ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Modeling College Graduation GPA Considering Equity in Admissions: Evidence from the University of Puerto Rico
Author: Matos-Díaz, Horacio
Date: 2014-10-13
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: College Admission,Private Schools,Gender Differences,Equal Education,Models,Educational Opportunities,Standardized Tests,Grade Point Average,Graduation Rate,Correlation,Predictor Variables,Time to Degree,Grade Inflation

Over concerns about private school students' advantages in standardized tests, beginning in 1995-96 the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) implemented a new admissions formula that reduced the weight they previously had in the General Admissions Index (GAI), on which its admissions decisions are based. This study seeks to determine the possible effects of the new GAI regarding both its objective of promoting equity in the student body composition and as a measure of academic aptitude capable of predicting student success. With these aims, the study compares the old and new GAI averages of 11 consecutive entering cohorts at the Bayamón campus of the UPR, and models the graduation GPA (GGPA) of 6 of these cohorts. Evidence shows that (a) the new GAI eliminated private school students' advantage over those from public schools and reduced to a minimum the gap between genders; (b) female students obtain significantly higher GGPAs and exhibit other advantages when compared to males, while public and private school students' academic outcomes are broadly similar; (c) the probability of accessing a determined boundary in the GGPA distribution is significantly and nonlinearly related to the GAI; (d) GGPAs exhibit an uptrend that varies inversely and significantly with the GAI, and (e) the probability of being in the lower bounds of the GGPA distribution increases to the extent that graduates exceed graduation required time.
Paradigms, Power, and PR in New York City: Assessing Two School Accountability Implementation Efforts
Author: Peck, Craig
Date: 2014-12-01
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Policy,Program Implementation,Urban Schools,Public Schools,Accountability,African Americans,Community Involvement,Urban Education,Politics of Education,Educational Change,Power Structure,Principals,Public Relations,Financial Problems

This policy study critically compares two different efforts to implement an accountability system in the New York City public schools. In 1971, the New York City Board of Education contracted with the Educational Testing Service (ETS), which created a lengthy accountability plan for the district. Fitful maneuvers to execute the ETS plan fizzled out by 1978. Roughly three decades later, New York City educational leaders publicly championed school accountability as a chief goal. By 2003, formal accountability system planning had commenced; in 2007, an accountability system went fully operational, with New York City public schools receiving a published letter grade that ranged from A-F. This study demonstrates how the maturation of a national education policy paradigm (standards-based school accountability) coalesced with several contextual factors (money, power, principals, and public relations) to enable successful system implementation in the 2000s. Importantly, this work also demonstrates how African-American community representatives and leaders in New York City contributed to the nascent movement for accountability in the 1970s, yet the voices of underrepresented and underserved populations were largely absent in the 2000s implementation effort. Finally, events in both eras illustrate how educational accountability can play an important symbolic role by transmitting political messages.
Knowledge Utility: From Social Relevance to Knowledge Mobilization
Author: Naidorf, Judith
Date: 2014-09-01
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Higher Education,Research Utilization,Public Policy,Public Colleges,Comparative Analysis,Relevance (Education),Technology Transfer,Foreign Countries,Qualitative Research,Academic Freedom,Social Sciences,Humanities,Grants,Institutional Autonomy

In recent years, a more sophisticated vocabulary has emerged in the field of higher education. Categories such as&quot; socially relevant research&quot;; &quot;knowledge mobilization&quot;; &quot;research impact&quot;; &quot;innovation&quot;; and &quot;university priorities&quot; have appeared. At first glance, these words may appear neutral, simple and free from conflicts of interest. However, I argue that each of them requires deeper analysis, especially in relation to current scientific and university public policies, as their use has consequences and/or impacts both at the institutional level (higher education institutions) and actor-level (scholars, project managers, etc.). Therefore, by shedding light on the fact that &quot;social relevance&quot; of university is a commonly addressed category in documents regulating university activities, I postulate that such categories indicate a reductionist notion of &quot;relevance&quot; that is used haphazardly as a substitute for the ideas of meaning, mission, and the aims of a university. In order to pinpoint and discuss these new terms and categories that are used as measures of academic knowledge, the paper focuses on public university systems in Argentina and Canada. From a comparative perspective, I aim at grasping a better understanding of the changes in knowledge mobilization.
The Media Got It Wrong! A Critical Discourse Analysis of Changes to the Educational Policy Making Arena
Author: Piazza, Peter
Date: 2014-05-19
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Discourse Analysis,Educational Policy,Criticism,Political Influences,Politics of Education,Mass Media Effects,Mass Media Role,Case Studies,Advocacy,Interviews,Policy Formation,Media Research,Neoliberalism,Unions,State Legislation,Teacher Effectiveness,Educational Administration

