ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Crossing Over: Narratives of Successful Border Crossings of African American Teachers during Desegregation
Author: Tompkins, Renarta
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: African American Teachers,Desegregation Plans,Personal Narratives,Interpersonal Relationship,Cultural Pluralism,Cross Cultural Studies,Teaching Experience,School Segregation,Interviews,Phenomenology,Desegregation Litigation,Racial Segregation

This study examines the narratives of three African American teachers who participated in an early desegregation plan that transferred selected African American teachers into all-White schools in the late 1960s and early 1970s. While many of these teachers experienced rejection in their new schools, the three African American teachers in this study successfully transitioned across cultural borders. Their narratives indicate that the ability to form interpersonal relationships was a factor in their success, allowing them to garner the support of a dominant group member. While collegial and parental acceptance could be predicated on the support of a single powerful member of the dominant group, student acceptance was built on individual trust and cumulative demonstrations of care established at the classroom level. These findings have implications for contemporary urban schooling, in which young White teachers often experience difficulties in adapting to teaching in all-minority schools.
Vandalism on College Campuses: The Need for More Security
Author: Rafferty, Victoria
Date: 2010-05-00
Type: Opinion Papers
Subjects: Crime,School Security,School Vandalism,Federal Legislation,College Environment,School Policy

Vandalism is a prevalent problem on college campuses. This paper will describe why vandalism is not as readily noticed in higher education as a major problem and what those institutions can do to reduce the issue. Surveillance will be discussed as one of the various ways in which a campus can reduce crime on campus and make the college safer. Underreporting and the Clery Act will be examined as part of the problem with overlooking vandalism and crime on campus. Examples of institutions that have created policies or implemented some forms of the suggested solutions to the problem will also be briefly explained. Overall this paper should inform institutions as to what may help to reduce vandalism and other minor crimes through implementing various forms of technology. The technology should act as a supplement to the withstanding policies or security present on a campus. Adding other devices to aid security will ultimately help the institution give students a safer place to leave property, and it should reduce costs for public and private damages.
Teacher Career Paths, Teacher Quality, and Persistence in the Classroom: Are Schools Keeping Their Best? Working Paper 29
Author: Goldhaber, Dan
Date: 2009-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Persistence,Faculty Mobility,Beginning Teachers,Academic Achievement,Career Development,Teaching Conditions,Teacher Salaries,Models,Public School Teachers

Most studies that have fueled alarm over the attrition and mobility rates of teachers have relied on proxy indicators of teacher quality, even though these proxies correlate only weakly with student performance. This paper examines the attrition and mobility of early-career teachers of varying quality using value-added measures of teacher performance. Unlike previous studies, this paper focuses on the variation in these effects across the effectiveness distribution. On average, more effective teachers tend to stay in their initial schools and in teaching. But the lowest performing teachers, who are generally the most likely to transfer between schools, appear to &quot;churn&quot; within the system, and teacher mobility appears significantly affected by student demographics and achievement levels. (Contains 5 tables and 41 footnotes.)
Teachers' Perceptions of Their Working Conditions: How Predictive of Policy-Relevant Outcomes? Working Paper 33
Author: Ladd, Helen F.
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Teacher Surveys,Teacher Attitudes,Statistical Analysis,School Demography,Student Diversity,Teacher Persistence,Institutional Characteristics,Faculty Mobility,Labor Turnover,Instructional Leadership,Teaching Conditions,Predictor Variables,Longitudinal Studies,Educational Policy,Models,Measures (Individuals),Student Characteristics,Teacher Characteristics,Elementary School Students,Elementary School Teachers,High School Students

This quantitative study uses data from North Carolina to examine the extent to which survey based perceptions of working conditions are predictive of policy-relevant outcomes, independent of other school characteristics such as the demographic mix of the school's students. Working conditions emerge as highly predictive of teachers' stated intentions to remain in or leave their schools, with leadership emerging as the most salient dimension. Teachers' perceptions of their working conditions are also predictive of one-year actual departure rates and student achievement, but the predictive power is far lower. These weaker findings for actual outcome measures help to highlight both the strengths and weaknesses of using teacher survey data for understanding outcomes of policy interest. (Contains 3 figures, 11 tables and 13 footnotes.)
Principal Time-Use and School Effectiveness. Working Paper No. 34
Author: Horng, Eileen Lai
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: School Effectiveness,Principals,High Schools,Time Management,Observation,Check Lists,Administrator Effectiveness,Administrator Characteristics,Leadership Effectiveness,Correlation,Measurement Techniques,Models,Error of Measurement,School Demography,Academic Achievement,Differences,Teacher Attitudes,Parent Attitudes,School Administration,Administrator Role,Educational Environment,Institutional Characteristics,Surveys,Coding,Interrater Reliability

