ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Immigrant Children's Age at Arrival and Assessment Results. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 75
Author: Heath, Anthony
Date: 2012-05-02
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Immigration,Foreign Countries,Scores,Immigrants,Age,Tests,Profiles,Disadvantaged,Second Language Learning,Academic Standards,Acculturation,Educational Experience,Educational Attainment,Second Language Instruction,Educational Practices

While a number of single-country studies have been done to explore whether or not there is a "critical age" at which the arrival in a new country becomes a steep disadvantage to the immigrant student, this study aims to determine whether the steepness of the age-at-arrival/test score profile varies across origin or destination countries. As expected, the later the arrival, the greater the penalty. However results vary according to several factors, including language differences and whether the country of origin had higher or lower educational standards. Evidence shows the importance of helping young migrants with language difficulties, as well as with the subsequent adverse effects of these difficulties. (Contains 4 tables, 4 figures and 2 footnotes.)
What Works Clearinghouse Quick Review: &quot;Increasing Young Children&apos;s Contact with Print during Shared Reading--Longitudinal Effects on Literacy Achievement&quot;
Author: What Works Clearinghouse (ED)
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Preschool Children,Reading Aloud to Others,Reading Programs,Emergent Literacy,Spelling,Intervention,Longitudinal Studies,Educational Research,Program Effectiveness

The study examined the impact of Project STAR (Sit Together and Read) on literacy skills of preschool students. Project STAR is a program in which teachers read books aloud to their students and use instructional techniques designed to encourage children to pay attention to print within storybooks. Eighty-five preschool classrooms were randomly assigned to one of three study groups: a high-dose intervention group, in which preschoolers experienced 120 reading sessions over 30 weeks; a low-dose intervention group, in which preschoolers experienced 60 reading sessions over 30 weeks; or a comparison group, in which preschool teachers read the same books used in the high-dose intervention group to their students, but did not use Project STAR techniques. Literacy skills of students in all three groups were measured one and two years after the intervention. The study reported that students in the high-dose intervention group had significantly higher early literacy skills (reading, spelling, and comprehension) than those in the comparison group on both the one- and two-year post-intervention assessments. Relative to the comparison group, students in the low-dose intervention group demonstrated significant improvements on only the spelling outcome of the two-year post-intervention assessment. The study is a randomized controlled trial that did not provide sufficient information to determine attrition or baseline equivalence of the analytic samples. A more thorough review (forthcoming) will determine whether this study may &quot;meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards with or without reservations.&quot; [The following study is reviewed in this What Works Clearinghouse Quick Review: &quot;Increasing Young Children's Contact with Print during Shared Reading: Longitudinal Effects on Literacy Achievement&quot; (EJ965180).]
School Funding Formulas: Review of Main Characteristics and Impacts. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 74
Author: Fazekas, Mihaly
Date: 2012-05-03
Type: Information Analyses
Subjects: Funding Formulas,Educational Finance,Disadvantaged Youth,Educational Equity (Finance),Efficiency,Accountability,Costs,Educational Policy,Foreign Countries

This study provides a literature review on school funding formulas across OECD countries. It looks at three salient questions from a comparative perspective: i) What kind of school formula funding schemes exist and how are they used, particularly for promoting the needs of socially disadvantaged pupils?; ii) How do school formula funding regimes perform according to equity and efficiency standards?; iii) What are the unresolved issues? Formula funding of schools, as opposed to administrative discretion and bidding, relies on a mathematical formula containing a number of variables (e.g. number of pupils), each of which has attached to it a cash amount to determine school budgets. Across OECD countries there are four main groups of variables in such formulas: i) student number and grade level-based; ii) needs-based; iii) curriculum or educational programme-based and; iv) school characteristics-based. Sometimes output and outcome-related variables are also used. The performance of formula funding compared to alternative funding regimes is dependent on the details of the formula and on the wider education policy environment. Formula funding systems typically advance transparency and accountability at low administrative costs and in combination with matching complementary policy tools they can also contribute to equity and efficiency. Currently, there are several ongoing debates across OECD countries: First, there is an inherent trade-off between transparency/simplicity and sensitivity to local conditions/complexity. Second, knowing how much educating to a given standard costs is problematic and subject to heated debates. The main reason for this is that the causal relationship between education costs and student performance is largely unknown and  even the identified impacts appear to be relatively small. Third, even though resources are allocated according to need estimation, they might not be devoted to these needs. Fourth, it is still undecided whether the introduction of school formula funding regimes has changed actual school funding practice. (Contains 11 footnotes.)
Open Educational Resources: Analysis of Responses to the OECD Country Questionnaire. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 76
Author: Hylen, Jan
Date: 2012-05-09
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: International Education,Educational Research,Questionnaires,Foreign Countries,Educational Resources,Open Education,Educational Policy,Specialists,Educational Benefits,Government Role,Cost Effectiveness,Educational Opportunities,Cultural Differences,Second Languages,Efficiency

