Examining rhetoric is important to understanding educational policymaking. This study focuses on rhetoric on one educational policy, performance-based funding (PBF) for higher education. In contrast to previous research on PBF, we analyze rhetoric in both states that implemented the policy and those that opted out. We employ a sequential mixed-methods design combining topic modeling with qualitative analysis of newspapers. Findings indicate that rhetoric in states that implemented PBF aligned closely with neoliberalism. Rhetoric from non-implementer states focused on higher education agents and policy processes, and was more likely to highlight equity than rhetoric from implementer states. This study sheds light on policy innovation and diffusion by contrasting rhetoric around PBF between states that implemented the policy and those that held out.

Informal and institutional barriers may limit teacher movement between charter schools and traditional public schools (TPSs). However, we know little about how teachers choose schools in areas with a robust charter school sector. This study uses qualitative data from 123 teachers to examine teachers' job decisions in three cities with varying charter densities: San Antonio, Detroit, and New Orleans. Our findings illuminate different types of segmentation and factors that facilitate and limit mobility between sectors. We find that structural policies within each sector can create barriers to mobility across charter schools and TPSs and that teachers' ideological beliefs and values serve as informal, personal barriers that reinforce divides between sectors. This study offers implications for policy in districts with school choice.

Research has focused predominantly on how teachers affect students' achievement on tests despite evidence that a broad range of attitudes and behaviors are equally important to their long-term success. We find that upper-elementary teachers have large effects on self-reported measures of students' self-efficacy in math, and happiness and behavior in class. Students' attitudes and behaviors are predicted by teaching practices most proximal to these measures, including teachers' emotional support and classroom organization. However, teachers who are effective at improving test scores often are not equally effective at improving students' attitudes and behaviors. These findings lend empirical evidence to well-established theory on the multidimensional nature of teaching and the need to identify strategies for improving the full range of teachers' skills.

As policy-makers contemplate expanding preschool opportunities for low-income children, one possibility is to fund two, rather than one year of Head Start for children at ages 3 and 4. Another option is to offer one year of Head Start followed by one year of pre-k. We ask which of these options is more effective. We use data from the Oklahoma pre-k study to examine these two 'pathways' into kindergarten using regression discontinuity to estimate the effects of each age-4 program, and propensity score weighting to address selection. We find that children attending Head Start at age 3 develop stronger pre-reading skills in a high quality pre-kindergarten at age 4 compared with attending Head Start at age 4. Pre-k and Head Start were not differentially linked to improvements in children's pre-writing skills or pre-math skills. This suggests that some impacts of early learning programs may be related to the sequencing of learning experiences to more academic programming.

We used population-based, longitudinal data to investigate the relation between mathematics instructional practices used by 1 grade teachers in the U.S. and the mathematics achievement of their students. Factor analysis identified four types of instructional activities (i.e., teacher-directed, student-centered, manipulatives/calculators, movement/music) and eight types of specific skills taught (e.g., adding two-digit numbers). First-grade students were then classified into five groups on the basis of their fall and/or spring of kindergarten mathematics achievement-three groups with mathematics difficulties (MD) and two without MD. Regression analysis indicated that a higher percentage of MD students in 1 grade classrooms was associated with greater use by teachers of manipulatives/calculators and movement/music to teach mathematics. Yet follow-up analysis for each of the MD and non-MD groups indicated that only teacher-directed instruction was significantly associated with the achievement of students with MD (covariate-adjusted s = .05-.07). The largest predicted effect for a specific instructional practice was for routine practice and drill. In contrast, for both groups of non-MD students, teacher-directed and student-centered instruction had approximately equal, statistically significant positive predicted effects (covariate-adjusted s = .03-.04). First-grade teachers in the U.S. may need to increase their use of teacher-directed instruction if they are to raise the mathematics achievement of students with MD.

Although wide variation in teacher effectiveness is well established, much less is known about differences in teacher improvement over time. We document that average returns to teaching experience mask large variation across individual teachers and across groups of teachers working in different schools. We examine the role of school context in explaining these differences using a measure of the professional environment constructed from teachers responses to state-wide surveys. Our analyses show that teachers working in more supportive professional environments improve their effectiveness more over time than teachers working in less supportive contexts. On average, teachers working in schools at the 75th percentile of professional environment ratings improved 38% more than teachers in schools at the 25th percentile after 10 years.

For more than 40 years, there has been a concerted national effort to promote diversity among the scientific research community. Yet given the persistent national-level disparity in educational achievements of students from various ethnic and racial groups, the efficacy of these programs has come into question. The current study reports results from a longitudinal study of students supported by a national National Institutes of Health-funded minority training program, and a propensity score matched control. Growth curve analyses using Hierarchical Linear Modeling show that students supported by Research Initiative for Science Excellence were more likely to persist in their intentions to pursue a scientific research career. In addition, growth curve analyses indicate that undergraduate research experience, but not having a mentor, predicted student persistence in science.

The No Child Left Behind Act requires states to publish high school graduation rates for public schools and the U.S. Department of Education is currently considering a mandate to standardize high school graduation rate reporting. However, no consensus exists among researchers or policy-makers about how to measure high school graduation rates. In this paper, we use longitudinal data tracking a cohort of students at 82 Texas public high schools to assess the accuracy and precision of three widely-used high school graduation rate measures: Texas's official graduation rates, and two competing estimates based on publicly available enrollment data from the Common Core of Data. Our analyses show that these widely-used approaches yield inaccurate and highly imprecise estimates of high school graduation and persistence rates. We propose several guidelines for using existing graduation and persistence rate data and argue that a national effort to track students as they progress through high school is essential to reconcile conflicting estimates.

