Interactive Resources 

 

 

 

Choices in Education
www.heritage.org/Research/Education/SchoolChoice/schoolchoice.cfm#map
Choices in Education is a database of school choice laws and opportunities in each state.  It also includes archives of school choice research studies, news articles and chronologies of school choice policy arranged by state.  This database was created by the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that is in favor of school choice.

 

 

Beating the Odds:  A City-By-City Analysis of Student Performance and Achievement Gaps on State Assessments, Results from the 2003-2004 School Year
www.cgcs.org/pdfs/Beating%20the%20Odds%20V.pdf *
This report is fifth in a series of reports prepared by the Council of Great City Schools that is designed to examine how major city school systems are performing on the academic standards set by states for our children.  Data from 65 city school systems from 38 states are used to examine 1) achievement in reading and math; 2) achievement gaps between cities and states, African Americans and Whites, and Hispanics and Whites; 3) language proficiency; 4) disability; 5) income; and 6) the progress of urban schools in academic achievement and closing the achievement gaps.  The Council of Great City Schools notes that the data are preliminary, as the nation does not have an assessment system that allows its questions to be answered with certainty.

 

 

The Afterschool Hours:  A New Focus for America's Cities
www.nlc.org/content/Files/IYEF-Lessons%20Learned%20Afterschool.pdf *
This report, which is the second in the National League of Cities' "Lessons Learned" series, highlights strategies and insights from the eight cities that participated in NLC’s technical assistance project on municipal leadership for expanding learning opportunities.

 

 

www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG255.pdf *
The RAND Corporation prepared this report to identify and analyze trends in the mathematics scores among black, Latino, and white students between the early 1970s and early 1990s. The authors also examine how changes in family, school,and schooling measures may explain changes in the test score gaps over time.

 

 

Building State Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems
www.healthychild.ucla.edu/Publications/NationalCenterPubs.asp
The National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy has released a series of 15 reports and corresponding policy briefs all geared to helping states develop their own initiatives for optimizing health, development, and well-being in early childhood.

 

 

Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program:  First Year Report on Participation
www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/choice/dcchoice-yearone/choice.pdf *
The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was established by the District of Columbia School Choice Incentive Act of 2003, is the first federal government initiative to provide K-12 education schoolarships to families to send their children to private schools of choice. The Act requires that the program be evaluated by an independent research team.  This is the first in a series of annual reports from the evaluation team.  The report describes 1) the purposes and design of the scholarship program, 2) the first-year implementation activities, 3) the participating private schools, 4) the process of awarding scholarships, and 5) the characteristics of both applicants and scholarship users.

 

 

The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on Student Achievement and Growth; 2005 Edition
www.nwea.org/assets/research/national/NCLBImpact_2005_Study.pdf*
This study, conducted by the Northwest Evaluation Association, is the first in a yearly series investigating the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on the achievement of students in the United States.  It examines 1) how well the law is beginning to meet its promise in its first years of implementation; 2) how much student achievement has changed since the law was implemented;  3) whether and to what extent student achievement growth has changed since the law was implemented; and 4) the impact of the law on the achievement status and growth of students by ethnic group.  Each year, the study will be repeated and expanded to give a broader picture of the manner and extent to which the law affects student achievement. .

 

 

A Call to Action: Transforming High Schools for All Youth
www.hsalliance.org/_downloads/home/Call%20To%20Action%202005/CalltoAction2005.pdf *
The National High School Alliance released this report to provide leaders at the national, state, district, school, and community levels with a common framework for building public will, developing supportive policies, and actually implementing the practices needed to radically change the traditional, factory-model high school that tracks and sorts students. The framework consists of six core principles and recommended strategies for preparing all of the nation's youth for college, careers, and active civic participation. 

 

 

What Counts:  Defining and Improving High School Graduation Rates
www.principals.org/s_nassp/bin.asp?CID=29&DID=50345&DOC=FILE.PDF*
This latest report from the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) provides recommendations on how to develop a common understanding of what a high school graduation rate means and how to dramatically improve graduation rates..

 

 

Lifting Teacher Performance
www.ppionline.org/documents/teachqual_0419.pdf*
In this Progressive Policy Institute report, the authors demonstrate how policymakers can use the latest performance data to create a bottom-up reform plan, improving teacher preparation and quality.  The authors examine how to reform teacher preparation with a focus on teacher aptitude, verbal skills, intellectual ability, and content area knowledge.  They also recommend a modernized compensation system that could make teaching competetive with other professional careers and equalize teacher quality between poor and affluent schools.

