Improving the Implementation and Effectiveness of Out‐of‐School‐Time Tutoring

School districts are spending millions on tutoring outside regular school day hours for economically and academically disadvantaged students in need of extra academic assistance. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), parents of children in persistently low‐performing schools were allowed to choose their child's tutoring provider, and together with school districts, they were also primarily responsible for holding providers in the private market accountable for performance. We present results from a multisite, mixed‐method longitudinal study of the impact of out‐of‐school time (OST) tutoring on student reading and mathematics achievement that link provider attributes and policy and program administration variables to tutoring program effectiveness. We find that many students are not getting enough hours of high‐quality, differentiated instruction to produce significant gains in their learning, in part because of high hourly rates charged by providers for tutoring. We identify strategies and policy levers that school districts can use to improve OST tutoring policy design and launch improved programs as waivers from NCLB are granted.     

Food insecurity negatively impacts academic performance

Recent research has documented high rates of food insecurity among university students, particularly students in their first year. Food insecurity among university students has been linked to poorer self‐reported health and academic outcomes. However, few studies have linked reports of food insecurity to objective student outcomes. In this study, we examine how food insecurity is associated with first‐year university students' (n = 591) academic performance, adjusting for objective measures of high school academic performance and self‐reported indicators of socioeconomic background. Zero‐ and one‐inflated beta regression was used to examine if food insecurity predicted grade point average (GPA) in the fall 2015 and spring 2016 semesters. Logistic regression was used to determine if food insecurity at the end of the fall 2015 and spring 2016 semesters was a predictor of retention to fall 2016. Food‐insecure students had a significantly lower GPA than food‐secure students. In fall 2015, 59% of food‐insecure students obtained at least a “B” grade (GPA = 3.00); our models suggest this percentage would increase to 72% if these same students were food secure. Food‐insecure students were less likely to be enrolled in fall 2016 than food‐secure students (OR = 0.72, 95% CI [0.41, 1.27]), though this difference was not statistically significant. These results indicate that food insecurity negatively impacts first‐year university students' academic performance, even after adjusting for high school academic performance and socioeconomic background. Students GPA, and potentially university retention rates, may increase if food insecurity on campus is minimized.     

Impact of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program: Achievement Effects for Students in Upper Elementary and Middle School

This paper examines the impact of the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program on student achievement for low‐income students in upper elementary and middle school who used a voucher to transfer from public to private schools during the first four years of the program. We analyzed student‐level longitudinal data from public and private schools taking the same statewide standardized assessment. Overall, voucher students experienced an average achievement loss of 0.15 SDs in mathematics during their first year of attending a private school compared with matched students who remained in a public school. This loss persisted regardless of the length of time spent in a private school. In English/Language Arts, we did not observe statistically meaningful effects. Although school vouchers aim to provide greater educational opportunities for students, the goal of improving the academic performance of low‐income students who use a voucher to move to a private school has not yet been realized in Indiana.     

Work redesign in development perspective: An empirical study of multitasking among civil servants in Malawi

Civil servants in many developing countries are increasingly faced with multitask situations at work to improve the efficiency of public sectors. Although multitasking might boost employee productivity, its potentially negative impact on other areas of employees’ lives has been ignored. Drawing upon the conservation of resources theory, our research aims to investigate whether, how, and when multitasking at work decreases the subjective well-being of employees in the public sector. Using a two-wave survey of 164 civil servants in Malawi, our findings showed that multitasking at work was positively related to employees’ negative affect and negatively related to their satisfaction with life and positive affect through emotional exhaustion. Moreover, the study found that polychronicity, which refers to one's preference to handle more than one task at the same time, moderated the relationship between multitasking and emotional exhaustion, such that the association described above was weaker when an employee's polychronicity was higher. Finally, the indirect impact of multitasking on positive affect through emotional exhaustion was also moderated by polychronicity. These findings provide some theoretical and managerial implications for public sector in developing countries on how to focus on employee well-being while using multitasking work design.     