School principals have complex jobs. To better understand the work lives of principals, this study uses observational time-use data for all high school principals in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. This paper examines the relationship between the time principals spent on different types of activities and school outcomes including student achievement, teacher and parent assessments of the school, and teacher satisfaction. The authors find that time spent on Organization Management activities is associated with positive school outcomes, such as student test score gains and positive teacher and parent assessments of the instructional climate, whereas Day-to-Day Instruction activities are marginally or not at all related to improvements in student performance and often have a negative relationship with teacher and parent assessments. This paper suggests that a single-minded focus on principals as instructional leaders operationalized through direct contact with teachers may be detrimental if it forsakes the important role of principals as organizational leaders. Percent of Principal Time Spent on Individual Tasks is appended. (Contains 6 footnotes, 3 figures and 5 tables.) [This paper was supported by the Stanford University K-12 Initiative.]
Principal Effectiveness and Leadership in an Era of Accountability: What Research Says. Brief 8
Author: Rice, Jennifer King
Date: 2010-04-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Accountability,Researchers,Instructional Leadership,Principals,Administrator Effectiveness,Longitudinal Studies,Outcomes of Education,Administrator Role,Educational Research,Work Environment

While the importance of principals has long been recognized by educators and researchers, empirical studies on the effectiveness and distribution of principals have been undermined by the lack of data to study principals, their complex work, and their impact on school outcomes. In fact, &quot;little systematic evidence exists about the quantitative importance of principals, making it difficult to sort through alternative policy proposals&quot;. Recent work by CALDER (National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research) researchers has advanced the knowledge base on school leadership, and specifically principal effectiveness, by drawing on longitudinal state data to estimate the effects of principals for different kinds of schools and students. Taken together, this work sheds some light on important issues related to school leadership and principal effectiveness. This paper presents a list of key findings on principal effectiveness studies. [This research policy brief describes the work presented at the national conference of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER), &quot;Principal Effectiveness and Leadership in an Era of Accountability: What Research Says&quot;, in Washington, D.C., on December 11, 2009.]
Using Value-Added Measures of Teacher Quality. Brief 9
Author: Hanushek, Eric A.
Date: 2010-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Credentials,Teacher Effectiveness,Models,Teacher Qualifications,Academic Achievement,Measurement,Measurement Techniques,Educational Assessment,Error of Measurement,Effect Size,Longitudinal Studies,Educational Research,Scores,Educational Testing,Correlation,Predictor Variables,Achievement Gains,Educational Policy,Teacher Characteristics,Personnel Policy,Teacher Selection,Teacher Evaluation,Student Evaluation,Evaluation Problems,Work Experience,Statistical Bias

Extensive education research on the contribution of teachers to student achievement produces two generally accepted results. First, teacher quality varies substantially as measured by the value added to student achievement or future academic attainment or earnings. Second, variables often used to determine entry into the profession and salaries--including postgraduate schooling, experience, and licensing examination scores--appear to explain little of the variation in teacher quality so measured. (Early experience is the exception.) Together, these findings underscore explicitly that observed teacher characteristics do not represent teacher quality. The precise method of attributing differences in classroom achievement to teachers is the subject of considerable discussion and analysis. The authors begin by briefly outlining the general analytical framework that forms the basis of much of the work in this area and then describe the range of results from recent efforts to measure the variance of teacher effectiveness. (Contains 1 table.) [This paper is published in &quot;The American Economic Review&quot; 100(2), May 2010.]
What Makes for a Good Teacher and Who Can Tell? Working Paper 30
Author: Harris, Douglas N.
Date: 2009-09-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Credentials,Teacher Effectiveness,Teaching Skills,Principals,Interviews,Comparative Analysis,Productivity,Evaluation Methods,Predictive Measurement,Administrator Attitudes,Evaluation Criteria,Reading Tests,Mathematics Tests,Models,Teacher Qualifications,Academic Achievement,Measurement Techniques,Educational Assessment,Effect Size,Longitudinal Studies,Educational Research,Scores,Educational Testing,Correlation,Predictor Variables,Achievement Gains,Educational Policy,Teacher Characteristics,Teacher Evaluation,Student Evaluation,Evaluation Problems,Compensation (Remuneration),Teacher Salaries

