ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
A Descriptive Qualitative Study of Parental Perceptions of the Influence Deployment Has on Their Child&apos;s Academic Performance
Author: Hill, Lienne Morgan
Date: 2019-03-14
Type: Dissertations/Theses - Doctoral Dissertations
Subjects: Military Personnel,Academic Achievement,Elementary Secondary Education,Preschool Education,Parent Attitudes,Parent Influence,Attachment Behavior,Social Influences,Parent Child Relationship,Spouses,Correlation,Stress Variables,Interpersonal Communication,Well Being,Emotional Intelligence,Military Service

Many military families are experiencing the effects of deployment in an effort to support the mission of the US Armed Forces. The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to provide a description of how families living in the Southeastern United States who have experienced military deployment perceive parental deployment influences their Pre- Kindergarten through twelfth grade children's academic performance, if at all. Parental perceptions of the influence of deployment are supported by the confluence model, attachment theory, and Bandura's social learning theory/social cognitive theory. Research questions focused on how soldiers who have experienced military deployment and their spouses perceive their PreK-12th grade children's academic performance is influenced by parental deployment. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and an open-ended counselor's questionnaire. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to recruit a sample of 38, including 19 soldiers and 19 nondeployed spouses who had children in Pre- Kindergarten through grade 12. Thematic analysis revealed the following findings: soldiers and their nondeployed spouses perceive that academic performance is influenced by the length, number of deployments, parental attitude/support, and whether there was effective communication between parents and their children during deployments. Results provide school staff with valuable insight as to specific facets of parental deployment that soldiers and nondeployed spouses perceive as having both positive and negative influence on student performance.
Learning and Practicing Continuous Improvement: Lessons from the CORE Districts
Author: Gallagher, H. Alix
Date: 2019-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: School Districts,Educational Improvement,Urban Schools,Improvement Programs,Program Effectiveness,Educational Cooperation,Organizational Culture

The education sector is embracing the hope that continuous improvement will lead to more beneficial student outcomes than standards-based reform and other approaches to policies and practice in prior decades. This report examines attempts in California to realize the potential of continuous improvement in some of the state's largest districts. Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE) and the &quot;CORE Districts,&quot; a nonprofit collaborative of eight urban school districts, have been engaged in a research-practice partnership since 2015. This report presents lessons learned from their collaboration in 2018-19, and is accompanied by three case studies that provide a more in-depth discussion of exemplary practices in two districts and one school. The report opens by briefly defining continuous improvement and tracing the history of the &quot;CORE Districts.&quot; It then focuses on two questions that are central if California's schools and districts are to realize the potential of continuous improvement. Six lessons gleaned through interviews, observations of professional learning events and team meetings, and analysis of artifacts created through learning events and improvement work are then described. The remainder of this report explains these lessons and implications for broader continuous work in California and beyond.
12th Grade Course-Taking and the Distribution of Opportunity for College Readiness in Mathematics
Author: Asim, Minahil
Date: 2019-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Grade 12,High School Seniors,Course Selection (Students),Student Characteristics,Racial Differences,Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,Grade 11,Academic Achievement,Public Colleges,College Bound Students,Mathematics Instruction,Enrollment Trends,Public Schools,Gender Differences,Advanced Placement,Disadvantaged Youth

In this report, the authors explore the patterns in mathematics course-taking among California public high school seniors. They describe what courses students are enrolled in and how course participation varies by key student characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and performance level on the state's 11th grade assessments. The authors also explore course-taking patterns for students eligible for California's public four-year colleges--California State University (CSU) and the University of California (UC), and for applicants and admitted students at the CSU and UC. The findings demonstrate that although a large majority of college-bound students enrolled in math in their final year of high school, advanced math pathways were not equally accessed among our high school seniors. These disparities in enrollment patterns by race/ethnicity and school characteristics likely contribute to disparities in postsecondary access and success.
A Middle School Drop: Consistent Gender Differences in Students&apos; Self-Efficacy
Author: Fahle, Erin M.
Date: 2019-10-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Middle School Students,Self Efficacy,Gender Differences,Academic Achievement,Student Characteristics,Institutional Characteristics,Females