THE IMPACTS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF COLLEGE INSTRUCTORS ON STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC AND LABOR MARKET OUTCOMES

Based on a novel data set that links college administrative information with earnings records from a state college system for both public two‐year and four‐year colleges, this study quantifies the impacts of exposure to different types of instructors during students’ initial semester in college on their subsequent academic and labor market outcomes. To minimize bias from student sorting by type of instructor, we combine course‐set fixed effects with an instrumental variables approach that exploits term‐by‐term fluctuations in faculty composition in each department, therefore controlling for both between‐ and within‐course sorting. The findings suggest that two‐year students, particularly racial minority students, have substantially higher levels of exposure to adjuncts with temporary appointments than four‐year students. Two‐year students taking a heavy course schedule with temporary adjuncts are adversely affected in college persistence and subsequent credit accumulation, and the penalty is particularly pronounced among males and racial minority students with stronger academic potential. Such negative impacts on academic outcomes do not translate into poorer short‐ to medium‐term labor market performance. In the four‐year setting, no significant distinction is identified between different types of instructors on either student academic or labor market outcomes.     

The effect of attending full‐day kindergarten on English learner students

A significant and growing English learner (EL) population attends public schools in the United States. Evidence suggests they are at a disadvantage when entering school and their achievement lags behind non‐EL students. Some educators have promoted full‐day kindergarten programs as especially helpful for EL students. We take advantage of the large EL population and variation in full‐day kindergarten implementation in the Los Angeles Unified School District to examine the impact of full‐day kindergarten on academic achievement, retention, and English language fluency using difference‐in‐differences models. We do not find signficant effects of full‐day kindergarten on most academic outcomes and English fluency through second grade. However, we find that EL students attending full‐day kindergarten were 5 percentage points less likely to be retained before second grade and there are differential effects for several outcomes by student and school characteristics. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Let Them Eat Lunch: The Impact of Universal Free Meals on Student Performance

This paper investigates the impact of extending free school lunch to all students, regardless of income, on academic performance in New York City middle schools. Using a difference-in-differences design and unique longitudinal, student-level data, we derive credibly causal estimates of the impacts of “Universal Free Meals” (UFM) on test scores in English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, and participation in school lunch. We find UFM increases academic performance by as much as 0.083 standard deviations in math and 0.059 in ELA for non-poor students, with smaller, statistically significant effects of 0.032 and 0.027 standard deviations in math and ELA for poor students. Further, UFM increases participation in school lunch by roughly 11.0 percentage points for non-poor students and 5.4 percentage points for poor students. We then investigate the academic effects of school lunch participation per se, using UFM as an instrumental variable. Results indicate that increases in school lunch participation improve academic performance for both poor and non-poor students; an additional lunch every two weeks increases test scores by roughly 0.08 standard deviations in math and 0.07 standard deviations in ELA. Finally, we explore potential unintended consequences for student weight outcomes, finding no evidence that UFM increases the probability that students are obese or overweight. We also find no evidence of increases in average body mass index (BMI). Instead, we find some evidence that participation in school lunch improves weight outcomes for non-poor students. Results are robust to an array of alternative specifications and assumptions about the sample.     

Can Nonexperimental Estimates Replicate Estimates Based on Random Assignment in Evaluations of School Choice? A Within‐Study Comparison

The ability of nonexperimental estimators to match impact estimates derived from random assignment is examined using data from the evaluation of two interdistrict magnet schools. As in previous within‐study comparisons, nonexperimental estimates differ from estimates based on random assignment when nonexperimental estimators are implemented without pretreatment measures of academic performance. With comparison groups consisting of students drawn from the same districts or districts with similar student body characteristics as the districts where treatment group students reside, using pretreatment test scores reduces the bias in nonexperimental methods between 64 and 96 percent. Adding pretreatment test scores does not achieve as much bias reduction when the comparison group consists of students drawn from districts with different student body characteristics than the treatment group students’ districts. The results suggest that using pretreatment outcome measures and comparison groups that are geographically aligned with the treatment group greatly improves the performance of nonexperimental estimators.     

Patrolling Public Schools: The Impact of Funding for School Police on Student Discipline and Long‐term Education Outcomes

As police officers have become increasingly common in U.S. public schools, their role in school discipline has often expanded. While there is growing public debate about the consequences of police presence in schools, there is scant evidence of the impact of police on student discipline and academic outcomes. This paper provides the first quasi‐experimental estimate of funding for school police on student outcomes, leveraging variation in federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants. Exploiting detailed data on over 2.5 million students in Texas, I find that federal grants for police in schools increase middle school discipline rates by 6 percent. The rise in discipline is driven by sanctions for low‐level offenses or school code of conduct violations. Further, I find that Black students experience the largest increases in discipline. I also find that exposure to a three‐year federal grant for school police is associated with a 2.5 percent decrease in high school graduation rates and a 4 percent decrease in college enrollment rates.     

