ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Review of &quot;Has Progress Been Made in Raising Achievement for English Language Learners?&quot;
Author: MacSwan, Jeff
Date: 2010-05-19
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Federal Legislation,Research Methodology,Language of Instruction,Second Language Learning,Achievement Tests,Scores,English (Second Language),Achievement Gains,Research Reports,Benchmarking,Academic Achievement,Educational Improvement,Educational Policy,Literature Reviews,Validity,Reliability,Educational Practices,Inferences,Error of Measurement

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) report, &quot;Has Progress Been Made in Raising Achievement for English Language Learners?&quot;, finds that some states have seen increases in the number of English language learners (ELLs) meeting proficiency standards under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), while others have seen decreases. The report notes some limitations in the data it uses. The CEP report, however, has some specific weaknesses in its research methods that undermine its findings. The CEP report seriously underestimates the significance of language of instruction as a source of error in ELL achievement test scores. Further, it errs in implying that its findings justify an inference of a causal relationship between observed changes in percentages of ELLs meeting achievement benchmarks and improvements in academic achievement for ELLs. Given the limitations in the data, it is inappropriate to draw conclusions from the data summarized in the CEP report. (Contains 8 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: &quot;State Test Score Trends through 2007-08, Part 6: Has Progress Been Made in Raising Achievement for English Language Learners?&quot; (ED509348).]
Report to the President on Ensuring American Leadership in Advanced Manufacturing
Author: Anderson, Alan
Date: 2011-06-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Manufacturing,Leadership,Innovation,Public Policy,Federal Government,Government Role,Taxes,Labor Force Development,Skilled Workers,Labor Supply,STEM Education,Research and Development,Investment,Federal Aid,National Security,Technological Advancement,Federal Legislation,Budgets

The United States has long thrived as a result of its ability to manufacture goods and sell them to global markets. Manufacturing activity has supported its economic growth, leading the Nation's exports and employing millions of Americans. The manufacturing sector has also driven knowledge production and innovation in the United States, by supporting two-thirds of private sector research and development and by employing scientists, engineers, and technicians to invent new products and introduce innovations in existing industries. The Nation's historic leadership in manufacturing, however, is at risk. Manufacturing as a share of national income has declined, as has manufacturing employment, and its leadership in producing and exporting manufactured goods is in question. The loss of U.S. leadership in manufacturing, moreover, is not limited to low-wage jobs in low-tech industries, nor is it limited to its status relative to low-wage nations. The United States is lagging behind in innovation in its manufacturing sector relative to high-wage nations such as Germany and Japan, and has relinquished leadership in high-tech industries that employ highly-skilled workers. This report provides a strategy and specific recommendations for revitalizing the Nation's leadership in advanced manufacturing. The key recommendation in this report is that the Federal Government launch an Advanced Manufacturing Initiative (AMI). This report recommends that AMI be a concerted, whole-of-government effort, spearheaded by the Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, and Department of Energy and coordinated by the Executive Office of the President (EOP), either through the Office of Science and Technology Policy, National Economic Council, or the office of the Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy. The Secretaries of Commerce, Defense, and Energy should assign lead responsibility to an appropriate agency or agencies within the Department--such as National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at Commerce, DARPA at Defense, and ARPA-E or EERE at Energy. It is crucial that this whole-of-government effort be complemented by parallel initiatives in the industry and academia. AMI should develop mechanisms to involve these sectors and to draw on their expertise in identifying technological opportunities. An external advisory board that has access to advanced manufacturing expertise should help guide this work. Appended are: (1) Advanced Manufacturing Provisions in America Competes Act; and (2) President Obama's Strategy for American Innovation and the FY 2012 Budget Request: Implications for Advanced Manufacturing. (Contains 2 boxes and 69 footnotes.)
Review of "They Spend What? The Real Cost of Public Schools"
Author: Altemus, Vaughn
Date: 2010-05-05
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Evidence,Public Schools,Elementary Secondary Education,Educational Finance,Policy Analysis,Metropolitan Areas,Public Education,Expenditure per Student,Expenditures,Operating Expenses,Audits (Verification),Program Costs,Research Reports,Research Methodology,Literature Reviews,Validity,Reliability,Educational Practices,Educational Policy,Cost Effectiveness,Meta Analysis

