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Eric.ed.gov – Magic Breakfast: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: The Magic Breakfast project provided 106 schools with support and resources to offer a free, universal, before-school breakfast club, including to all Year 2 and Year 6 pupils. The aim of the project was to improve attainment outcomes by increasing the number of children who ate a healthy breakfast. The schools in the project were schools in England with a relatively high proportion of disadvantaged pupils. The project ran between September 2014 and July 2015. Schools were provided with free food, support from a Magic Breakfast school change leader, and a £300 grant towards up-front costs. The intervention itself was delivered by school staff and volunteers. The impact of the project was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial involving around 8,600 pupils. The process evaluation involved qualitative… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Chula Vista Elementary School District: Positive Outliers Case Study. Positive Outliers Series

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Sitting just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) supports teaching and learning in California’s largest elementary school system. Across its 47 schools, CVESD educators serve over 30,000 students each day, 90% of whom are students of color and over one third of whom are English learners. CVESD is one of seven districts studied by researchers at the Learning Policy Institute in a mixed-methods study that sought to learn from positive outlier districts in which African American, Latino/a, and White students did better than predicted on California’s math and English language arts tests from 2015 through 2017, after accounting for differences in socioeconomic status. This in-depth case study describes the critical practices and policies within CVESD that have promoted student learning, especially… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Finding “Mathematics”: Parents Questioning School-Centered Approaches to Involvement in Children’s Mathematics Learning

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper reports on a study of parental involvement in children’s mathematics learning in the context of a series of workshops carried out in four primary schools in the United Kingdom. Previous research suggests that, while there are high correlations between parental involvement and positive student outcomes, it can be difficult to raise student achievement via parental involvement interventions. We suggest that part of the reason for this, at least in relation to mathematics, is that parents experience considerable difficulties in negotiating school-centered definitions of and approaches to mathematics. We employed a design and analytic approach informed by Derridean concepts including decentering and différance. We encouraged parents to work with their children to “find the math” in everyday life and activity. A significant component of the discussion… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – To Educate All Children (TEACH), 2015-2016. Research Educational Program Report

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: To Educate All Children (TEACH) provides educators with intensive one-on-one training in classroom culture, focusing on de-escalation, conflict resolution, nonverbal communication, and building student’s self confidence. Through intensive educator training, TEACH helps educators create safe, calm learning environments for students (TEACH, n.d.). Trained educators develop skills that support positive classroom management. Consequently, it is expected that schools experience a decrease in student disciplinary referrals, calmer and more productive classrooms, and improvements in student achievement. Research has shown that students’ perceptions of teacher support play a central role in feeling connected to school and to socio-emotional well-being (Stracuzzi and Mills, 2010). Student connectedness also has been found to protect students against risky and problem behaviors in school (Catalano, Haggerty, Oesterle, Fleming, & Hawkins, 2004; CDC, 2009). There is… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – How Non-Linearity and Grade-Level Differences Complicate the Validation of Observation Protocols

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Teacher evaluation is currently a major policy issue at all levels of the K-12 system driven in large part by current US Department of Education requirements. The main objective of this study is to explore the patterns of relationship between observational scores and value-added measures of teacher performance in math classrooms and the variation in these relationships across grade levels. While the MET analyses used a single composite score consisting of a simple average of the eight component scores of the protocol, in our work we treated each component separately since each measures a separately definable aspect of classroom practice. Specifically, across all the components, the authors pose the following questions: (1) Do the relationships between observation scores of math teachers and their value-added scores tend to… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – The Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement: A Meta-Analysis of the Literature

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Charter schools are largely viewed as a major innovation in the public school landscape, as they receive more independence from state laws and regulations than do traditional public schools, and are therefore more able to experiment with alternative curricula, pedagogical methods, and different ways of hiring and training teachers. Unlike traditional public schools, charters may be shut down by their authorizers for poor performance. But how is charter school performance measured? What are the effects of charter schools on student achievement? Assessing literature that uses either experimental (lottery) or student-level growth-based methods, this analysis infers the causal impact of attending a charter school on student performance. Focusing on math and reading scores, the authors find compelling evidence that charters under-perform traditional public schools in some locations, grades,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Effectiveness of Interactive Satellite-Transmitted Instruction: Experimental Evidence from Ghanaian Primary Schools. CEPA Working Paper No. 17-08

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: In lower- and middle-income countries, including Ghana, students in rural areas dramatically underperform their urban peers. Rural schools struggle to attract and retain professionally trained teachers (GES 2012; World Bank 2012). We explore one potential solution to the problem of teacher recruitment: distance instruction. Through a cluster randomized controlled trial, we estimate the impact of a program that broadcasts live instruction via satellite to rural primary school students. The program equipped classrooms in 70 randomly selected Ghanaian schools with the technology required to connect to a studio in Accra. An additional 77 schools served as the control. Instructors in Accra provided math and English lessons to classrooms in the treatment group. The model is interactive, and students in satellite classes could communicate in real time with their… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Research Report: Impacts of the Use of Study Island Practice and Benchmarks — Reading School District, Pennsylvania

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Study Island is a practice and assessment tool that provides state-standards-aligned opportunities for students to practice their skills. It features a system of continual assessments with immediate feedback to adjust instruction and learning. When educators integrate Study Island into their instructional practices, it acts as a formative, ongoing assessment tool that provides students with a platform to practice or demonstrate their knowledge of taught standards. This approach reflects the elements of formative assessments as a process for monitoring progress and adjusting instruction. Research on formative assessment and progress-monitoring practices has demonstrated positive outcomes for student achievement (Bangert-Drowns, Kulik, & Kulik, 1991; Black & Wiliam, 1998; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1986; January et al., 2018; Stecker, Lembke, & Foegen, 2008; Stiggins, 1999; Van Norman, Nelson, & Parker, 2016; Wolf,… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – A Meta-Analysis of the Literature on the Effect of Charter Schools on Student Achievement

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: Charter schools represent an increasingly important form of school choice in the United States. Charter schools are public schools, with a difference. Compared to traditional public schools, they are exempted from some of the state laws and regulations that govern traditional public schools. In this way, parents come to have a greater number of choices among schools, and, due to deregulation, it is expected that the charter schools are distinct from traditional public schools. The intent is that charter schools can provide students with alternative curricula, teaching methods, and teachers who may differ in educational background and training from teachers in traditional public schools. This study, after reviewing research from across the United States, asks whether charter schools are producing higher achievement for students compared to traditional… Continue Reading

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Eric.ed.gov – Teaching Assistants and Nonteaching Staff: Do They Improve Student Outcomes? Working Paper 169

eric.ed.gov har udgivet: This paper examines the role of teaching assistants and other personnel on student outcomes in elementary schools during a period of recession-induced cutbacks in teachers and teaching assistants. Using panel data from North Carolina, we exploit the state’s unique system of financing its local public schools to identify the causal effects of teaching assistants and other staff on student test scores in math and reading and other outcomes. We find remarkably strong and consistent evidence of positive contributions of teaching assistants, an understudied staffing category, with larger effects on outcomes for minority students than for white students. A supplemental table is appended. Link til kilde