The context for education policy making has changed dramatically in recent years. Policymaking at the state-level has become characterized by near-unprecedented enactment of neo-liberal education policies, increased influence of so-called Education Reform Advocacy Organizations (ERAOs) and increased challenges to unions' political influence. In this article, I explore the news media's characterization of power and political influence in this new policy making arena. I offer case study analysis of a Massachusetts law, passed in the summer of 2012 with support from a nonprofit advocacy group called Stand for Children, that limits seniority-based tenure for public school teachers. I use Critical Discourse Analysis to explore how themes, or discourses, common to this new context of policy making played out in the media coverage of the law, and I identify and characterize differences between media coverage of the law and the historical account as told in stakeholder interviews with major players involved in policy debate and development. Ultimately, I suggest that differences between media and interview data can tell us a lot about power and political influence in a time of dramatic policy change.
Inequitable Dispersion: Mapping the Distribution of Highly Qualified Teachers in St. Louis Metropolitan Elementary Schools
Author: Schultz, Lyndsie Marie
Date: 2014-09-08
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Teacher Effectiveness,Elementary Schools,Elementary School Teachers,Urban Schools,Urban Education,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Poverty,Minority Group Students,Teacher Certification,Teacher Qualifications,Predictor Variables,Socioeconomic Status

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 required all schools, including those located in historically disadvantaged areas, to employ highly qualified teachers. Schools in areas with higher levels of poverty and students of color have historically employed a higher percentage of less qualified teachers (Clotfelter, Ladd, &amp; Vidgor, 2005, 2006; Hill &amp; Lubienski, 2007; Lankford, Loeb, &amp; Wyckoff, 2002). This study examines the distribution, location, and exceptions to highly qualified teachers in St. Louis metropolitan elementary schools. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), this study demonstrates how the distribution of highly qualified teachers remains relevant to urban education policy discussions.
Understanding How Universal Vouchers Have Impacted Urban School Districts' Enrollment in Chile
Author: Portales, Jaime
Date: 2014-07-21
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Educational Vouchers,School Districts,Enrollment Influences,Poverty Areas,Socioeconomic Influences,Socioeconomic Status,Educational Opportunities,Student Mobility,Disadvantaged,School Choice,Privatization,Administrative Organization,Program Effectiveness,Program Evaluation,Hypothesis Testing,Predictor Variables,Models,Competition,Educational Finance,Academic Achievement,Income,Demography,Regression (Statistics),Performance Factors,Statistical Analysis,Educational Policy,Enrollment Trends,Metropolitan Areas,Municipalities,Institutional Characteristics,Participant Characteristics,Educational Assessment,Educational Indicators

Findings from this study show that educational and mobility opportunities for families and students participating in the Chilean voucher system are not homogenously distributed. Some families and students use and benefit from the system, while others will remain marginalized. The quantitative results in this study demonstrate that students of relatively higher SES living in mid-high or mid-low poverty districts receive the benefit from vouchers. These students may move from one public school to another, from a public school to private-voucher school in the same area, from one district to another, or from a public school in an area to a private-voucher school in another district. Meanwhile, low-income counterparts living in high-poverty areas are excluded from the system and tend to remain at their public neighborhood school.
National Affiliation or Local Representation: When TFA Alumni Run for School Board
Author: Jacobsen, Rebecca
Date: 2014-07-14
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Boards of Education,Elections,Politics of Education,Political Influences,Beginning Teachers,Disadvantaged Schools,Alumni,Local Issues,Leadership Training,Leadership Qualities,Governance,Educational Change,Educational Policy,Statistical Analysis,Political Campaigns,Board Candidates,National Organizations

Historically power to govern public schools has been delegated to local school boards. However, this arrangement of power has been shifting over the past half century and increasingly, local school boards are targeted as ineffective and antiquated. Teach For America (TFA), typically examined for its placement of teachers, also seeks to develop educational leaders and TFA now encourages and supports its alumni to run for local school boards. The involvement of a national organization, like TFA, with its own national education agenda in local school board elections may reflect the next step in the demise of local control. To investigate whether TFA&apos;s involvement in local elections represents the spreading of a national agenda at the expense of attention to local issues, this research examines campaign messages for both TFA alumni candidates and their opponents. Results indicate that TFA alumni candidates incorporate significantly more messages aligned with TFA than their opponents (35 vs. 11), but they also maintain a focus on local issues as measured by the number of local issue messages they also incorporate into their campaign literature. Rather than debating whether school boards have lost power, this research points to the need to better understand how local politics is changing and expanding as new voices enter the arena.
Chasing the European Dream: Unaccompanied African Youths' Educational Experience in a Canary Islands' Reception Centre and Beyond
Author: Auger-Voyer, Valérie
Date: 2014-08-04
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Undocumented Immigrants,Educational Attainment,Civil Rights,Social Integration,Socioeconomic Status,Educational Opportunities,Public Policy,Ethnography,Social Services,Social Influences,Political Influences,Self Concept,African Culture,Nonprofit Organizations,Academic Aspiration,Youth