The CATO Institute's Policy Analysis "They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools" contends that the figures most commonly associated with spending on K-12 public education do not include all relevant expenditures. It also cites survey evidence suggesting that voters underestimate the cost of education and, when presented with a higher per-pupil expenditure figure, will support lower spending. The report notes that education is the largest spending category in combined state and local budgets, and it examines spending in five of the nation's largest metropolitan areas plus the District of Columbia. The heart of the analysis is a comparison, within each of the selected districts, of three alternative calculations of school spending. An estimated private school cost is also calculated and presented. The report presents large "real" costs per pupil. However, the spending numbers calculated for the report actually double count, adding in both capital construction and debt service. The use of flawed data renders the report to be of limited value in policymaking. (Contains 15 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: "They Spend What? The Real Cost of Public Schools. Policy Analysis. No. 662" (ED520370).]
Review of "Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education"
Author: Scott, Janelle
Date: 2010-03-03
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Evidence,School Choice,Federal Government,Government Role,Research Reports,Elementary Secondary Education,Politics of Education,Research Problems,Validity,Inferences,Reliability,Accuracy,Scholarship,Ethnic Diversity,Meta Analysis,School Restructuring,Research Methodology,Educational Policy,Educational Practices

"Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education" presents a seemingly egalitarian prescription for the federal government to expand school choice. An examination of the arguments and evidence for increasing choice, however, reveals at least three important shortcomings. First, the authors tend to overuse research that is still in progress and research produced by advocacy organizations and think tanks, leading them to be overly optimistic about particular school choice reforms' effects on educational achievement, access and equity. The second oversight is the neglect of important scholarship, causing the authors to fail to acknowledge the complex social and political dynamics informing parental choice processes as well as choice schools' practices that limit and shape their student enrollments. A third shortcoming emerges from this omission: the authors do not sufficiently consider issues of diversity, including the social categories of race, ethnicity, special education, and English Learners. They fail to acknowledge that some school choice reforms have had segregative effects. As such, in the singular pursuit of their goal to universally expand school choice the authors miss an opportunity to affirm the federal role in ensuring the creation of diverse, equitable, and high-quality choice schools that would produce individual and societal benefits. (Contains 22 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: "Expanding Choice in Elementary and Secondary Education: A Report on Rethinking the Federal Role in Education" (ED508201).]
Review of &quot;Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee, 2003-2008&quot;
Author: Cobb, Casey D.
Date: 2010-03-31
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Research Design,High Schools,Public Schools,Graduation Rate,Graduation,Educational Vouchers,School Choice,Effective Schools Research,School Effectiveness,Comparative Analysis,Research Methodology,Research Reports,Research Problems,Validity,Literature Reviews,Educational Policy,Educational Practices

This review examines a research study that compares high school graduation rates of students who used vouchers to attend private high schools in Milwaukee and students who attended public high schools in that same city. The study reports that for the most recent year of data, a sample of voucher students had estimated graduation rates 12 percentage points higher on average than a sample of public school students. Overall, the trend favoring voucher students was observed in five of the previous six years. The analysis is technically accurate and makes defensible assumptions as necessary for the final calculations. However, although the results are descriptively useful, any real claims about whether the voucher program is actually causing higher graduation rates would depend on a much stronger research design. (Contains 10 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: &quot;Graduation Rates for Choice and Public School Students in Milwaukee, 2003-2008&quot;.]
How Much Can We Learn from International Comparisons of Intergenerational Mobility? CEE DP 111
Author: Blanden, Jo
Date: 2009-11-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Generational Differences,Social Mobility,Income,Socioeconomic Status,Social Class,Educational Attainment,Parent Background,Outcomes of Education,Educational Finance,Comparative Analysis,Foreign Countries