OECD's Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) has worked on Open Educational Resources (OER) in the past, which led to the publication "Giving Knowledge for Free--the Emergence of Open Educational Resources" (2007). This working paper thus builds on exploratory and forward-looking research in CERI and invites countries to consider the policy implications of the expansion of OER, its benefits and associated challenges. A small OER expert group was established to discuss the subject, link it to other relevant developments in the field, and develop a draft questionnaire for member countries in order to collect information regarding the policy context related to OER. The expert group met in June 2011 and for a second time in September 2011. The questionnaire was sent to the 34 OECD member countries in August 2011. It outlined a short informative note about the benefits and challenges of OER. The responses to the questionnaire are analysed in this document. Annexed are: (1) Preamble; and (2) Questionnaire. (Contains 7 figures and 18 notes.)
Study on Group-Based Problem-Solving of Pre-Service Teachers in Early Childhood  Education Program
Author: Prachagool, Veena
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Research Tools,Early Childhood Education,Problem Solving,Ethics,Group Dynamics,Cooperative Learning,Preservice Teachers,Preservice Teacher Education,Student Teacher Attitudes,Learning Experience,Foreign Countries

This research aims to investigate how to develop pre-service teachers in early childhood education through employing group-based problem-solving. Participant in this research are 4th year study of pre-service teachers in early childhood education. Forty seven pre-service teachers were selected in the second semester, academic year 2010 by purposive sampling. Research tools were experiences plan and attributes test of pre-service teachers in early childhood education. Findings revealed that pre-service teachers aware their interpersonal accord and conformity at highest percent than those others. Knowledge, and moral and ethics of pre-service teachers expressed in medium and high levels. While learning management showed in low and medium levels. (Contains 2 tables.) [Financial support for this research was provided by the Faculty of Education, Mahasarakham University.]
A Research Brief: &quot;Principals' Hiring of Teachers in Philadelphia&quot;
Author: Ramirez, Heidi A.
Date: 2008-11-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Urban Schools,School Districts,Teacher Recruitment,Academic Achievement,Low Achievement,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Selection,Incentives,Teacher Qualifications,Principals,School Policy,Urban Education,Teacher Competencies,Contracts,Poverty,Minority Groups,Student Characteristics,Teaching Experience,Educational Innovation,Role,Administrator Attitudes

The School District of Philadelphia (SDP), like many other urban school districts, struggles to increase its hiring and retention of experienced and highly qualified teachers in its low-performing/high-need schools. Excluding its charter schools, SDP serves approximately 165,000 students, largely from high-poverty (76%) and minority (85%) backgrounds, in nearly 300 schools. In 2003-04, teacher quality was a persistent problem. Less than 60% of new teachers were certified, and only 43% of new teachers were retained after 3 years. There was a shortage of teachers in high-need subject areas and in low-performing schools. In such hard-to-staff schools, there were significant gaps in teacher qualifications and experience. Toward the goal of improving teacher quality and the experience balance, particularly in hard-to-staff schools, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) and SDP agreed to a set of innovative approaches in their 2004 contract. That contract included new policies for school-based selection of teachers and the provision of incentives for teachers who seek employment in selected &quot;incentive schools,&quot; in selected subjects, and to teachers new to the district's schools. Although similar hiring and/or incentive policies have been used elsewhere, little is known about the role that districts and principals play in implementing these policies and how they affect teacher recruitment. Therefore, at the request of SDP, the Urban Education Collaborative (UEC) at Temple University's Institute for Schools &amp; Society conducted a study of SDP's effort to implement these new policies during 2005-06. This research brief reports, in particular, on how SDP's principals responded to the district's newly created hiring and incentive policies. [For the full report, &quot;Principals' Hiring of Teachers in Philadelphia: A Research Report on Improving Teacher Quality,&quot; see ED532053.]
Balancing Act: Best Practices in the Middle Grades. A Report from the California Best Practices Study
Author: Arbeit, Caren
Date: 2007-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Middle School Students,Teaching Methods,Best Practices,Effective Schools Research,School Effectiveness,Middle Schools,School Role,Academic Achievement,Systems Approach,Curriculum Development,Alignment (Education),Academic Standards,Articulation (Education)

