Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

The demand for school improvement has increased concern over the ability of small high schools to offer comprehensive programs and has raised anew the pressure for consolidation. However, although large schools clearly offer more courses than do small ones, it is less clear that they offer more comprehensive programs. In this study we use the High School and Beyond data to address three questions, (a) Are the math, science, and foreign language programs of large schools more comprehensive than those of small ones? (b) For any given school size, are these programs equally comprehensive? (c) Is there some point on the school size continuum beyond which comprehensiveness shows little change? We find that although large schools offer more comprehensive programs than do small ones, there is substantial variation in comprehensiveness among the three programs at any given school size, and there is no common point where the programs of smaller schools approximate the comprehensiveness of larger ones.

The purpose of this study was to produce new information regarding interorganizational collaboratives for job training and economic development. The goal was to collect information on innovative practices, defined as interorganizational arrangements with demonstrated exemplary outcomes. The study focused on identifying innovative job creation practices, including those involving (a) assistance to small business, a key ingredient in job creation and economic development for this country, and (b) benefits to Job Training Partnership Act participants or other low-income, hard-to-employ workers in terms of job placement. The study analytically assesses what works and why, and discusses lessons learned for other local sites wishing to consider similar initiatives.

This article examines the critical issue of teacher support for career enhancement initiatives, focusing specifically on merit pay and career ladder programs. It presents the findings of an empirical study that examines the relationships between program characteristics and effects on work variables and teacher support of and opposition to these programs. The findings reveal that teacher support of and opposition to both programs is strongly associated with perceived effects on different dimensions of work. Of particular importance are effects on professional working relationships with other teachers. These findings underscore incongruities and tensions between merit pay and career ladder programs and beliefs and practices that characterize and govern teachers’ work. Implications for the continued development of merit pay, career ladder, and other teacher career enhancement initiatives are explored.

This study investigates the relationship between school-level minimum competency testing (MCT) programs and student reading proficiency as measured by the 1983–1984 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Comparisons of student-level proficiency out-comes within race/ethnic groups (White, Black, and Hispanic) were made after adjusting for individual and school-level variables for the 4th-, 8th-, and 11th- grade NAEP samples. In general, results indicated a higher level of proficiency among students in Grades 8 and 11 attending schools with MCT programs compared with their counterparts in schools without such programs. No advantage of attending such schools was identified for students in Grade 4.

Even as California increases the presence of Latino students in its public university systems, the net college-going rates for the group have fallen off markedly. To understand the decision process, this study examines Chicano students in one large high school. In particular, the effect of cost on demand was sought by using a survey of graduating seniors. Logistic regressions on college plans revealed differential effects of estimated cost, depending on ethnicity and language background. For the children of Spanish-speaking parents, costs were largely determinant of college plans, whereas they were not for the children of English speakers. Significantly, it was the children of Spanish speakers who had the highest and most unrealistic estimates of college tuition.

This article presents cross-sectional data on the relation between school achievement and measures of school environment, particularly “effective schools” characteristics. The data are for 38 high schools, 32 middle schools, and 134 elementary schools, across 22 districts in the Milwaukee metropolitan area. The achievement measures include standardized test data in math and reading, as well as dropout rates. In addition to a wide range of school characteristics, key measures of school environment were collected through lengthy mailed surveys of 5,500 teachers in the districts. In addition to an effective schools index, we analyze the effects of parental involvement and variation in teacher control of key decisions in schools. The findings offer support for the notion that school environment has an effect on achievement. They also show that the complex of environmental variables that are significantly related to achievement are themselves highly intercorrelated and very much affected by the location of the school (city or suburbs) and the student population in the schools. These results lead us to question the direction of causality and thus the certainty of success of intervention programs along current effective schools lines.

This article is about policy related to class size and student achievement. Class size is an ongoing education policy issue that ebbs and flows over time. Class size reductions have been proposed recently in many states and enacted in a few. This article reviews the literature on class size and student achievement and suggests policy alternatives. It has four sections: First, some introductory comments are made to set subsequent comments about class size policy into a broader context; second, the research on class size and student achievement is presented; third, the policy implications of this research are developed; fourth, a short summary of policy recommendations is provided.