ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Case Study: Philadelphia. Needle-Moving Community Collaboratives
Author: Seldon, Willa
Date: 2012-08-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Academic Achievement,Partnerships in Education,Graduation Rate,Cooperative Planning,Data Analysis,Data Collection,Public Schools,Community Involvement,Dropout Prevention,Agency Cooperation,Youth Programs,Intervention,Juvenile Justice,Child Welfare,High Schools,At Risk Students

Communities face powerful challenges that require powerful solutions: a high-school dropout epidemic, youth unemployment, teen pregnancy. In an era of limited resources, those solutions must help communities to achieve more with less. A new kind of community collaborative--an approach that aspires to significant community-wide progress by enlisting multiple sectors to work together toward a common goal--offers real promise for bringing about broader, more lasting change across the nation. This case study presents a window into Philadelphia's problems and how they effectively tackled them on their path to getting results. [See the full report at ED559643; and the Case Studies for: Chicago at ED559647; Cincinnati, Covington, Newport at ED559649; Nashville at ED559653; and Parramore at ED559656.]
Successful Schools: How School-Level Factors Influence Success with Urban Advantage. Working Paper #01-14
Author: Weinstein, Meryle
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Urban Schools,Program Descriptions,Institutional Characteristics,Best Practices,Informal Education,Science Education,Science Achievement,Grade 8,Middle School Students,Science Tests,Qualitative Research,Interviews,Teacher Attitudes,Museums,State Departments of Education,Recreational Facilities,Faculty Development,Statistical Analysis,Longitudinal Studies,Identification,School Culture,Low Achievement,High Achievement,Teacher Collaboration,Case Studies,Educational Vouchers

Informal science education institutions have been identified as critical participants in helping students succeed in science by working in collaboration with school systems across the country. The results of one such collaboration, the Urban Advantage (UA) program found that participation in UA improved student achievement, on average, by 0.6 standard deviations on the 8th grade New York State Intermediate Level Science exam. However, while some UA schools performed exceedingly well, others performed well below expectations. In the current study, we explore the heterogeneity in the results and look deeper into what may be the cause of this variation, focusing closely on the school-level factors that may help or hinder success. After identifying a set of high and low-performing UA schools, we use qualitative research methods to uncover the ways in which successful schools are implementing UA, as well as other school-level factors that may influence the degree to which the school is able to benefit from the UA program. Identifying these best practices across different school contexts may help UA program staff develop strategies to support UA schools having more limited success. Additionally, findings from this study may aid UA staff in the school selection process, for example choosing schools they previously may not have based on their school-level characteristics. The following is appended: Teacher Interview Protocol.
Making Summer Matter: The Impact of Youth Employment on Academic Performance. Working Paper #03-14
Author: Schwartz, Amy Ellen
Date: 2014-11-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Summer Programs,Student Employment,Youth,Employment Level,Urban Areas,Youth Programs,Adolescents,Young Adults,Student Records,Academic Achievement,Age Differences,Program Effectiveness,Job Skills,Career Development,Surveys,Databases,Standardized Tests,Correlation,Statistical Analysis,Competitive Selection,High School Students,Participation,Regression (Statistics)

Holding a summer job is a rite of passage in American adolescence, a first rung towards adulthood and self-sufficiency. However, over the past decade, youth employment during the summer has decreased significantly. Summer youth employment has the potential to benefit high school students' educational outcomes and employment trajectories, especially for low-income youth. Despite the potential importance of youth employment during summer, evidence of the impact of summer jobs on youth outcomes is limited to only a few studies. Our research examines summer youth employment, beginning with academic outcomes, by studying New York City's Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP). SYEP provides jobs to youth ages 14-24, and due to high demand for summer jobs, allocates slots through a random lottery system, allowing for causal estimates of program impact. Our study uses student-level data from the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (the SYEP administrating agency) and New York City Department of Education, encompassing approximately 300,000 student SYEP applicants for the 2005-2009 program years. This paper examines the impact of SYEP on a wider range of academic performance outcomes, including test taking, passing rates and scores. It also attends to variation in these outcomes. Our findings suggest that SYEP has positive impacts on some student academic outcomes, and that these effects are heterogeneous. Future analyses will focus on examining program, student and school characteristics that might explain these variations. The following tables are appended: (1) Lottery randomization results; (2) Attrition in year following application to SYEP, Grade 8-11 and alternative program, 2005-08; and (3) Impact of selection on attrition, by grade.
Alliance Helps States Map New Terrain in Educator Evaluation. REL West Research Digest
Author: Regional Educational Laboratory West (ED)
Date: 2014-11-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Teacher Evaluation,Administrator Evaluation,Public School Teachers,Principals,Technical Assistance,Data Analysis,Educational Cooperation,Interstate Programs,State Departments of Education,Teacher Effectiveness,Administrator Effectiveness,School Districts