In the past, educators almost always looked for best practices in classrooms. In fact, when educators say &quot;practice,&quot; they are generally talking about teacher practice. Yet 12 years of work at Springboard Schools (and its predecessor, the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, or BASRC) argues that administrators, as well as teachers, need to worry about best practices. Equally important are organizational best practices for both schools and school districts. These kinds of best practices are crucial parts of creating school systems in which good teaching is the norm for every student in every classroom. Building on this initial study, which focused on schools in the Springboard Schools (then BASRC) network, the authors have spent three years conducting a statewide study whose goal was to identify the practices behind higher-than expected results. This report summarizes findings from schools serving middle grades students. Appended are: (1) Site Selection and Performance Data; (2) Artifacts from Case Study Schools; and (3) References. (Contains 4 figures, 3 tables and 19 footnotes.) [This report was supported by the Delantoni Trust at the San Francisco Foundation.]
Ensuring America's Future by Increasing Latino College Completion: Latino College Completion in 50 States. Executive Summary
Author: Santiago, Deborah
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Access to Education,Achievement Gap,Associate Degrees,Bachelors Degrees,Benchmarking,Best Practices,College Preparation,Cooperation,Dual Enrollment,Educational Attainment,Educational Improvement,Educational Policy,Educational Practices,Elementary Secondary Education,Enrollment Trends,Evidence,Graduation Rate,High School Graduates,Higher Education,Hispanic American Students,Hispanic Americans,Human Capital,Institutional Role,Learner Engagement,Partnerships in Education,Public Policy,School Demography,State Programs,Time to Degree,Undergraduate Study,Young Adults

In 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. This initiative included the release of a benchmarking guide for projections of degree attainment disaggregated by race/ethnicity that offered multiple metrics to track national progress. However, the initiative recognizes the majority of policy and program changes in education take place at state and local levels. This executive summary of &quot;Latino College Completion in 50 states&quot; synthesizes information on 50 state factsheets and builds on the national benchmarking guide. Each factsheet provides state level snapshots about Latinos in the educational pipeline, the equity gap between Latinos and whites in achievement, and examples of evidence-based practices increasing Latino degree attainment to inform more intentional efforts to increase degree attainment. Data-driven snapshots of Latino degree attainment for each state with metrics and promising programs across the country improving Latino degree attainment are all tools to inform policy and practice. However, data are only as good as they are used. Excelencia in Education is working with partners across the country to increase degree attainment overall and ensure Latino student success is included in the policy and practice intended to improve degree attainment for all. (Contains 3 footnotes.) [For the national snapshot report, &quot;Latino College Completion: United States,&quot; see ED532060.]
Value Added?
Author: UCLA, Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA)
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Evaluation,Educational Testing,Standardized Tests,Trend Analysis,Scores,Achievement Gains,Decision Making,Teacher Salaries,Teacher Promotion,Teacher Dismissal,Statistical Analysis,Teacher Influence,Evaluation Criteria,Educational Assessment,Outcome Based Education,Classroom Techniques,Teaching Methods,Rote Learning,Memorization,Drills (Practice),Teacher Morale,Teacher Persistence,Context Effect

Value added measures (VAM) uses changes in student test scores to determine how much &quot;value&quot; an individual teacher has &quot;added&quot; to student growth during the school year. Some policymakers, school districts, and educational advocates have applauded VAM as a straightforward measure of teacher effectiveness: the better a teacher, the better students will perform on standardized tests. However, many prominent researchers and educators have expressed concern and urged caution. This paper presents a series of questions and answers (as well as resources for more indepth analysis) aimed at disentangling this complex issue. In particular, it is concerned that a narrow use of &quot;value added&quot; as the single measure of teacher effectiveness will have a detrimental effect on student learning, teacher retention, and educational equity. In other words, without more careful implementation and use, VAM could exacerbate the very problems they are alleged to help address. (Contains 28 endnotes.)
Lessons Learned in Systemic District Reform: A Cross-District Analysis from the Comprehensive Aligned Instructional System (CAIS) Benchmarking Study
Author: Waters, Louise Bay
Date: 2008-09-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Urban Schools,Public Schools,Educational Change,School Districts,Alignment (Education),Organizational Culture,Instructional Systems,Educational Innovation,Benchmarking

