Professional Readings
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Professional Readings includes reviews of recent publications and highlights of reports on current issues that affect schools. Your contributions are welcome. Send them to principal@osu.edu. Please indicate if we may use your name in the “contributor” credits.
Reports on Education, August 2009
Material provided by Joan Platz, League of Women Voters
- RAND Report on Charter Schools
- 2008 Arts Report Card
- ARRA and Arts Education
- Diplomas Count 2009
- Florida Voucher Study
TTR Reviews RAND Report on Charter Schools
The Think Tank Review (TTR) released on May 27, 2009 a review of the RAND report called Charter Schools in Eight States: Effects on Achievement, Attainment, Integration and Competition, written by a team led by Ron Zimmer. The TTR was conducted by Derek Briggs of the University of Colorado. It concluded that the RAND report makes important contributions to research on charter school effectiveness, but also found some weaknesses in the data and analysis regarding the findings for integration and competition.
According to a summary of the review, the RAND study found the following:
- Insignificant effects on reading and math achievement in five jurisdictions and small negative effects in two others
- Positive effects for graduation rates and matriculation in college, but only for two jurisdictions for which there were data.
- No evidence that charter schools skim higher-achieving students from traditional public schools, and no evidence that charters lead to increased racial or ethnic stratification
- No evidence of a “competition effect” leading to an improvement or decline in the scores of local traditional public school students when charters enter a particular educational marketplace
The TTR notes, however, the weaknesses in the data and analysis to support the finding of no evidence for charter schools skimming high achieving students away from public schools or leading to increased racial/ethnic stratification. According to the reviewer, the use of aggregated data could mask the stratification or segregation happening in an individual school. The review also noted that some data regarding student achievement in charter schools was based on students who switched to charter schools in middle or high school after attending traditional public schools. Use of these data may limit the study’s external validity.
NAEP in the Arts Findings
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in the Arts report was released by the U.S. Department of Education on June 15, 2009. Copies of The Nation’s Report Card: Arts 2008 and complete data from the 2008 arts assessment are available from the National Center for Education Statistics website >
ARRA Stimulus Funds Can Be Used for the Arts
The Arts Education Partnership reminds educators that the arts are a core subject designated by the U.S. Department of Education, and therefore stimulus dollars allocated through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) can be used to support the arts.
The U.S. Department of Education has released a new publication called Using ARRA Funds to Drive School Reform and Improvement (link to Word document >). This document provides examples of potential uses of funds to improve student achievement. More information about ARRA and arts education >
Diplomas Count 2009
Education Week released on June 9, 2009 the fourth annual Diplomas Count 2009: Broader Horizons: The Challenge of College Readiness for All Students, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The report, produced by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, examines the number of students graduating from high schools in the 2005-2006 school year based on a methodology using the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI). The report also provides information on a number of related topics, including developing a common graduation rate among the states, identifying college readiness and common standards, building data systems to track student progress, and preventing high school students from dropping out.
According to the report, high school graduation rates nationally have increased over the last 10 years from 66.4% in 1996 to 69.2% in 2006, and 34 states have improved their rates. However, the 2006 graduation rate was actually lower than in 2005. Using the CPI the report projects that approximately 1.3 million students will not graduate in 2009. Graduation rates for Native Americans, Hispanic, and African American students reached 55% in 2006.
New Jersey posted the highest graduation rate, and Nevada the lowest. The graduation rates of New Jersey, Iowa, and Wisconsin were more than 80%; under half of the students finish high school in the District of Columbia and Nevada.
The report also notes the following:
- College and work readiness: 20 states define what students should know and be able to do to be prepared for credit-bearing courses in college, and 28 states have a definition of work readiness.
- Advanced diplomas: 24 states award advanced diplomas or some type of formal recognition to students who exceed standard graduation requirements.
- Exit exams: 24 states require exit exams for the class of 2009, with 20 of those states basing exit exams on standards at the 10th-grade level or higher.
Ohio ranks seventh nationally in the percentage increase in students graduating from high schools over the past decade. Ohio posted a 74.3% graduation rate during the 2005-2006 school year. According to the report, Ohio’s graduation rate increased by 7% between 1996 and 2006, and several individual school districts including Cincinnati, Warren, Euclid, and Steubenville City Schools, were recognized for higher than average increases in graduation rates.
However, Ohio’s graduation rate among African Americans in 2006 was 47.3%, and Ohio also ranked low for the number of academic credits needed to graduate. Ohio requires 20, whereas some states, such as Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Texas, and West Virginia, require 24 credits.
Florida Voucher Study Released
Evaluation of Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program First Follow-Up Report: Participation, Compliance and Test Scores in 2007-08 by economist David Figlio of Northwestern University was released on June 16, 2009. The study examines the achievement of private school students participating in Florida’s Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship Program (a voucher program) compared to students attending public schools and finds no difference in their achievement. The study compared 2007-2008 test score gains of voucher students to similar students in public schools, using 2006-2007 as a baseline year.
The Florida legislature called for the study of the scholarship program, which served 23,259 students in 2008. Vouchers are available to any student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Participants in the Florida scholarship program are not required to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, but must take a comparable test. The scores on the comparable tests were used to conduct the evaluation. However, some complications with the study were noted by the researcher. For example, the 2006-07 data were incomplete, and the researcher found some discrepancies in the data, because some Florida families had applied for free and reduced price lunch status, even though they could not qualify because of their higher income levels.