About five years ago, states across the country took on the huge, complex task of developing and implementing new systems to evaluate teacher and principal performance in public schools. In response to a federal mandate aimed at improving student achievement, especially in the lowest performing schools, state boards of education drafted high-level educator evaluation frameworks that called for the use of multiple evaluation measures, including growth in student achievement. But models of effective systems were scarce, and state and local education agencies were looking for ideas and guidance. This digest issue features work that REL West is doing in partnership with the West Comprehensive Center to provide data analysis and technical assistance services to the West Region states of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, through the Educator Effectiveness Alliance. Members include state specialists in leadership, instruction, evaluation, and assessment. The issue also includes links to educator effectiveness publications from REL West and other RELs.
Progress and Challenges in the Youth Development Field
Author: Bridgespan Group
Date: 2010-09-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Partnerships in Education,Change Strategies,Cooperative Planning,Youth Programs,Holistic Approach,Nonprofit Organizations,Barriers,After School Programs,Student Needs,Role of Education,Access to Health Care

This paper presents a panel discussion, moderated by Kelly Campbell (a partner at Bridgespan), as part of Bridgespan's 10th anniversary celebration held in May 2010. The topic for conversation was &quot;Progress and Challenges in the Youth Development Field.&quot; The invited panelists included: Earl Martin Phalen, co-founder of &quot;BELL&quot; and president of both &quot;Reach Out and Read&quot; and &quot;Summer Advantage USA;&quot; Bruce Lesley, president of &quot;First Focus;&quot; and Dan Cardinali, president of &quot;Communities in Schools.&quot; Participants in the panel discussion agreed that: (1) Nonprofit leaders and volunteers, policy makers, advocates, and philanthropists need to adopt a holistic approach to raising our nation's young people and preparing them for successful adulthood; (2) Initiatives to strengthen the education system, ensure health care for children, attend to their social development, and other efforts have existed in silos; (3) Definite progress has been made over the past 10 years in bridging the gaps, panelists said, but there is a need to get beyond the &quot;youth as victim&quot; narrative being used, and shift to a unifying approach; and (4) to invest in a critical key to change: parents.
The Effect of Breakfast in the Classroom on Obesity and Academic Performance: Evidence from New York City. Working Paper #04-14
Author: Corcoran, Sean P.
Date: 2014-11-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Breakfast Programs,Program Effectiveness,Obesity,Body Weight,Academic Achievement,Participation,Lunch Programs,Elementary Schools,Middle Schools,Body Composition,Age Differences,Urban Schools,Federal Programs,Databases,Longitudinal Studies,Attendance Patterns,Public Schools,Scores

Participation in the federally-subsidized school breakfast program often falls well below its lunchtime counterpart. To increase take-up, many districts have implemented Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC), offering breakfast directly to students at the start of the school day. Beyond increasing participation, advocates claim BIC improves academic performance, attendance, and engagement. Others caution BIC has deleterious effects on child weight. We use the implementation of BIC in NYC to estimate its impact on meals program participation, BMI, achievement, and attendance. While we find large effects on participation, our findings provide no evidence of hoped-for gains in academic performance, nor of feared increases in obesity. The policy case for BIC will depend upon reductions in hunger and food insecurity for disadvantaged children, or its longer-term effects. The following are appended: (1) Mean Annual Breakfast and Lunch Participation Rates: Balanced Panel of Elementary and Middle School; (2) Impact of BIC adoption on meals program participation, 2001-2012--models using school specific linear time trends; (3) Impact of BIC on obesity and BMI--using grade-specific BIC treatment; (4) Impact of BIC on ELA and math achievement--using grade-specific BIC treatment; (5) Impact of BIC on obesity and BMI--using percent of BIC classrooms treatment; and (6) Impact of BIC on ELA and math achievement--using percent of BIC classrooms treatment.
Do Charter Schools Ruin Local Public Schools in Poor Neighborhoods? Evidence from New York City. Working Paper #02-14
Author: Cordes, Sarah
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Charter Schools,Public Schools,Poverty Areas,Urban Schools,Neighborhood Schools,Resource Allocation,Educational Finance,Expenditure per Student,Teacher Student Ratio,Teacher Characteristics,Elementary Schools,Regression (Statistics)