Academic self-efficacy is a student's belief in their ability to perform within a school environment. Prior research shows that students experience a drop in academic self-efficacy during middle school that is particularly steep for female students and results in lower self-efficacy for girls than boys throughout middle and high school. In this brief, we probe whether this pattern is consistent across student groups defined by demographics, achievement level, and school of attendance. We find unusual consistency: while non-white, low-achieving, and poor students show somewhat lower self-efficacy than other students, the differential drop in middle school is essentially universal across student groups. Similarly, while schools vary meaningfully in their students' level of self-efficacy, they also do not differ much in this trend.
Investment in Reading Research from Kindergarten through High School, FY 2006-FY 2015
Author: National Center for Special Education Research (ED)
Date: 2015-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Achievement Gap,Students with Disabilities,Reading Research,Reading Difficulties,Kindergarten,Elementary Secondary Education,Reading Comprehension,Reading Skills,Basic Skills,Intellectual Disability,Hearing Impairments,Literature,Information Literacy,Language Usage,Vocabulary,Writing Skills,Screening Tests,Disability Identification,At Risk Students,Progress Monitoring

The most recent scores from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2013) indicate that the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their peers is widening and that 69% of 4th graders and 60% of 8th graders with identified disabilities score below basic levels. The Institute of Education Sciences' National Center for Special Education Research (NCSER) is working to address this gap by funding research that develops and rigorously evaluates interventions to identify those that improve outcomes for students with a wide range of skill levels, to prevent reading disabilities from emerging, and to close the gap or prevent the gap from further widening between students with disabilities and their peers. This paper describes NCSER's investment in literacy in kindergarten through high school and some important findings resulting from this investment. The sections presented in this paper describe a range of research activities from NCSER-funded projects that have ended to those that are just beginning. [This report was summarized by Kristen Rhoads.]
Improving College Readiness: Leveraging Research to Inform Practice
Author: Kurlaender, Michal
Date: 2019-08-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: College Readiness,Educational Attainment,Academic Aspiration,Beliefs,College Preparation,Knowledge Level,Access to Information,Resilience (Psychology),Academic Persistence,Skill Development,Student Characteristics,Elementary Secondary Education

The increasing importance of a college degree has led policymakers and educators to focus on strengthening the path to college beyond college entry. In this research brief the authors review four factors key to educational attainment: (1) aspirations and beliefs, (2) academic preparation, (3) knowledge and information, and (4) fortitude and resilience. This brief also highlights the ways in which these are reflected in practice and discusses steps that schools might consider given their role in developing students' skills and dispositions for successfully navigating the pathways to and through college.
A Summary of Research on Youth with Disabilities &amp; the Juvenile Justice System, FY 2006-FY 2016
Author: National Center for Special Education Research (ED)
Date: 2016-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Juvenile Justice,Delinquency,Disabilities,Youth,Special Education,Access to Education,Correctional Education,Student Needs,Behavior Modification,Academic Achievement,Social Development,At Risk Persons,Peer Influence,Family Influence,School Role,Middle School Students,High School Students,Prevention,Intervention,Institutionalized Persons,Correctional Institutions,Family Involvement,Literacy Education,Positive Behavior Supports,Job Skills,Skill Development,Transitional Programs,Residential Programs

A large proportion of youth in the juvenile justice system have disabilities (U.S. Department of Education, 2014). Research indicates that the prevalence of youth with disabilities in these settings is four to five times greater than the prevalence of youth with disabilities in public schools. Juvenile justice facilities often face challenges for providing special education services and meeting the needs of youth with disabilities. Researchers funded by the National Center for Special Education (NCSER) have sought to improve academic and social/behavioral outcomes for youth in juvenile justice facilities as well as transition outcomes for youth exiting these facilities. NCSER has also funded projects focused on preventing the involvement of youth with and at risk for disabilities in the juvenile justice system by addressing key risk and protective factors across the individual, peer, family, and school domains. This summary describes: (1) NCSER-funded projects that have sought to address risk factors for involvement in juvenile justice settings through middle and high school-based prevention and intervention efforts; and (2) projects aimed at improving outcomes for youth with or at risk for disabilities in the juvenile justice system. Given that the juvenile justice system encompasses a wide range of facilities (e.g., juvenile correctional institutions and specialized treatment facilities; Hockenberry, Sickmund, &amp; Sladky, 2016), this summary will describe NCSER-funded projects that address the needs of juvenile offenders in both non-secure residential treatment facilities and secure juvenile correction settings. [This report was summarized by Katherine Taylor.]
Empowering the Intersegmental Agenda: Opportunities for Research, Policy, and Practice
Author: Reed, Sherrie
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Research,Policy,Theory Practice Relationship,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Partnerships in Education,Elementary Secondary Education,Postsecondary Education,Institutional Cooperation,Community Colleges,Public Schools,Colleges,Community Involvement,Information Dissemination,Advocacy

