A recent report from the Fordham Institute considers potential instructional policies for high-achieving students that should be considered in the forthcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. The report finds: 1) achievement growth among high-achieving students has been slower than that of low-achieving students; 2) this trend can be traced to state accountability practices; and 3) teachers would support new policies targeted to high achievers. This review examines several premises of the report’s conclusions, both implicit and explicit. It concludes that evidence regarding the effects of accountability is inconsistent. It also concludes that teachers have a more nuanced view of allocating resources to high- and low-achievers than is recognized in the report.

A new report published by the Manhattan Institute for Education Policy, “The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement: Evidence from Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program,” attempts to examine the complex issue of how competition introduced through school vouchers affects student outcomes in public schools. The possible contributions of this report, however, are outweighed by research design problems, failure to take into account alternative explanations, and unsubstantiated assumptions about the direction of possible selection bias. Together, these problems call into question the findings and render the conclusions drawn from those findings highly suspect.

Suggested Cite:

Yun, J. T. (2008). Review of “The Effect of Special Education Vouchers on Public School Achievement: Evidence from Florida’s McKay Scholarship Program.” Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-effect-of-special

Choice and Education across the States, published by the Heartland Institute, is an advocacy document that assigns letter grades to states based on the extensiveness of each state’s school choice system. The report asserts, based on a faulty use of past research, that an increase in school choice will strengthen accountability and improve student achievement. It awards most states low grades, reflecting a desire for more school choice throughout the nation. But the report does not provide much in the way of useful information; it only offers the argument that states should increase school choice, dressed up with a letter grade for each state.

Suggested Cite:

Chi, W. (2008). Review of "Choice and Education Across the States." Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-choice-education

Seeking to turn around the five percent of U.S. schools that have proven chronically underachieving, a new report from Mass Insight, The Turnaround Challenge, puts forth a proposal aimed at getting these schools and their students on track toward genuine academic achievement. To do so, the authors propose a comprehensive strategy that includes three main elements: conditions, capacity and clustering. Regarding conditions, the report advocates creating a “turnaround zone” within which schools are accorded greater autonomy and given incentives to act. Regarding capacity, the report suggests state-developed programs and policies to bring quality educators into the reform process at all levels while more leadership roles are created at the school site. Regarding clustering, it recommends a network of districts or schools that work in concert to facilitate change. There are many promising aspects to this report and its ideas deserve serious consideration, but this review identifies several concerns. The underlying research base is limited, the proposed timeline for enacting “significant change” in schools (two years) seems unrealistic, the approach is overly punitive, and the report says little about what role students will play in the reform process.

Suggested Cite:

McQuillan, P. (2008). Review of "The Turnaround Challenge."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-turnaround-challenge

The newly released Thomas B. Fordham Institute report Fund the Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy and Portability to Ohio School Finance, is the latest in a series of reports promoting the implementation of decentralized governance of public schooling coupled with student-based allocation of revenues to schools. While the current report builds on prior efforts from Fordham and others, it differs in a number of key ways. Most notably, the current report suggests that Ohio should implement a fully state-funded system. Second, the current report avoids unfounded claims that research has found decentralized governance to necessarily improve student outcomes. Third, it takes a measured approach toward recommendations for implementing the reform, and it acknowledges the potential political influences that might compromise equity goals of weighted funding formulas. The report’s primary weakness is its general failure to use research literature concerning within- and between-district funding inequities and concerning factors associated with the costs of education that should be considered if a funding system is to be truly equitable. These oversights significantly compromise a central objective of the report’s proposals—-simultaneously resolving within- and between-district funding disparities.

Suggested Cite:

Baker, B. (2008). Review of "Fund the Child: Bringing Equity, Autonomy, and Portability to Ohio School Finance."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-fund-child

This new report from the Lexington Institute, "How sound an investment? An analysis of federal prekindergarten proposals," considers current proposals for federal involvement in prekindergarten (pre-K). It is misleading, however, with respect to both the provisions and likely consequences of those proposals. The report attempts to disparage the potential benefits of pre-K by presenting inaccurate information about public pre-K programs and their effects. Although the report provides some useful cautions about these programs, it exaggerates the relative importance of those cautions. The report's conclusions are grounded in a failure to consider other relevant research on pre-K's effectiveness and the relative merits of targeted and universal approaches to preschool education.

Suggested Cite:

Barnett, W. (2008). Review of "How Sound an Investment? An Analysis of Federal Prekindergarten Proposals."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/federal-prekindergarten-proposals

Issued by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "A School Privatization Primer for Michigan School Officials, Media and Residents" examines the "contracting out" of public school support services — specifically food, transportation, and custodial services. The report describes the prevalence of contracting out and sets forth the practical steps in hiring a contractor and the benefits in allowing districts to focus on their core mission of instruction. This information may help districts already committed to contracting out. However, the report presupposes that the practice is beneficial. It relies primarily on testimony from district officials rather than direct data or research. And it does not consider the significant transactions costs associated with contracting out or the risks in ceding control to an outside vendor. Overall, the report is prone to overstatement and misleading contentions, resulting in a report that greatly over-simplifies how education systems operate and the purported benefits of contracting out education-related services.

Suggested Cite:

Belfield, C. (2008). Review of "A School Privatization Primer for Michigan School Officials, Media and Residents."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-school-privatization-primer

This study examines the relationship between high-stakes school accountability and its effects upon student test scores and school policies. The authors seek to understand the extent to which accountability sanctions and incentives for the poorest-performing schools in Florida explain subsequent changes in school practices and policies as well as achievement — measured by state assessment data, Stanford-10 assessment data and surveys of public school principals. Based on statistical analysis of the lowest-performing schools, the authors report that accountability incentives and sanctions are related to school practice and policy as well as to student achievement. The report uses comprehensive data sources and applies appropriate methodologies to address the research question. Its analyses demonstrate a mediating relationship for school policies between accountability and achievement gains, a finding consistent with both the literature on the subject and common sense. However, the report overstates and makes causal claims about the relationship between accountability sanctions and improvements in school achievement. In this way, the report’s title and some causal statements in the body of the report are unfortunate in that they overstate the report’s sound findings and suggest that vouchers and other accountability measures are shown to be the cause of achievement gains in some of Florida’s lowest-performing schools.

Suggested Cite:

Betebenner, D. (2008). Review of "Feeling the Florida Heat? How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-feeling-florida-heat-how-low-performing-schools-respond-voucher-and-accountability-

Five sister reports published by the Friedman Foundation over the past two years have ignored the relevant research literature in asserting that private-school voucher programs can reduce the social costs of dropping out while increasing graduation rates. The reports are state-specific, targeting five different states. But each report follows a parallel structure, arguing that the state in question overestimates its graduation rate, that the costs of drop-ping out are dramatic and that a private-school voucher program can increase graduation and address the dropout problem by generating competition. Yet the reports largely ignore the existing research literature on the personal and social benefits of educational attain-ment, the effects of school competition, and the factors associated with either completing or dropping out of high school. Further, each report does not provide sufficient information about how the author estimated the statistical claims made for each state, and the author fails to compare the alleged benefits of private-school vouchers with plausible alternatives, such as increasing public-school choice programs or improving graduation through other programs. State policymakers interested in increasing graduation would be better served by seeking out the available, well-researched scholarship on the topic.

Suggested Cite:

Dorn, S. (2008). Review of "Five State Dropout Reports."  Boulder and Tempe: Education and the Public Interest Center & Education Policy Research Unit. Retrieved [date] from http://epicpolicy.org/thinktank/review-five-state-dropout-reports