School-based Partnerships and Services

When given the opportunity, many teachers choose to leave schools serving poor, low-performing, and minority students. While substantial research has documented this phenomenon, far less effort has gone into understanding what features of the working conditions in these schools drive this relatively high turnover rate. This paper explores the relationship between school contextual factors and teacher retention decisions in New York City. The methodological approach separates the effects of teacher characteristics from school characteristics by modeling the relationship between the assessments of school contextual factors by one set of teachers and the turnover decisions by other teachers within the same school. Teachers’ perceptions of the school administration have by far the greatest influence on teacher-retention decisions. This effect of administration is consistent for first-year teachers and the full sample of teachers and is confirmed by a survey of teachers who have recently left teaching in New York City.

Using data from North Carolina, this paper examines the frequency, incidence, and consequences of teacher absences in public schools, as well as the impact of an absence disincentive policy. The incidence of teacher absences is regressive: when schools are ranked by the fraction of students receiving free or reduced-price lunch, schools in the poorest quartile averaged almost one extra sick day per teacher than schools in the highest income quartile, and schools with persistently high rates of teacher absence were much more likely to serve low-income than high-income students. The authors find that absences are associated with lower student achievement in elementary grades and that the demand for discretionary absences is price-elastic. Estimates suggest that a policy intervention which simultaneously raised teacher base salaries and broadened financial penalties for absences could both raise teachers' expected income and lower districts' expected costs.

This two-guide set for evaluators and others interested in evaluation grew out of a National Science Foundation funded effort to improve cross project evaluations. Guide 1, Designing a Cross-Project Evaluation, focuses on evaluation design including identification and operationalization of program goals, building of logic models, and selection of indicators and appropriate measures for these indicators. Guide 2, Collecting and Using Data in Cross-Project Evaluation, lays out multiple issues involved in data collection, strengths and weaknesses of different data collection formats, and methods for ensuring data quality, confidentiality, and the protection of human subjects.

Panelists discussed academic achievement gaps and segregation, poverty and the accumulation of risk factors, and programs designed to alleviate these conditions. Listen to the podcast.

[Riverside Press Enterprise] Jane Hannaway, director of the Education Policy Center, believes the United States can achieve a top-notch public education system. What can we do to catch up and excel? At the top of the list: We have to reach directly into the classroom to improve teacher quality.

[First Tuesdays Transcript] As U.S. schools face the challenge of preparing students to participate in an increasingly global economy, many students' poor performance on mathematics and science tests compared with their counterparts abroad is getting attention. A promising development in district-level school reforms has been the use of research to inform solutions to educational problems. Panelists at this forum looked at how research applies to school districts.

Both the United States and England initiated ambitious standards-based education reform to eliminate large gaps between their highest and lowest achievers. England appears to be ahead, having started in 1988 with a national curriculum, tests, and performance tables. The United States' No Child Left Behind Act began rewriting state rules in 2002 with more incentives and punitive measures aimed at school performance. Viewing the contrasts as opportunity, educators and policymakers from each side of the Atlantic gathered in Philadelphia in mid-October for the second half of a dialogue on urban education. This policy brief offers highlights from their discussions.

Without a coherent education policy for immigrants based on the complex range of their experiences, federal and state governments imperil the economic and social progress of millions of children, says education reform expert Alec Ian Gershberg, co-author of a new book from the Urban Institute Press. Current policies affecting immigrants are directed almost exclusively toward the narrow goal of teaching them English. [View the corresponding book module]