Due to fragmented and misaligned segments of public education, many students lack access to educational opportunities that will ensure their success in college and career. This problem is one that may only be solved through better alignment and coordination between high school and college, between systems of higher education, and between education and economic development sectors. Intersegmental collaborations are emerging as a key lever for change, and the sustainability of these intersegmental efforts both depend on and offer opportunities to bridge research, policy, and practice in ways that facilitate improved outcomes. This brief summarizes lessons for effective collaboration and highlights opportunities for bridging research, policy, and practice to increase student success in college and career.
An IRT Mixture Model for Rating Scale Confusion Associated with Negatively Worded Items in Measures of Social-Emotional Learning. Working Paper
Author: Bolt, Daniel M.
Date: 2019-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Item Response Theory,Rating Scales,Test Items,Social Development,Emotional Development,Elementary School Students,Secondary School Students,Age Differences,Reading Skills,English Language Learners,Test Bias

We illustrate the application of mixture IRT [item response theory] models to evaluate the possibility of respondent confusion due to the negative wording of certain items on a social-emotional learning (SEL) assessment. Using actual student self-report ratings on four social-emotional learning scales collected from students in grades 3-12 from CORE districts in the state of California, we also evaluate the consequences of the potential confusion in biasing student- and school-level scores as well as correlational relationships between SEL and student-level variables. Models of both full and partial confusion are examined. Our results suggest that (1) rating scale confusion due to negatively-worded items does appear to be present; (2) the confusion is most prevalent at lower grade levels (3rd-5th); and (3) the occurrence of confusion is positively related to reading proficiency and ELL status, as anticipated, and bias estimates of SEL correlations with these student-level variables. For these reasons, we suggest future iterations of the SEL measures use only positively oriented items. To maintain measurement continuity, we suggest bias corrections based on the studied mixture model may be useful, although the precision of such corrections is sensitive to the nature of confusion (e.g., full versus partial).
A Middle School Drop: Consistent Gender Differences in Students&apos; Self-Efficacy. Working Paper
Author: Fahle, Erin M.
Date: 2019-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Gender Differences,Middle School Students,Self Efficacy,Elementary School Students,Racial Differences,Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,Institutional Characteristics,School Culture,Educational Environment,Self Esteem,Student Attitudes,High School Students,Student School Relationship,Discipline,Standards,School Safety

Academic self-efficacy is a student's belief about their ability to learn or to perform within a school environment. This paper captures differential trends in academic self-efficacy by gender using self-efficacy survey data from five large districts in California from the 2014-15 through 2017-18 school years. We find that female students report significantly higher self-efficacy in elementary school compared to males. In middle school, students' self-efficacy declines for both genders; however, this drop is substantially greater for females, leading to significantly lower levels of reported self-efficacy for females than males from middle school onward. Despite large differences in average self-efficacy, this gendered pattern of drop-off occurs consistently across racial, socioeconomic, and academic subgroups. Average self-efficacy also varies significantly among schools; however, school demographics and culture and climate, as reported by students, are not strongly associated with the average female-male self-efficacy gap. Looking at how the general measure of academic self-efficacy corresponds with test scores, we find the drops in self-efficacy are most pronounced for low scoring students, and that changes in grade-to-grade test scores modestly correlate with changes in general academic self-efficacy.
Charter Competition and District Finances: Evidence from California Students. Working Paper
Author: Bruno, Paul
Date: 2019-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Charter Schools,Competition,School Districts,Enrollment Trends,Educational Finance,Expenditure per Student,School District Spending,Comparative Analysis,Correlation,Trend Analysis,State Policy,Elementary Secondary Education