Intergenerational mobility is concerned with the relationship between the socio-economic status of parents and the socio-economic outcomes of their children as adults. This can be measured in a variety of ways, by income and earnings, social class or status, or education. If an individual's income/social class/education is strongly related to his or her parental background, this means that a child from a poor family is unlikely to escape his or her start in life and consequently inequality will perpetuate. This has implications for economic efficiency if the talents of those from poorer families are under-developed or not fully utilized, as those from poorer backgrounds will not live up to their productive potential. Most people would agree that equality of opportunity is an important goal; nonetheless it is difficult to imagine a world with no link between outcomes across generations. Genetic transmissions alone are likely to lead to a positive association between the educational achievements, career prospects and earning power of parents and children, while learning within the family will lead to children from better-off families being better equipped to succeed. Hence the policy implications of the study of intergenerational mobility are unclear. If intergenerational income inequality is solely a consequence of the automatic transmissions of ability and other attributes within the family, its reduction would require strong intervention by the state, and might lead to inefficiency. The first task in this paper is to summarise the literature on the relative strength of intergenerational mobility across different countries. The author finds that the different measures used tend to be fairly well correlated, with South America and southern Europe having low mobility and the Nordic nations being rather more mobile. Measures of the association of social class across generations (social class fluidity) are the exception to this, with if anything, a negative relationship between the country rankings on these measures and others. In the second part of the paper the author begins with a short review of the theoretical literature that seeks to model the determinants of intergenerational mobility within society. This includes income inequality, educational investment, and returns to education. Finally the author takes her preferred measures of mobility and correlate them with these variables paying particular attention to contrasting results from her measures of income, educational and occupational mobility. The author finds evidence that income, status and educational mobility are all related to inequality, education spending and the returns to education. (Contains 8 tables, 10 figures and 8 footnotes.)
Review of "America's Private Public Schools"
Author: Yun, John T.
Date: 2010-03-24
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Public Schools,Private Schools,Tax Credits,Educational Vouchers,Change Strategies,Educational Change,School Restructuring,School Choice,Research Reports,Educational Policy,Educational Practices,Meta Analysis,Research Methodology,Inferences

A recent report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, "America's Private Public Schools," has received considerable attention and includes some controversial recommendations. The report's authors suggest the existence of what they term "private public schools," and they argue that the existence of these "exclusive" public schools justifies the support of publicly funded vouchers to private schools. While the report's analysis does support the contention that there are public schools with extreme isolation by class, the authors inappropriately use this finding as the basis to argue that private schools should be publicly funded through vouchers or tax credits--a conclusion with extremely tenuous logic and one that is unsupported by their analysis. Ultimately, this report has some utility in providing a point of departure for discussions about how we as a society wish to allocate schooling opportunities to students. However, methodological and data problems and the omission of important substantive contextual information about socioeconomic segregation undermine the report's credibility. In addition, the central findings of the authors are disconnected from their ultimate recommendations. And those recommendations do not provide workable solutions or shed any new light on the difficult problem of "de facto" income segregation. In pursuing such a flawed argument, the authors miss a chance to seriously address this important issue and spur an informed debate on national priorities for public schooling. (Contains 16 notes.) [This paper reviews the following document: "America's "Private" Public Schools" (ED511401).]
Review of &quot;The Shaping of the American Mind: The Diverging Influences of the College Degree &amp; Civic Learning on American Beliefs&quot;
Author: Marchant, Gregory J.
Date: 2010-03-17
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Role of Education,Higher Education,Citizenship Education,Values Education,Educational Attainment,Relationship,Political Attitudes,Civics,Data Collection,College Graduates,Research Methodology,Telephone Surveys

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute report, &quot;The Shaping of the American Mind: The Diverging Influences of the College Degree &amp; Civic Learning on American Beliefs,&quot; suggests that college is failing to provide an adequate education in civic knowledge and is also influencing graduates to become less supportive of American values. Desirable &quot;civic learning&quot; about American values is associated with positions and attitudes that are anti-abortion, pro-free-market economics, consistent with fundamentalist Biblical interpretations, and otherwise generally associated with contemporary conservative political positions. The bulk of the report focuses on contrasts of college graduates and non-graduates on these political values, based on a civics test administered as a telephone survey. &quot;Civics knowledge,&quot; as they define it, is presented as of greater value than college education. The study suggests that more educated people are more liberal, yet the omission of basic information about the researchers' polling methods, their fundamental analytic techniques and their actual results renders any such conclusions insupportable. Consequently, the report offers no valid information that could inform policy makers or the public. (Contains 11 notes.)
What Works Clearinghouse Quick Review: &quot;Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts&quot;
Author: What Works Clearinghouse (ED)
Date: 2012-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Charter Schools,Nonprofit Organizations,School Administration,Organizational Effectiveness,Middle Schools,Academic Achievement,Middle School Students,Graduation Rate,High Schools,Enrollment,Postsecondary Education

