Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/DuncanChaplin

In previous work (Chaplin and Capizzano 2006), we evaluated a summer learning intervention that receives both federal and private funding, the Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) Accelerated Learning Summer Program. That study found the program to be effective using the gold standard of research methods, random assignment. This observation and interview-based process study details BELL's activities during the summers of 2004 and 2005. It examines whether program components were implemented with fidelity (i.e., as they said they would be in program documents) and describes implementation issues that may affect whether the BELL program can be replicated in other sites.

Gender differences in academic achievement have long fascinated researchers and policy-makers alike. In this paper we analyze differences in math and reading test score growth rates by gender for four different race and ethnic groups -- white, black, Hispanic, and Asian students -- for six different time periods. Our data cover both the earliest years of education and the crucial years of adolescence. In addition, we have data bracketing one non-schooling period. Together these data enable us to get a very complete picture of how gender gaps evolve over the course of early elementary and high school years and how these trajectories differ by race and ethnicity. While the gender gaps are not always statistically significant, they are for 15 of 48 comparisons made, all during school. In addition, all of the statistically significant results suggest that males learn more math and females more reading during early elementary school and again during high school.

A growing body of evidence indicates that the test scores of low-income children drop significantly relative to their higher-income counterparts during the summer months. This study used random assignment to evaluate the effectiveness of the Building Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) program--a summer program designed to improve academic skills, parental involvement, academic self-perceptions, and social behaviors among low-income children and families--and finds that a well-implemented summer learning program can improve reading test scores and increase the extent to which parents encourage their children to read during the subsequent school year. These findings provide some support for investments in out-of-school time programming for low-income children during the summer, such as those currently coming from the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program and the Supplemental Services provisions of Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act.

Investments in out-of-school-time programs have increased dramatically in recent years. In this paper we ask whether participation in out-of-school extracurricular activities improves academic achievement or behavior for elementary school children. Initial analyses were conducted using relatively standard techniques to control for the fact that students who participate in out-of-school-time extracurricular activities differ in important ways from nonparticipants. These analyses found statistically significant and positive effects of participation in arts, music, drama, and language classes. However, the initial positive effects disappeared when more appropriate analytical models were used.

This report seeks to inform the on-going debate over high school graduation rates with particular attention to the ways in which No Child Left Behind has effectively both redirected attention toward graduation rates and reshaped the contours of that debate. We begin by briefly introducing the provisions of NCLB that pertain to high school graduation and discussing their implications from a measurement perspective. Next we present several distinctive strategies for developing a high school graduation indicator that are broadly consistent with the new federal requirements for accountability. In the empirical portion of this study we construct these proposed high school graduation indicators using information from the U.S. Department of Education's census of local educational agencies and schools and systematically compare the results generated by the respective measures. We conclude by discussing several lessons this study may offer for future research and the policy implications for measuring graduation rates under conditions of high-stakes accountability.

Interest in the effects of the minimum wage on teenagers' school enrollment has grown in recent years. This issue is of increasing importance given recent calls for increasing the minimum wage. Some authors argue that higher minimum wages will hurt teenagers by lowering their school enrollment. In this paper, we estimate the effects of higher minimum wages on school enrollment using the Common Core of Data, collected by the U.S. Department of Education. These data cover the entire population of public school students in the United States. Controlling for local labor market conditions and state and year fixed effects, we find some evidence that higher minimum wages reduce teen school enrollment in states where students can drop out before the age of 18. This appears to be driven by the grade 9 to grade 10 transition. We find no effects for higher-grade levels or in states where students cannot drop out until they are 18. This suggests that minimum wages may have a substantial effect on teens' schooling effort in these early grades, but also that these unintended effects can be offset by policies that encourage continued school enrollment. (Economics of Education Review 22(1): 11-21, February 2003.)

Since the late 1960s, there has been a stagnation, and possibly a decline, in the rate of students graduating high school each year. This has gone mostly unnoticed because the preferred measure of estimating the graduation rate used by the Current Population Survey includes students who receive a General Education Development certificate, or GED. In recent years, the proportion of students leaving high school with a GED rather than a diploma has been increasing. This article explains why a GED certificate should not be considered the equivalent of a high school diploma and discusses alternative methods for calculating graduation rates. (Education Next Fall: 24-29, November 2002.)

The E-Rate, created by Congress as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-104), is a federal program that seeks to bridge this "digital divide" by supporting broader public access to the new digital technology at public and private nonprofit educational institutions. The availability of such public access points has been found to reduce economic and racial disparities, and some research suggests that when used by trained and well-supported teachers, technology can improve learning, especially for disadvantaged children. This study focuses on two main questions: (1) To what extent is the E-Rate helping to equalize access to the types of digital technology eligible for program discounts? (2) Are schools and teachers able to use the technology that E-Rate supports? How is it being used in the classroom?

This report describes implementation of the DC 21st Century Community Learning Center (DC 21st CCLC) program during the summer of 2001, with a particular focus on the use of computer technology to improve academic achievement. The report is based on direct observations of activities, document reviews, interviews with program coordinators and facilitators, and focus groups with student participants. The investigation revealed that the technology appears to have been well implemented, with large numbers of well-functioning machines in almost all observed classrooms and generally positive reactions from staff and students. Student enrollment is somewhat lower than hoped, and observations suggest that the use of the Internet, pretests, and aides could be improved to better support student achievement.

In this paper, I investigate the degree to which policies that promote economic integration of public primary schools also improve racial integration. Many policymakers believe that economic school integration is important for promoting equal opportunities, and a number of school districts already use economic characteristics of students to help integrate their schools. In addition, due to numerous legal challenges to racial desegregation in public schools, it is increasingly important to analyze the effects of alternative policies that, while not designed to affect racial desegregation, may impact it. Economic integration is one such policy. (Divided We Fail: Coming Together through Public School Choice. Century Foundation Task Force on the Common School Report. New York: Century Foundation Press, September 2002.)

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