Charter schools and school choice are popular reforms believed to improve student performance largely through market competition, increased innovation, or some combination of the two mechanisms. Opponents of school choice argue that such reforms sap needed funds and resources from the traditional public school system. Despite this claim, there has been little or no research examining the impact of charter schools on the resources of surrounding public schools. Given recent policies such as Race to the Top that encourage the proliferation of charter schools, it is important to understand the impact that charter schools have on the level and distribution of resources in traditional neighborhood public schools. Using data on New York City Public Schools for the period 1997-2010, this paper seeks to answer the question: What impact do charter schools have on neighborhood public school resources? As a supplemental analysis, I further probe my results by answering the question: What potential mechanisms explain these effects, if any? Findings indicate that charter schools lead to average increases in financial resources including total and instructional spending per pupil, with small or insignificant changes in nonfinancial resources such as the percent of teachers with master's degrees, the percent of teachers with more than two years of experience in their current school, and pupil-teacher ratios. These findings are robust to several different measures of charter school competition, definitions of neighborhood, and model specifications. Exploration of mechanisms reveals that increased per pupil expenditures may be due, in part, to decreasing enrollments of general education students and higher concentrations of both free lunch eligible and special education students in neighborhood public schools following charter school entry. On net, charter schools appear to have no significant negative effects on public school resources as measured by expenditures, although some schools that serve larger shares of lower cost (i.e. general education and immigrant) may experience decreased spending. These findings are consistent with a theory where charter schools act as profit maximizers that compete with public schools for students, particularly those students who are easiest and least costly to educate. Tables are appended.
The U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model: Applying System Dynamics to Help Meet President Obama's Goals for One Million STEM Graduates and the U.S. Navy's Civilian STEM Workforce Needs
Author: Business-Higher Education Forum
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: STEM Education,Undergraduate Students,Models,Systems Approach,Educational Objectives,Labor Needs,Investment,Educational Opportunities,Armed Forces,Intervention,Educational Research,Educational Practices,Educational Change,Program Effectiveness,Partnerships in Education,Advisory Committees,Labor Force Development,Federal Programs,Outreach Programs,Science Course Improvement Projects

This report shows how insights gained from system dynamics modeling and the U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model® can help inform the Navy's strategy to grow a robust civilian workforce that is strongly invested with Navy-relevant STEM skills and ready to contribute to the next generation of Naval innovation. This work positions the Navy to serve a strong national leadership role in advancing President Obama's goals in STEM precisely while it enhances Naval STEM capacity. That powerful synergy is doing much to advance important improvements in the shaping and execution of the STEM education pathway.
Using Educational Technology to Help Students Get Back on Track
Author: Bertrand, Clare
Date: 2013-02-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Educational Technology,Educational Strategies,At Risk Students,Dropout Prevention,High School Students,Blended Learning,Acceleration (Education),Competency Based Education,Individualized Instruction,Teacher Student Relationship,Tutoring,Case Studies,Profiles,Curriculum Design,Technology Integration

Increasingly, school districts, schools, and their partners are incorporating technology into strategies that help engage young people who have fallen off track to on-time graduation get back on track and move into effective educational pathways. This is especially true in light of the continuing pressure to raise high school graduation rates and the growth of community-wide efforts to improve outcomes for disconnected youth. This brief explores the potential to combine face-to-face instructional strategies with a whole spectrum of educational technologies. At one end of this spectrum, technology-enriched classrooms integrate technology into the classroom, but no instruction is delivered in a virtual learning environment. Much more ambitious, blended learning classrooms potentially incorporate the best elements of both face-to-face classrooms and virtual learning environments, enabling acceleration, flexibility, competency-based learning, customization, instructor interaction, and supportive tutoring. [This brief was written with Lili Allen and Adria Steinberg.]
Promoting Effective Dialogue between Business and Education around the Need for Deeper Learning
Author: Business-Higher Education Forum
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Knowledge Economy,Minimum Competencies,College Readiness,Career Readiness,Interviews,Skill Development,Job Skills,Competency Based Education,Work Environment,Occupational Information,Personnel Evaluation,Evaluation Methods,Occupational Surveys,Models,Organizational Communication,Personnel Selection,Staff Development,Promotion (Occupational),Partnerships in Education,School Business Relationship,Investigations,Higher Education,Labor Force Development,Employer Attitudes