The study examined the effect of non-profit charter-school management organizations (CMOs) on middle school academic achievement and rates of high school graduation and post-secondary enrollment. Within eight geographically diverse states, the authors matched each charter school student with similar students attending conventional public schools. The sample included nearly 14,000 students attending 68 middle schools operated by 22 CMOs and nearly 3,000 students who attended 13 high schools operated by six CMOs. The study reported that, on average, there were no statistically significant effects of attending a CMO-operated school on state assessments in math, reading, science, or social studies among middle school youth. There were also no statistically significant impacts on high school graduation and college enrollment rates. The study reported substantial variation in both the magnitude and level of statistical significance of the impacts across the participating CMOs. The study is not a randomized controlled trial and, therefore, cannot receive the highest rating of &quot;meets WWC (What Works Clearinghouse) evidence standards&quot;. It used a quasi-experimental design, established that CMO and non-CMO students were similar on measured characteristics such as baseline test scores and demographics, and controlled for baseline characteristics of students in the analysis. A more thorough review (forthcoming) will confirm whether the study &quot;meets WWC evidence standards with reservations&quot;. [The following study is reviewed in this What Works Clearinghouse Quick Review: &quot;Charter-School Management Organizations: Diverse Strategies and Diverse Student Impacts. Updated Edition&quot; (ED528536).]
Are Communication Strategies Teachable?
Author: Lewis, Samantha
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English (Second Language),Communication Strategies,Course Content,Communicative Competence (Languages),Teaching Methods,Praxis,Class Activities,Learning Activities,Error Correction,Teacher Role,Secondary School Students,Self Efficacy

This article discusses the teachability of communication strategies in the EFL classroom. As well as reflecting on the nature of speech production in the mother tongue, it looks at some of the difficulties encountered when speaking in a foreign language and the inherent difficulties in "teaching" speaking as a skill. It focuses on different types of communication strategies and possible approaches that can be used in the classroom to raise students' awareness of these strategies and develop their strategic competence through the implementation and practice of the language. Reference is made throughout to practical classroom activities which will enable students to develop their strategic competence and become more confident at communicating in English. (Contains 8 footnotes.)
Developing Multiliteracies, Plurilingual Awareness &amp; Critical Thinking in the Primary Language Classroom with Multilingual Virtual Talkingbooks
Author: Elsner, Daniela
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Multilingualism,Writing Processes,Computer Assisted Instruction,Multimedia Materials,Electronic Publishing,Information Technology,Multiple Literacies,Critical Thinking,Second Language Learning,Second Language Instruction,Audio Books,Program Descriptions,Elementary School Students,Multimedia Instruction,Audiovisual Aids,Intercultural Communication,Global Education,Educational Objectives,Story Reading,Reading Skills,Childrens Literature,Web Based Instruction,Computer Software,Computer System Design,English (Second Language),Partnerships in Education

This paper describes the theoretical framework and the main objectives of the European Comenius project MuViT -- Multiliteracy Virtual. The project engages primary pupils across the world in multilingual and audiovisual reading and writing processes through the use of information technology resources to enhance multi-literacies, plurilingual awareness and transcultural understanding. The paper first sketches the necessity of a pedagogy of multi-literacies in our classrooms. In a second step it details on the objectives and tools developed within the Mu-ViT project. Thirdly it illustrates which research questions and activities are connected with the project. A bibliography is included. (Contains 3 figures.)
Teaching and Learning "False Friends": A Review of Some Useful Resources
Author: Varela, Maria Luisa Roca
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Lexicology,Sociolinguistics,English (Second Language),Second Language Learning,Second Languages,Dictionaries,Web Sites,Electronic Publishing,Glossaries,Instructional Materials

False friends are words in two languages that are similar in form but different in meaning (e.g. English "library" "place for reading and borrowing books" vs Spanish "libreria" "bookshop"). From the point of view of EFL teaching and learning, false friends are important because they lead us to errors in L2 production and comprehension (e.g. "I am very constipated"; "it has been a fastidious speech" and "you should eat food without preservatives"). This paper intends to present some useful tools (dictionaries, online resources, glossaries and blogs) for the teaching and learning of false friends. The resources presented here will allow us to discover the complexity of the false friend phenomenon and will contribute to the teaching and to the learning of these words. (Contains 2 figures.)
Use of Authentic Materials in the ESP Classroom
Author: Benavent, Gabriela Torregrosa
Date: 2011-00-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: English for Special Purposes,Immersion Programs,Teaching Methods,Instructional Materials,Student Motivation,Adjustment (to Environment),Revision (Written Composition)

Authentic materials are especially important for ESP trainees, since they reproduce an immersion environment and provide a realistic context for tasks that relate to learners' needs. Realia and authentic materials increase learners' motivation but are difficult to adapt to the learner's level of language, especially at the beginning level. It is also important to note that preparing such materials can be very time-consuming. Nowadays, authentic materials must be constantly updated, as they are more and more frequently on demand in ESP or EAP classes. A review of the different opinions of experienced authors and their arguments for and against the use of realia and authentic materials in the ESP classroom is offered in this article. A bibliography is included.