Elementary and Secondary Schools

This brief describes the McKinney-Vento Education for Homeless Children and Youth Program (ECHY), summarizes the research, and outlines future research questions of concern to policymakers.

Search theory suggests early career job changes lead to better matches that benefit both workers and firms, but this may not hold true in teacher labor markets characterized by salary rigidities, barriers to entry, and substantial differences in working conditions. Education policy makers are particularly concerned that teacher turnover may have adverse effects on the quality of instruction in schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children. Although these schools experience higher turnover, on average, than other schools, the impact on the quality of instruction depends on whether more productive teachers are more likely to depart. In Texas, the availability of matched panel data of students and teachers enables the isolation of teachers' contributions to achievement. Teachers who remain in their school tend to outperform those who leave, particularly those who exit Texas public schools entirely. This gap is larger for schools serving mainly low income students— evidence that high turnover is not nearly as damaging as many suggest.

The gold standard in making causal inference on program effects is a randomized trial. Most randomization designs in education randomize classrooms or schools rather than individual students. Such "clustered randomization" designs have one principal drawback: They tend to have limited statistical power or precision. This study aims to provide empirical information needed to design adequately powered studies that randomize schools using data from Florida and North Carolina. The authors assess how different covariates contribute to improving the statistical power of a randomization design and examine differences between math and reading tests; differences between test types (curriculum-referenced tests versus norm-referenced tests); and differences between elementary school and secondary school, to see if the test subject, test type, or grade level makes a large difference in the crucial design parameters. Finally they assess bias in 2-level models that ignore the clustering of students in classrooms.

There are more than 19,000 nonprofit organizations devoted to supporting public education in the United States. These organizations include booster clubs, parent-teacher groups, public education funds, scholarship funds, high school alumni associations, and others. This report assesses the current status of education support organizations; provides details on the activities, capacities, and resources of public education funds; and compares Public Education Network member organizations with other types of education funds. On the basis of a survey of public education funds and an analysis of the latest data available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics, the report identifies key similarities and differences among the groups.

In an era of greater school accountability, leadership matters. For decades, principals have been recognized as vital to the effectiveness of schools, but strong empirical evidence on the extent to which, and the ways in which, school leaders matter has not been available. CALDER researchers have advanced our knowledge in this area by skillfully drawing on rich state longitudinal databases. This brief synthesizes new findings on the effectiveness and distribution of principals, the characteristics of good leadership, and how best to prepare principals for this increasingly demanding job.