Mounting pressure in the policy arena to improve teacher productivity either by improving signals that predict teacher performance or through creating incentive contracts based on performance--has spurred two related questions: Are there important determinants of teacher productivity that are not captured by teacher credentials but that can be measured by subjective assessments? And would evaluating teachers based on a combination of subjective assessments and student outcomes more accurately gauge teacher performance than student test scores alone? Using data from a midsize Florida school district, this paper explores both questions by calculating teachers' &quot;value added&quot; and comparing those outcomes with subjective ratings of teachers by school principals. Teacher value-added and principals' subjective ratings are positively correlated and principals' evaluations are better predictors of a teacher's value added than traditional approaches to teacher compensation focused on experience and formal education. In settings where schools are judged on student test scores, teachers' ability to raise those scores is important to principals, as reflected in their subjective teacher ratings. Also, teachers' subject knowledge, teaching skill, and intelligence are most closely associated with both the overall subjective teacher ratings and the teacher value added. Finally, while past teacher value added predicts future teacher value added the principals' subjective ratings can provide additional information and substantially increase predictive power. (Contains 9 tables and 15 footnotes.)
Estimating Principal Effectiveness. Working Paper 32
Author: Branch, Gregory
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Principals,Administrator Effectiveness,Occupational Mobility,Administrator Attitudes,Administrator Characteristics,School Effectiveness,Disadvantaged Schools,Disadvantaged Environment,Leadership Effectiveness,Correlation,Measurement Techniques,Models,Error of Measurement,Longitudinal Studies,Databases,School Demography,Academic Achievement,Differences,Minority Groups,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Administrator Relationship,Student Characteristics,Tenure,Mathematics Achievement

Much has been written about the importance of school leadership, but there is surprisingly little systematic evidence on this topic. This paper presents preliminary estimates of key elements of the market for school principals, employing rich panel data on principals from Texas State. The consideration of teacher movements across schools suggests that principals follow patterns quite similar to those of teachers--preferring schools that have less demands as indicated by higher income students, higher achieving students, and fewer minority students. Looking at the impact of principals on student achievement, the authors find some small but significant effects of the tenure of a principal in a school. More significant, however, are the estimates of variations in principal effectiveness. The variation in principal effectiveness tends to be largest in high poverty schools, consistent with hypothesis that principal ability is most important in schools serving the most disadvantaged students. Finally, considering principal mobility, the authors find that principals who stay in a school tend to be more effective than those who move to other schools. (Contains 9 tables and 8 footnotes.)
How Career Concerns Influence Public Workers' Effort: Evidence from the Teacher Labor Market. Working Paper 40
Author: Hansen, Michael
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Attendance,Labor Market,Faculty Mobility,Public School Teachers,Public Schools,Models,Predictor Variables,Teaching (Occupation),Educational Attitudes,Teacher Attitudes

This study presents a generalization to the standard career concerns model and applies it to the public teacher labor market. The model predicts optimal teacher effort levels decline with both tenure at a school and experience, all things being equal. Using administrative data from North Carolina spanning 14 school years through 2008, the author finds significant changes in teacher sick leave consistent with the generalized career concerns model. By exploiting exogenous variation in career concerns in the form of principal turnover, the author shows the observed behaviors cannot be due to the endogeneity of teacher mobility decisions alone. Also examined are the effects of career concerns incentives breaking down. The author finds evidence suggestive of teacher shirking, and presents evidence on an unobservable measure of effort taken from the Schools and Staffing Survey that corroborates findings from observable teacher absence behavior. In sum, these findings show teachers exert considerable discretion over their own effort levels in response to these incentives, with important policy implications. Predictors of Teacher Absence Independent of Career Concerns is appended. (Contains 12 tables, 2 figures, and 29 footnotes.)
Distribution of Benefits in Teacher Retirement Systems and Their Implications for Mobility. Working Paper 39
Author: Costrell, Robert M.
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Teacher Retirement,Retirement Benefits,Faculty Mobility,Costs,Public School Teachers,Age

While it is generally understood that defined benefit pension systems concentrate benefits on career teachers and impose costs on mobile teachers, there has been very little analysis of the magnitude of these effects. The authors develop a measure of implicit redistribution of pension wealth among teachers at varying ages of separation. Compared to a neutral system, often about half of an entering cohort's net pension wealth is redistributed to teachers who separate in their fifties from those who separate earlier. There is some variation across six state systems. This implies large costs for interstate mobility. Estimates show teachers who split a thirty-year career between two pension plans often lose over half their net pension wealth compared to teachers who complete a career in a single system. Plan options that permit purchases of service years mitigate few or none of these losses. It is difficult to explain these patterns of costs and benefits on efficiency grounds. More likely explanations include the relative influence of senior versus junior educators in interest group politics and a coordination problem between states. (Contains 7 tables, 16 figures, and 40 footnotes.)
Effective Schools: Managing the Recruitment, Development, and Retention of High-Quality Teachers. Working Paper 37
Author: Beteille, Tara
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: School Effectiveness,Teacher Recruitment,Faculty Mobility,Principals,Administrator Effectiveness,Teacher Effectiveness,Teacher Selection,Faculty Development,Public Schools,Metropolitan Areas,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement

