The Disappearance of Child-Directed Activities and Teachers&apos; Autonomy from Massachussetts&apos; Kindergartens
Author: Fowler, R. Clarke
Date: 2018-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Kindergarten,Student Centered Learning,Professional Autonomy,Preschool Teachers,Preschool Children,Socioeconomic Influences,Recess Breaks,Play,School Schedules,Foreign Countries,Low Income Groups,Principals,Administrator Qualifications,Student Participation,Teacher Role

This report documents the disappearance of child-directed activities and teachers' autonomy from Massachussetts' kindergartens. While child-directed activities have been reduced across the board, the study found that high socioeconomic status schools (SES) schedule 30 minutes more daily, two and a half more hours weekly, than low SES schools. Furthermore, low SES kindergartens were more likely to have transformed child-directed activities into adult-directed activities.