 

 

Putting the World into Our Classrooms:  A New Vision for 21st Century Education
www.ppionline.org/documents/intledu_0413.pdf *
This policy brief offers steps for modernizing international education to reflect instruction, teacher qualification, and access to internationally themed education opportunities.  The author argues that by dramatically improving foreign language instruction, teacher qualification, and access to internationally themed education opportunites, policymakers can ensure that America's high school graduates will have the international knowledge and skills necessary to excel in the 21st century.

 

 

Advantage None: Re-examining Hoxby’s Findings of Charter School Benefits
www.epinet.org/content.cfm/bp158
This study by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reanalyzes the data used in Carolyn Hoxby's 2004 study, A Straightforward Comparison of Charter Schools and Regular Public Schools in the United States.  The authors find that, when student demographics are controlled for race and income, the difference between student achievement in charter and traditional public schools is not statistically significant.

 

 

Holding High Hopes:  How High Schools Respond to State Accountability Policies
www.cpre.org/Publications/rb42.pdf *
This study examines how 48 low-performing high schools located in 34 school districts across six states respond to state accountability policies. They use this information to analyze how high schools of different performance levels and contexts, residing in states with different forms of high- stakes accountability and support systems, identify, understand, and respond to the gap between their current levels of performance and external expectations for their performance.

 

 

Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts
www.newschools.org/viewpoints/documents/District_Performance_Practices.pdf *
This is the first report in a three-year effort to define how educators are beginning to adopt performance-driven practices in order to transform public education systems into learning organizations. In this report, the New Schools Venture Fund examines how this process of change is unfolding in 28 medium and large urban school systems and discusses the major barriers and needs that educators and school systems must overcome in order to create performance driven organizations.

 

 

School Improvement Under No Child Left Behind
www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/MCCLURE3-03-2005.PDF*
This report, from The Center for American Progress, examines state practices in implementing the No Child Left Behind Act's school improvement requirements.  The report suggests that states are implementing an assortment of approaches to help schools and that the amount of money available for such activities varies widely by state and may bear little relation to the number of schools identified for improvement.  The author concludes that there are five ways through which school improvement could be more effectively implemented: 1) Build state capacity to implement a repetoire of approaches to school improvement; 2) Focus school improvement efforts beyond the school level; 3) Ensure appropriate funding for school improvement efforts; 4) Use school improvement funds more strategically; and 5) Focus on effectiveness.

 

 

www.ed.gov/parents/schools/find/choose/choosing.pdf*
The US Department of Education issued this report to help families navigate the process of choosing a school for their child.  In addition to explaining public and private school options that are available in many communities, the report outlines a step by step process for selecting a school and lists important questions that should be asked throughout the course of this process.  Because NCLB allows parents whose children are in public schools that need improvement or are unsafe to choose other public schools or take advantage of free tutoring, the report highlights these options as well.

 

 

The Economics of Investing in Universal Prekindergarten in California
www.rand.org/publications/RB/RB9118/
This Rand Corporation study examines the potential benefits of a universal preschool program. The study was funded by the Packard Foundation's Preschool for All Initiative, which is a multi-year effort aimed at educating the public about the merits of preschool and developing a workable policy to create universal preschool in California. The researchers estimate that the cost of a high quality universal preschool program would be more than offset by benefits such as a drop in the amount of special education provided, less grade repetition among K-12 students, less youth and adult crime, and a more productive state workforce.  The research brief can be found at the link above; the full report is available for purchase.

 

 

www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/Ingersoll-FINAL.pdf *
This report, prepared for Renewing Our Schools, Securing Our Future: A National Task Force on Public Education, seeks to investigate the causes of teacher shortages in schools who serve rural and urban, low-income communities.  The report attributes school staffing problems to the fact that large numbers of qualified teachers depart from their jobs long before retirement.

 

 

Raising Achievement: A New Path for No Child Left Behind
www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2005/04/04072005.html
On April 7, 2005, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings addressed the nation's chief state school officers and other education officials regarding the implementation of No Child Left Behind.  Her prepared remarks can be accessed at the above link.