THE CURRENTS BENEATH THE “RISING TIDE” OF SCHOOL CHOICE: AN ANALYSIS OF STUDENT ENROLLMENT FLOWS IN THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Existing research highlights that families face geographic, social, and psychological constraints that may limit the extent to which competition can take hold in school choice programs. In this paper, we address the implications of such findings by creating a network of student flows from 11 cohorts of eighth‐grade students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). We applied a custom algorithm to group together schools with similar sending and receiving patterns, and calculated the difference in mean achievement between a student's attended and assigned high schools. For all identified school groupings, we found that the students were on average moving to higher achieving schools. We also found that the movement toward higher achieving schools of the top achievement quartile of students was over twice as large as that of the bottom quartile, but that the flows of both the highest and lowest achieving student quartiles were toward higher achieving destinations. Our results suggest that student movements in CPS between the years of 2001 to 2005 were consistent with creating market pressure for improvement as well as increasing segregation by achievement. However, further research into how schools responded to those movements is required to make inferences about the level or consequences of competition generated by choice‐related reforms during that time.     

Student Age and the Collegiate Pathway

Using a rich data set of all SAT test takers from the 2004 through 2008 high school graduation cohorts, we investigate the impact of state‐specific school age‐of‐entry laws on students’ pathways into and through college. We document that these laws do not impact the probability that a student takes the SAT; however, we find strong evidence that students who are expected to be the oldest in their school cohorts based on their state residency and birthdays have a greater probability of taking an Advanced Placement (AP) exam and tend to take more AP exams. We also find that relatively younger students are more likely to attend two‐year colleges before attending four‐year colleges and are less likely to have earned bachelor's degrees four years beyond high school graduation, but eventually catch up to their older peers six years beyond high school graduation.     

School choice in Chile: Is it class or the classroom?

Skeptics of school choice are concerned that parents, especially low‐income ones, will not choose schools based on sound academic reasoning. Many fear that, given choice, parents will sort themselves into different schools along class lines. How‐ever, most surveys find that parents of all socioeconomic groups cite academic aspects as important when choosing a school. Moreover, almost no parents refer to the social composition of the student body. Many advocates of choice hold up these results as proof that choice will produce desirable outcomes. However, these results may not be reliable because they may simply be verbal responses to survey items rather than indicators of actual behavior. In this research, we report on the search behavior of parents in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile, examining how they construct their school choice sets and comparing this to what they say they are seeking in choosing schools. The data indicate that parental decisions are influenced by demographics. Based on this evidence, we argue that unfettered choice may reduce the pressure on schools to improve their performance and could potentially increase stratification. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Detracking America's schools: Equity at zero cost?

Schools across the country are ending the practice of grouping students based on ability, in part, because of research indicating that tracking hurts low-ability students without helping students of other ability levels. Using a nationally representative survey conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, (NCES) we reexamine the impact of tracking on high school student achievement through the estimation of a standard education production function. This approach allows us to control for the possibility that track is correlated with factors such as class size and teacher education. In addition, we address the possibility that there are unobserved student or school characteristics that affect both achievement and track placement. Our results indicate that abolishing tracking in America's schools would have a large positive impact on achievement for students currently in the lower tracks, but that this increase in achievement would come at the expense of students in upper-track classes.     

College Socialization and the Economic Views of Affluent Americans

Affluent Americans support more conservative economic policies than the nonaffluent, and government responds disproportionately to these views. Yet little is known about the emergence of these consequential views. We develop, test, and find support for a theory of class cultural norms: These preferences are partly traceable to socialization that occurs on predominantly affluent college campuses, especially those with norms of financial gain, and especially among socially embedded students. The economic views of the student's cohort also matter, in part independently of affluence. We use a large panel data set with a high response rate and more rigorous causal inference strategies than previous socialization studies. The affluent campus effect holds with matching, among students with limited school choice, and in a natural experiment; and it passes placebo tests. College socialization partly explains why affluent Americans support economically conservative policies.     