In the last two decades, Spain's Canary Islands have received thousands of undocumented migrants arriving by boat from the coasts of North and West Africa. The sharp increase of unaccompanied minors has presented a particular challenge, as these minors fall under the State's protection system and are entitled to an education and other rights, once in Spain. What economic and socio-cultural factors push these youth to seek a better life whilst endangering their own? What educational opportunities are available to them in Spain and how can these propel them into secure living situations? What can be said about their integration prospects? This ethnographic study, based on field research carried out in a reception centre for unaccompanied minors in Tenerife, focuses on the youth's migration trajectories, and on the extent to which the education and support they receive in Spain relates to their socio-economic integration into European society and beyond. The findings reveal that although the centre provides the youth with a window of opportunity to be in Spain and gain an education, the ambiguousness of their legal situation brought about by immigration policies once they have left the centre, is not conducive to their leading a stable and productive life in the current context.
Accountability for College and Career Readiness: Developing a New Paradigm
Author: Darling-Hammond, Linda
Date: 2014-08-18
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Accountability,College Readiness,Career Readiness,State Standards,Performance Based Assessment,Curriculum Development,Alignment (Education),Federal Government,Government Role,Models,Educational Change,Educational Policy,Educational Improvement,Educational Quality,Barriers,Capacity Building,Standards,Resource Allocation,Student Needs,Educational Indicators

As schools across the country prepare for new standards under the Common Core, states are moving toward creating more aligned systems of assessment and accountability. This paper recommends an accountability approach that focuses on meaningful learning, enabled by professionally skilled and committed educators, and supported by adequate and appropriate resources, so that all students regardless of background are prepared for both college and career when they graduate from high school. Drawing on practices already established in other states and on the views of policymakers and school experts, this paper proposes principles for effective accountability systems and imagines what a new accountability system could look like in an imagined &quot;51st state&quot; in the United States. While considerable discussion and debate will be needed before a new approach can take shape, this paper&apos;s objective is to get the conversation started so the nation can meet its aspirations for preparing college- and career-ready students.
Stigma without Sanctions: The (Lack Of) Impact of Private School Vouchers on Student Achievement
Author: Bowen, Daniel H.
Date: 2004-08-25
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Accountability,Educational Vouchers,Educational Policy,Academic Achievement,Educational Legislation,Federal Legislation,Standardized Tests,Scores,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement,Elementary School Students,Middle School Students

Under the Florida A+ Accountability Program, Florida's schools are graded based on student performance on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Previously, when schools would earn their second failing grade within four years, students assigned to these schools were offered school vouchers which parents and guardians could use to transfer students to a private or another traditional public school. In January of 2006 the Florida Supreme Court declared that private school voucher component of the Florida A+ Accountability Program was unconstitutional, eliminating the threat of having these students and funds leaving to attend private schools. This exogenous shock allows us to test whether private voucher threats and the funding tied to these students led to increases in student achievement. We find no evidence that the private school voucher threats drive academic improvement beyond what is seen in schools when this private school voucher threat is removed.
The Development and Implementation of a National, Standards-Based, Multi-Method Teacher Performance Assessment System in Chile
Author: Taut, Sandy
Date: 2014-07-21
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Teacher Evaluation,Standards,Evaluation Methods,Portfolios (Background Materials),Validity,Measures (Individuals),Program Implementation,Accountability,Feedback (Response),Interviews,Peer Evaluation,Supervisors,Self Evaluation (Individuals)