Charter schools enroll a growing share of public school students, leading to concerns about the financial implications of charter schools for traditional public schools (TPSs). Using detailed expenditure data for school districts in California, I exploit variation in charter school enrollment across time and between districts to evaluate how district spending and overall financial health change as nearby charter sectors expand. I find that larger charter enrollment shares are associated with lower levels of per-pupil spending and reduced fiscal health in TPSs. However, these relationships in some cases exhibit significant nonlinearities and are much smaller in magnitude than what has been observed in other states. Consequently, larger charter enrollment shares are not associated with differences in the proportion of expenditures allocated to various activities, goods, or services. Differences between these results and those from similar analyses in other states may be explicable in terms of California's economic and policy context, providing lessons for policymakers.
College Affordability in Every Corner of California: Perspectives from the 2019 PACE/USC Rossier Poll
Author: Rios-Aguilar, Cecilia
Date: 2019-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Paying for College,Higher Education,Costs,Racial Differences,Ethnicity,Socioeconomic Status,Access to Education,Public Opinion,Geographic Location,Counties,State Programs,Public Colleges,Low Income Students,Tuition,Child Care,Equal Education

California voters ranked college affordability as the second most important education policy issue in the 2019 PACE/USC Rossier poll, a concern reflected in Governor Gavin Newsom's first budget proposal and in a number of bills currently progressing through the state legislature. Though desire for making college affordable is high among the average voter, California's geographic and socio-economic diversity demand that lawmakers consider local contexts when designing and implementing new reforms. We discuss variation in concern over college costs at the county level and by racial/ethnic and income groups, and suggest proper evaluation and implementation of college promise programs and equity initiatives as particularly fruitful avenues for addressing college affordability throughout the state.
Can We Measure Classroom Supports for Social-Emotional Learning?
Author: Meyer, Robert
Date: 2019-10-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Social Development,Emotional Development,Correlation,Language Arts,Mathematics Achievement,Academic Achievement,Teacher Influence,Skill Development,Grade 5,Elementary School Students,Self Efficacy,Self Management,Perspective Taking,Cultural Awareness,Social Attitudes,Models

This brief applies value-added models to student surveys in the CORE Districts to explore whether social-emotional learning (SEL) surveys can be used to measure effective classroom-level supports for SEL. The authors find that classrooms differ in their effect on students' growth in self-reported SEL--even after accounting for school-level effects. Results suggest that classroom-level effects within schools may be larger than school-level effects. However, the low explanatory power of the SEL models means it is unclear that these are causal effects that have appropriately controlled for student-level characteristics. Finally, there are generally low correlations between classroom-level growth in SEL and classroom-level growth in English language arts (ELA) or math, suggesting the SEL measures may capture growth not measured by academic test scores. Although results are preliminary, they indicate there might be measurable student growth in SEL impacted by the environment of classrooms within schools. [For the full working paper, see &quot;Can We Measure Classroom Supports for Social-Emotional Learning? Applying Value-Added Models to Student Surveys in the CORE Districts. Working Paper&quot; (ED600451).]
How Would Test Opt-Out Impact Accountability Measures? Evidence from the CORE Districts and the PACE/USC Rossier Poll
Author: Cremata, Edward J.
Date: 2019-09-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Accountability,Standardized Tests,Academic Achievement,School Districts,Student Characteristics,Student Participation,Family Income,Parent Attitudes,Student Attitudes,Bias,Prevention,School Effectiveness,Accuracy,Institutional Characteristics,White Students,Educational Quality,Scores,Correlation,Risk,Advantaged

The number of students opting out of standardized tests has grown in recent years. This phenomenon poses a potential threat to our ability to accurately measure student achievement in schools and districts. This brief documents the extent to which opting out is observed in the CORE districts and models how higher opt-out levels could affect various accountability measures. More students opting out could significantly impact some accountability measures in use in California, but the CORE districts' growth measure is largely unaffected, as it reports the impact of schools on individual students' achievement. In contrast, accountability metrics that track student achievement by cohort are at risk of becoming biased even with relatively low absolute levels of opting out. This brief suggests that districts should consider explicitly adjusting for the characteristics of the students who actually sit for tests when designing school accountability systems.