The mass media and changes in adolescents' political knowledge during an election cycle

Two questions are considered: to what extent do children's levels of political knowledge and news media use change during an election campaign? To what extent are levels of political knowledge related to levels and types of news media use? The hypothesis that news media use at one point in time is related to subsequent levels of political knowledge is tested using crosslagged partial correlation analysis. The patterns of political knowledge and news media use in January (prior to the 1976 primaries), late May and early June, and after the general election among a panel of high school students are examined. The means indicate a small increase in news media use and a more substantial increase in political knowledge. A greater increase occurs in political knowledge about campaign and election relevant institutions and processes than about other types of political institutions and processes. Limited support is provided for the hypothesized lagged influence of news media use; the impact varies with the political interest of the student and the type of news media used.     

Parent Involvement and Educational Outcomes for Latino Students

This study focuses on the determinants and effects of parent involvement in schools, in the context of urban school districts, and particularly with regard to the schools that serve Latino students. Three research questions are investigated in this article: (1) What are schools doing to support parents, foster involvement and engagement in their children's schools, and generally create strong parent‐school relations? (2) How effective are schools at fostering parent involvement? (3) Do schools with more effective parent involvement practices and greater parent participation perform at higher levels than those with less effective practices and lower levels of parent involvement? Data on Latino representation on Local School Councils (LSCs), school‐level demographic and performance indicators, and information on effective school organization, parent involvement, and school practices regarding outreach and engagement with parents and communities are used to investigate these questions. The empirical analysis demonstrates that in addition to previously established aspects of effective school organization, governing arrangements and Latino political incorporation play a critical role in building stronger, more supportive school–parent relations and in encouraging higher levels of parent involvement in formal school activities. Moreover, these practices and relations were found to have important implications for Latino student performance.     

Parents,public policy,and youth smoking

This paper jointly examines the importance of parental influences, prices, and tobacco control policies on the smoking behavior of youths. Data are drawn from the Audits & Surveys (A&S) 1996 survey of high school students across the United States from “The Study of Smoking and Tobacco Use Among Young People” to examine the impact of parental influences on the probability of youth smoking in the context of both specific observable parenting behaviors and in terms of youths' perceptions of the importance of their parents' opinions. The key finding is that specific parental influences (such as communication/bonding (extent of discussions about daily issues between parent/adult and child), limit‐setting with regard to free time, home smoking rules, and parental smoking behavior) and the extent to which teenagers value their parents' opinions play a significant role in youth smoking decisions. Our results by age reveal that specific modifications related to improving communication channels and implementing home smoking rules and more general changes that improve the quality of the parent‐child relationship so teens place a higher value on their parents' opinions are likely to be particularly effective in the early teen years. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Understanding the academic learning of university students using smartphone: Evidence from Pakistan

As the number of smartphone users have increased worldwide, research on the usage of the smartphone has received scholarly attention. However, different results were found in previous studies in different contexts. The main research question is whether adopting smartphones by students improve learning or generates interference. The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of smartphone among university students in Pakistan. Using a survey approach, data were collected from different universities/colleges of Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. total, 585 entries was analyzed using SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 21.0 software. Results of analysis, validated most of the hypothesis showing the intention of Pakistani students towards smartphone usage for academic purpose. In addition, findings confirm that students' self‐efficacy related to a smartphone works as a moderating role of intention to use a smartphone for learning and actual usage of the smartphone. The current study has several implications in terms of smartphone usage and student academic performance. Limitations and implications of the study are also discussed in the last section.     

The Role of Management and Representation in Improving Performance of Disadvantaged Students: An Application of Bum Phillips's “Don Shula Rule”1

Scholars and practitioners within the U.S. education system have focused considerable attention on developing new programs aimed at raising educational achievement for disadvantaged students. New programs are only one way to improve student performance, however; recent work in public administration suggests that public management and implementation practices might also have a large impact on student performance. Existing research shows that managerial networking, managerial quality, and effective personnel management can significantly improve the quality of the education received by disadvantaged students. Additional work highlights the contribution of representative bureaucracy. Because these research agendas have targeted the public administration literature rather than the education policy literature, this article seeks to bring this research back to education policy. Using data from several hundred Texas public school districts, spanning 1995 to 2002, and focusing on disadvantaged student performance (Latinos, blacks, and low‐income students), this article illustrates how both management and processes to enhance the representativeness of teaching faculty produce benefits for disadvantaged students.