Urban district reform has been hampered by the challenge of understanding and supporting the tremendous complexity of district change. Improving this understanding through actionable, practice-based research is the purpose of this study. The authors began the study with the hypothesis that achieving districts both align their instructional systems (standards, curriculum, instructional strategies, professional development, and assessment and data) and their systems to support instruction (accountability and planning, human resources, specialized student supports, use of funds, technology and governance) around a powerful equity goal and a clear vision of teaching and learning. This basic framework is laid out in Defining a Comprehensive Aligned Instructional System (CAIS) by Louise Bay Waters (2007). The purpose of the CAIS Benchmarking Study was to delve deeply into exactly how districts accomplish this alignment. Over the two years of the study, we have found that, indeed, the CAIS Study districts did focus on structural alignment, but that they also placed considerable emphasis on the development of organizational cultures that enabled them to address issues of equity and instructional quality in ways that many districts can't. These cultures were critical in sustaining the change process long enough for reforms to move from the cabinet to the classroom or to scale from a pilot to the district as a whole. [This report was made in partnership with the Stupski Foundation.]
Development of Mathematics and Science Teacher Efficacy during an Alternative Middle Grades Certification Program
Author: Ketelhut, Diane Jass
Date: 2011-12-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Small Group Instruction,Student Teaching,Preservice Teachers,Methods Courses,Teacher Education Curriculum,Teacher Effectiveness,Self Efficacy,Science Teachers,Alternative Teacher Certification,Mathematics Teachers,Cohort Analysis,Middle School Students,Middle School Teachers,Correlation,Outcome Measures,Teacher Attitudes,Teacher Expectations of Students,Knowledge Base for Teaching,Pedagogical Content Knowledge

As part of a grant-funded project, the authors have designed an alternative certification program, E = mc[superscript 2], funded by U.S. Department of Education under its Transition to Teaching Program. Before beginning their student teaching, participants conduct observations, interviews, tutoring, small group instruction, and isolated whole group instruction. During student teaching, participants are enrolled in a second methods course to address the hypothesis of Utley, Moseley, and Bruamt (2005) that a lack of change of efficacy during student teaching is due to a lack of support. To study the effect of E = mc[superscript 2] program on the development of self-efficacy among cohorts of content-strong preservice teachers, the authors borrowed constructs from two instruments measuring teacher self-efficacy in science and mathematics and two constructs from another instrument that measures instructors' teaching efficacy and self-confidence in knowledge of content. This brief explores the relationship between those four constructs: outcome expectancy (OE), or the degree to which a teacher believes students can learn from his or her teaching; personal teaching efficacy (PTE), or the degree to which a teacher believes he or she can teach effectively; knowledge efficacy (KE), or teachers' confidence in their knowledge of content; and teaching efficacy (TE) across the program. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)
Minding the Gap: New Roles for School Districts in the Age of Accountability--A Study of High-Performing, High Poverty School Districts in California
Author: Springboard Schools
Date: 2006-00-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: School Districts,Educational Administration,Educational Improvement,Case Studies,Achievement Gap,Capacity Building,Data,Decision Making,Equal Education,Faculty Development,Poverty,English Language Learners,Hispanic American Students,African American Students,Parent School Relationship,Student Educational Objectives,Academic Achievement,Feedback (Response)

This study is a snapshot of some school districts in California that are slightly ahead of their peers, though still in the early stages of this change process. What is important about the study is, first, the optimistic finding that capacity to support schools and school improvement can be built within school districts, at least in those large enough to support a central office staff. And, second, the study sheds some light on some of the high-leverage strategies that district leaders are adopting to replace the old focus on administration and compliance. Appended are: (1) Tools and Artifacts; (2) Performance Data; (3) Evidence of Sustained Growth 2004-2005;(4) Glossary; (5) Further Reading; and (6) Springboard Board of Trustees. (Contains 9 footnotes.)
Latino College Completion: United States
Author: Excelencia in Education
Date: 2012-00-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Access to Education,Achievement Gap,Benchmarking,Best Practices,College Preparation,College Students,Demography,Dual Enrollment,Educational Attainment,Elementary Secondary Education,Enrollment Trends,Equal Education,Evidence,Graduation Rate,Higher Education,Hispanic American Students,Hispanic Americans,Institutional Role,Partnerships in Education,Program Effectiveness,State Programs,Student Educational Objectives,School Holding Power,Young Adults

In 2009, Excelencia in Education launched the Ensuring America's Future initiative to inform, organize, and engage leaders in a tactical plan to increase Latino college completion. An executive summary of Latino College Completion in 50 states synthesizes information on 50 state factsheets and builds on the national benchmarking guide. Each factsheet provides state level snapshots about Latinos in the educational pipeline and the equity gap between Latinos and White non-Hispanics in achievement. Additionally, examples of how evidence-based practices improve Latino college completion at institutions of higher education are provided. Highlights from United States' fact sheet include: (1) In the United States, 22% of the K-12 population was Latino; (2) In the United States, 16% of the population was Latino. (Projections show a continued increase.); (3) The median age of Latinos in the United States was 27, compared to 40 for White non-Hispanics; and (4) In the United States, 19% of Latino adults (25 to 64 years old) had earned an associate degree or higher, compared to 38% of all adults. (Contains 4 footnotes.) [For executive summary, &quot;Ensuring America's Future by Increasing Latino College Completion: Latino College Completion in 50 States. Executive Summary,&quot; see ED532055.]