Teachers are systematically sorted across schools. Often, schools serving the lowest-achieving students are staffed by the least-skilled teachers. While teachers' school preferences account for some of the sorting, school practices are also likely to be a key factor. Using value-added methods, the authors examine the relationship between a school's effectiveness during a given principal's tenure and the retention, recruitment and development of its teachers. Three key findings emerge about principal effectiveness. More effective principals: (1) are able to retain higher-quality teachers and remove less-effective teachers; (2) are able to attract and hire higher-quality teachers to fill vacancies; and (3) have teachers who improve at a greater pace than those in schools with less effective leadership (there is some evidence for this, albeit weak). These findings reinforce the importance of personnel practices for effective school leadership. Appendices include: (1) Model Specifications for Estimating Principal Value-Added; and (2) Bayesian Shrinkage. (Contains 7 tables, 3 figures, and 7 footnotes.)
Assessing the Potential of Using Value-Added Estimates of Teacher Job Performance for Making Tenure Decisions. Working Paper 31
Author: Goldhaber, Dan
Date: 2010-02-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Teacher Effectiveness,Tenure,Job Performance,Teacher Influence,Teacher Competencies,Outcomes of Education,Reading Achievement,Mathematics Achievement,Computation,Beginning Teachers,Correlation,African American Students,Minority Groups,Hispanic American Students,Parent Influence,Educational Attainment,Teacher Certification,Teaching Experience

Reforming teacher tenure is an idea that appears to be gaining traction with the underlying assumption being that one can infer to a reasonable degree how well a teacher will perform over her career based on estimates of her early-career effectiveness. Here we explore the potential for using value-added models to estimate performance and inform tenure decisions. We find little evidence that the variation of teacher effects change over teacher careers, but strong evidence that prior year estimates of job performance predict student achievement, even when there is a multi-year lag between the two. (Contains 46 footnotes, 5 tables and 7 figures.)
Before or after the Bell? School Context and Neighborhood Effects on Student Achievement. Working Paper 28
Author: Jargowsky, Paul A.
Date: 2009-07-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Educational Environment,Institutional Characteristics,Social Environment,Neighborhoods,Poverty,Race,Ethnicity,Elementary School Students,Scores,Mathematics Achievement,Reading Achievement

This paper explores the relative effects of school and neighborhood characteristics on student achievement. Previous empirical studies have estimated one of these effects in the absence of controls for the other, leading to potentially misleading results. Results show school variables are more robust and explain a greater degree of the variance in test scores than neighborhood characteristics. Neighborhood level variables, as a group, are statistically significant even in the presence of school variables. The particular pattern of effects varies by the manner in which the school context was controlled, by poverty status, move status, and location in the conditional achievement distribution. Nevertheless, neighborhood always mattered. Even if neighborhood conditions are less robust than school context effects, concern about neighborhood conditions is still justified. Reducing the concentration of poverty and economic segregation may be the easiest way to decrease the &quot;savage inequalities&quot; that exist between schools. (Contains 4 tables, 7 figures, and 4 footnotes.)
Triangulating Principal Effectiveness: How Perspectives of Parents, Teachers, and Assistant Principals Identify the Central Importance of Managerial Skills. Working Paper 35
Author: Grissom, Jason A.
Date: 2009-12-00
Type: Numerical/Quantitative Data
Subjects: Assistant Principals,Factor Analysis,Instructional Leadership,Principals,Self Evaluation (Individuals),Urban Schools,Administrator Effectiveness,Administrator Attitudes,Administrator Characteristics,School Administration,Administrator Role,School Effectiveness,Leadership Effectiveness,Educational Environment,Correlation,Measurement Techniques,Surveys,Teacher Attitudes,Parent Attitudes,School Demography,Academic Achievement,Differences,Job Analysis,Skills

While the importance of effective principals is undisputed, few studies have addressed what specific skills principals need to promote school success. This study draws on unique data combining survey responses from principals, assistant principals, teachers and parents with rich administrative data to identify which principal skills matter most for school outcomes. Factor analysis of a 42-item task inventory distinguishes five skill categories, yet only one of them, the principals' organization management skills, consistently predicts student achievement growth and other success measures. Analysis of evaluations of principals by assistant principals confirms this central result. Our analysis argues for a broad view of instructional leadership that includes general organizational management skills as a key complement to the work of supporting curriculum and instruction. Two appendices are included: (1) Factor Loadings Matrix for Principal Effectiveness Factors; and (2) Factor Loadings Matrix for Assistant Principal Effectiveness Factors. (Contains 3 figures, 5 tables and 6 footnotes.) [This paper was supported by the Stanford University K-12 Initiative.]