As employers scan the current workforce and anticipate future workforce needs, they frequently find that employees are not well-equipped with core content knowledge and 21st century workplace competencies, the combination of which the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation defines as &quot;deeper learning.&quot; The cumulative effect of these deficiencies impedes U.S. economic competitiveness, security, equity, and civic engagement. The Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF), in partnership with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is examining the need for students to possess workplace competencies and core content knowledge as essential prerequisites of college and career readiness, and building the business case for improved competencies to fuel the innovation economy. To build the case, BHEF worked through networks of national business partners and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with key corporate representatives to illuminate the role deeper learning plays in hiring, evaluation, training, and promotion of employees. Through our members, as well as through affiliates of Louisville's Business Leaders for Education working group, BHEF connected with chief talent officers of over a dozen organizations, ranging from health care, aerospace, defense, and finance to identify the demand for 21st century workplace competencies. We conducted at least one interview with each organization, and often conducted follow up conversations to build upon questions raised in the initial interview. Companies also were encouraged to provide job descriptions, assessment models, and internal communications that incorporate 21st century workplace competencies and illuminate the role these competencies play in hiring, evaluation, training, and promotion. This BHEF brief summarizes the findings from this research.
Make Your Job Summer Program. Executive Summary. A Report to the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
Author: Silander, Megan
Date: 2015-02-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Summer Programs,Entrepreneurship,Program Effectiveness,Participant Satisfaction,Program Implementation,Learning Activities,Student Characteristics,Staff Utilization,Training Methods,Educational Resources,Student Experience,Youth Programs,Interviews,Qualitative Research,Statistical Analysis,Focus Groups,Observation,Surveys

Teaching entrepreneurship--how to create, grow and run a business or organization--is one potential means to increase college and career readiness skills. Learning how to start a business can improve critical thinking, communication and collaboration (Gallagher, Stepien, &amp; Rosenthal, 1992; Hmelo, 1998), which are key qualities for academic as well as business success. In this study, the authors examine the implementation of The Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship's (NFTE) &quot;Make Your Job Summer Program,&quot; a summer program designed to introduce students to the concepts of entrepreneurship while developing students' academic and life skills. Specifically, they analyze the impact of this youth entrepreneurship program as it expanded to sites across the country and examine the program design, theoretical underpinnings, implementation, adaptations and challenges. Developed in the spring and rolled-out in the summer of 2014 as a result of Citi Foundation's &quot;Pathways to Progress Initiative,&quot; NFTE organized the &quot;Make Your Job Summer Program&quot; at 18 sites in 10 cities across the country where they have local offices. &quot;Make Your Job Summer Program&quot; is designed to provide youth with a real-world learning experience in which students develop a business idea and present a business plan for a chance to win seed capital to build their own business. Through classroom instruction, field trips to local businesses, guest speakers and a business plan competition for seed-funding, students develop skills, knowledge and attitudes essential for successful entrepreneurship. The research reported here examines both the impact and implementation of the program and considers: (1) the types of students who enrolled in the program and why; (2) how the students experienced the program; (3) the perceived match between program design and student backgrounds and abilities; (4) how staff understood the goals and expectations of the program; (5) the capacities and resources that supported implementation; (6) the challenges experienced in delivering the program; and (7) how the program was adapted across sites. This executive summary highlights the findings. [For the full report, see ED559674.]
Civic Education and Deeper Learning. Deeper Learning Research Series
Author: Levine, Peter
Date: 2015-02-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Civics,Citizenship Education,Educational Change,Cooperative Learning,Educational Technology,Technological Advancement,High Schools,Secondary Education,Educational Trends,Outcomes of Education,Curriculum,Experiential Learning

This report proposes that the turn toward deeper learning in education reform should go hand in hand with a renewed emphasis on high-quality civics education. Not only does deeper learning have great potential to promote civic outcomes and strengthen our democracy but, at the same time, civic education exemplifies deeper learning, in that it provides students with challenging, collaborative, and engaging experiences. The report addresses evolving contexts for civics education and suggests a shared agenda, calling for new approaches in teaching civics that involve deeper and more collaborative learning, take better advantage of advanced technologies, are assessed in more authentic ways, and pervade the entire high school curriculum.