Adopting rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments

The RAND Corporation, 2009

This report draws on longitudinal student-level data from charter schools in eight states in an effort to address several questions about their effectiveness in improving student achievements and their impact on traditional public schools. The authors address several areas of concern, noting that their findings show no major trend of charter schools "skimming" high-achieving students from traditional public schools, increasing segregation in schools, or negatively impacting test scores at nearby schools. Data gathered from Chicago and Florida shows an increased likelihood of college enrollment for students who attend charter schools. However, authors also report findings that charter schools show greater variation in student performance than public schools, and generally have little positive impact on student achievement in their first year of operation.

Association for Career and Technical Education, March 2009

Released by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), this policy brief identifies ways in which career academies can improve student engagement and increase graduation rates. Career Academies function as small learning communities that focus on both college preparatory coursework and practical skills training that links the classroom to real-world career paths. Along with a general overview of the methods of career academies, ACTE offers specific examples of programs that have developed project-based learning experiences and partnered with area businesses to connect students with hand-on experience prior to graduation.

Establishing data systems and using data for improvement

National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, April 2009

As the body of research surrounding charter schools continues to grow, it is important to be able to understand what the research says as well as how it's being conducted. In the fifth edition of Charter School Achievement: What We Know, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools provides a distillation of 140 studies, providing at-a-glance information on the research design and findings of each study and identifying major trends in findings across studies. The authors identify panel studies — those that track student-level data over time — as providing the best insight into charter school impact on student achievement and note that studies drawing on recent data (post 2001) are more likely to show larger achievement gains over traditional public schools.

Peabody Journal of Education, April 2009

Using student-, school-, and district-level data from San Diego Unified School District, this study examines three school choice programs to determine their impact on integration by race, student achievement, and English-learner status. The authors find the programs have an overall positive effect on racial integration but are more likely to cause segregation along achievement and EL measures. The authors pay particular attention to program design and note that programs offering transportation to students have stronger positive impact on racial integration, while those without a transportation system result in more racially homogenous schools. Also addressed are factors that limit integration potential, such as enrollment spaces available in choice schools.

Increasing teacher effectiveness and equitable distribution of effective teachers

Washington Post, June 1, 2009

Current methods of determining teacher compensation often discourage talented people from entering the field and limit principals' ability to improve schools. Such issues are addressed in The Widget Effect, a new report from The New Teacher Project. The report serves as the basis for Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's plan to offer Washington D.C. schoolteachers merit pay, as many charter schools already do, to foster innovative and effective teaching, particularly in the lowest performing schools in the district. Read about the alternative plan that Chancellor Rhee has proposed for the DC schools and the report this plan is based on.

Turning around the lowest-performing schools

The Century Foundation, 2009

This report outlines policies that have worked to increase student achievement in three states: Oklahoma's Universal Pre-K Program; The Voluntary Inter-district Transfer Program in St. Louis, Missouri; and New Jersey's Innovative Low-Income Public Schools. In 1998 Oklahoma began providing universal preschool, roughly doubling Pre-K enrollment between 1998 and 2005. New Jersey substantially raised test scores of low-income students using a range of strategies, which are detailed in the report. Through the St. Louis Inter-District Program, as many as 13,000 African-American students have attended public schools in 16 participating suburbs. By the tenth grade, these students displayed levels of achievement that far surpassed that of their peers who remained in neighborhood city schools or attended magnet schools created as part of a court order.

School Redesign Network at Stanford University (SRN), 2009

Oakland's small school initiative offers an opportunity to observe how a district can address student achievement and overcrowding and improve academics in high-need communities effectively. Using quantitative and qualitative research, the study found that students attending the new small schools generally achieved greater academic gains than those in existing schools. A cross-site analysis of new small schools revealed key characteristics that contribute to this success, including: driven and effective leaders, commitment to the school’s mission, extensive use of personalization strategies, focus on hands-on instruction, and parent and community partnerships. These findings led to suggested changes and extensions to existing policies regarding teacher professional development, district support of schools, and balancing the district’s portfolio of schools.

Policy Watch

NGA Center for Best Practices, April 2009

While charter schools remain a popular choice, particularly among low-income and students of color, many qualified students are denied access due to states' limitations on the development or expansion of new, high-performing charter schools. In addition to states maintaining inconvenient policies and procedures for highly successful charter schools to replicate, charter schools fall victim to unequal funding and inadequate facilities. This report discusses ways in which state leaders and policymakers can minimize such hurdles by instituting state policies that simplify the expansion process for quality charter schools.

Civil Rights Project, UCLA, April 2009

The United States Supreme Court's 2007 decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (PICS) concluded that while racial diversity in education has compelling interest, voluntary school integration employing racial classifications violates the 14th Amendment. This conference facilitated discussions that led to an increased understanding of options available to school districts for which racial integration remains an objective. While the PICS decision did place limits on what school districts can do to pursue voluntary integration in local schools, this conference sought to reinforce the fundamental rights of districts to craft creative integration plans for their local schools. Videos of panelists and paper presentations have been made available on the Civil Rights Project Integration Conference website.

The RAND Corporation, 2009

The No Child Left Behind Act mandates that students who attend a school identified as "low performing" are allowed to transfer to another school, but only a small percentage of eligible students choose to exercise this right. This policy brief identifies shortfalls in communication between schools and parents as a primary cause for the low participation in this school choice option. Among the issues identified is the fact that parents are often not aware that their child's school has been identified as low performing in a timely fashion, and notifications may have lacked clarity. The brief offers several suggestions to improve communication of school choice options, including a standardized form letter for use statewide.

Tools of the Trade