Assessing teaching performance is a contentious issue in current educational policy in many countries. In Chile, a national, standards-based, multi-method, mandatory teacher evaluation system has been in place since 2003 to assess the performance of about 70, 000 public school teachers from pre-school to high school and adult education. The Chilean system combines formative and summative purposes and uses four instruments: a structured portfolio, a peer interview, supervisor questionnaires, and a self-assessment. In this paper we analyze the Chilean system as a case of interest regarding some controversial issues in teacher evaluation today. To this end we describe the system's political background, implementation process and results. We put a special focus on the development and evolution of its evaluation instruments; we discuss their strengths and limitations and review the research evidence regarding their validity and reliability. Finally, we reflect on the Chilean experience in terms of the insights it can provide into teacher performance assessment for an international audience.
The Performing School: The Effects of Market &amp; Accountability Policies
Author: Falabella, Alejandra
Date: 2014-07-21
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Accountability,Educational Sociology,Educational Change,Competition,Marketing,Educational Quality,Educational Innovation,Social Justice,Ethics,Educational Policy,Foreign Countries

Market and accountability educational reforms have proliferated around the globe, along with high expectations of solving countries' school quality deficits and inequities. In this paper I develop an analytical framework from a critical sociology angle for analyzing the effects of these policies within schools. First I discuss conceptually the configuration of this quasi-market schema and develop the notion of the &quot;performing school.&quot; Additionally, I study the effects of these policies within schools, based on a literature review of 130 papers, and focused particularly on a smaller body of critical sociology research (56 papers). The aim is not to produce a comprehensive overview of policy benefits and disadvantages, but to understand school transformations within the current policy scenario. Schools, in this context, are placed within a competition-based schema, where managers and teachers continuously have to compete, marketize and perform &quot;successfully&quot; according to external criterion. These policies are not only changing school practices and triggering &quot;secondary&quot; effects, but, moreover, they are transforming school life, ethics and teaching profession subjectivities in complex and deeply-rooted ways. In this paper I attempt to challenge policy assumptions and a technocratic view of policy implementation, and invite readers to rethink the nature and consequences of these policy formulae.
The Global Transformation toward Testing for Accountability
Author: Smith, William C.
Date: 2014-12-08
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Global Approach,Standardized Tests,Educational History,Educational Policy,Academic Achievement,Intelligence,Science Education,Administrative Organization,Neoliberalism

To ensure equal access to high quality education, the global expansion of universal basic education has included accountability measures in the form of academic tests. Presently the majority of countries participate in national testing; however, the past two decades have seen a substantial shift in test characteristics and aims. This article investigates the global transformation toward testing for accountability, where intentional or unintentional positive or negative consequences are applied to educators (teachers and administrators) based on their student's test scores, in light of the emerging global culture, identified by World Culture theorists. Elements of the world culture--including the expansion of western education models, an emphasis on academic intelligence, faith in science as a rational path to truth, and the decentralization of authority to the local level--justify the establishment of testing for accountability systems. Descriptive evidence from regional and international datasets, such as PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS, illustrate the speed at which this transformation occurs. The convergence of countries toward testing for accountability and its position as an increasingly normative policy lever is illustrated in brief vignettes from the diverse systems of Hungary, Mexico, and South Korea. As testing for accountability becomes embedded in the world culture as a legitimate tool for education reform it is less prone to critical reflection. If the potential benefits and concerns of testing for accountability, outlined in this article, are not thoughtfully evaluated this global transformation will lead to a testing culture that is internalized as normative and adopted as individual values.
Desegregation, Accountability, and Equality: North Carolina and the Nation, 1971-2002
Author: Baker, Scott
Date: 2014-12-08
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: High Stakes Tests,Educational Policy,Civil Rights,Educational Change,State Standards,Accountability,Educational History,Political Influences,Equal Education,Educational Opportunities,African American Students,Outcomes of Education,Academic Achievement,Educational Attainment,Legislators,School Desegregation

Using North Carolina as a lens to illuminate broader national developments, this paper examines how and why educational policy in the United States turned away from a civil rights agenda of opportunity and embraced test-based accountability as a way of promoting racial equality. We show that comprehensive desegregation, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and Great Society Programs expanded educational opportunities for African Americans, fueled significant increases in black educational achievement and attainment, and brought African Americans closer to equality with whites by the 1980s. We situate the turn to accountability in a political context shaped by an increasingly conservative political environment, and examine three overlapping waves of test- based accountability that began in North Carolina in the late 1970s and spread throughout the region and the nation in the decades that followed: the minimum competency movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s, the standards based reforms of the 1980s, and the more comprehensive and coercive forms of high stakes testing in the 1990s. We argue that the southern political leaders who shaped U.S. educational policy turned to test-based accountability as a politically expedient alternative to the task of equalizing educational opportunities for African Americans. Civil rights organizations endorsed test-based accountability, but we find little evidence that test-based approaches improved African American educational outcomes. Opportunity policies, we conclude, did more to promote racial equality in educational achievement and attainment than test-based accountability.