The association between grade retention in first grade and passing the third grade state accountability tests, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) reading and math, was investigated in a sample of 769 students who were recruited into the study when they were in first grade. Of these 769 students, 165 were retained in first grade and 604 were promoted. Using propensity matching, we created five imputed datasets (average N=321) in which promoted and retained students were matched on 67 comprehensive covariates. Using GEE models, we obtained the association between retention and passing the 3(rd) grade TAKS reading and math tests. The positive association between retention and math scores was significant while the association was marginally significant for reading scores.

There are many approaches to solving the problem of underrepresentation of some racial and ethnic groups and women in scientific and technical disciplines. Here, the authors evaluate the association of a summer bridge program with the graduation rate of underrepresented minority (URM) students at a selective technical university. They demonstrate that this 5-week program prior to the fall of the 1st year contains elements reported as vital for successful student retention. Using multivariable survival analysis, they show that for URM students entering as fall-semester freshmen, relative to their nonparticipating peers, participation in this accelerated summer bridge program is associated with higher likelihood of graduation. The longitudinal panel data include more than 2,200 URM students.

UT-Austin administrative data between 1990 and 2003 are used to evaluate claims that students granted automatic admission based on top 10% class rank underperform academically relative to lower ranked students who graduate from highly competitive high schools. Compared with white students ranked at or below the third decile, top 10% black and Hispanic enrollees arrive with lower average standardized test scores, yet consistently performed as well or better in grades, first year persistence, and four-year graduation likelihood. A similar story obtains for top 10% graduates from Longhorn high schools verses lower-ranked students who graduated from highly competitive feeder high schools. Multivariate results reveal that high school attended rather than test scores is largely responsible for racial differences in college performance.

The 1974 Lau decision requires that U.S. public schools ensure a meaningful education for students learning English. English as a Second Language (ESL) placement is an institutional response to the linguistic needs of these students; however, its academic implications remain largely unexplored. Using nationally representative data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (ELS), the effects of ESL placement on college preparatory course enrollment and academic achievement of language minority students are estimated, first with fixed effects regression models and then with multi-level propensity score matching techniques. While numerous school and individual level factors beyond language proficiency predict ESL placement, a significant negative estimated effect of ESL placement on science enrollment and cumulative GPA is consistently found. Perhaps more important, however, no positive effects of ESL placement on the achievement of language minority youth are found when accounting for English proficiency and other potential covariates.

Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study (CLS), an ongoing investigation of a panel of low-income minority children growing up in an inner city, this study investigated whether retention is associated with participation in postsecondary education and public aid receipt. The study sample included 1,367 participants whose data were available for grade retention and educational attainment by age 24. Findings from both regression and propensity score matching indicated that grade retention was significantly associated with lower rates of participation in postsecondary education. Late retention (between fourth and eighth grades) was more strongly linked to lower rates of postsecondary education than early retention (between first and third grades). There was no significant association between retention and public aid receipt.

The Meyerhoff Scholarship Program, which celebrated its 20(th) year in 2008, is considered a successful intervention program for increasing the number of underrepresented minorities who earn PhDs or MD/PhDs and pursue research careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This article examines the relationship between participation in one specific component of the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program-on-campus, academic year research-and the pursuit of a STEM PhD by thirteen cohorts of program participants. The results indicate that participation in on-campus, academic year research is associated with a substantial increase in the probability of pursuing a STEM PhD. They further suggest that the structure and intensity of the on-campus, academic year research experience matter.

The present meta-analysis examined the effect of grade retention on academic outcomes and investigated systemic sources of variability in effect sizes. Using multi-level modeling, we investigated characteristics of 207 effect sizes across 22 studies published between 1990 and 2007 at two levels: the study (between) and individual (within) levels. Design quality was a study-level variable. Individual level variables were median grade retained and median number of years post retention. Quality of design was associated with less negative effects. Studies employing middle to high methodological designs yielded effect sizes not statistically significantly different from zero and 0.34 higher (more positive) than studies with low design quality. Years post retention was negatively associated with retention effects, and this effect was stronger for studies using grade comparisons versus age comparisons. Results challenge the widely held view that retention has a negative impact on achievement. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

This paper evaluates changes in the racial and ethnic composition of admissions at three Texas universities following the judicial ban on affirmative action imposed by the 1996 Hopwood decision. We estimate the extent to which universities practiced affirmative action before the judicial ban, and evaluate how admission officers at these universities changed the relative weights accorded to various applicant characteristics during the ban. After assessing whether changes in the relative weights favored minority applicants, we simulate the degree to which these new policies succeeded in maintaining minority admission rates at their pre-Hopwood levels. We find that these universities complied with the Hopwood ruling such that direct advantages given to black and Hispanic applicants disappeared (and, in some cases, became disadvantages). While we find some evidence that universities changed the weights they placed on applicant characteristics aside from race and ethnicity in ways that aided underrepresented minority applicants, these changes in the admissions process were insufficient to fully restore black and Hispanic applicants' share of admitted students.