In 2003, Chicago schools required students entering ninth grade with below-average math scores to take two periods of algebra. This led to higher test scores for students with both above- and below-average skills, yet failure rates increased for above-average students. We examine the mechanisms behind these surprising results. Sorting by incoming…

The purpose of this research is to study the long-run impacts (i.e. on educational attainment) of a freshman math intervention called "double-dose algebra". The intervention was conducted in 2003 and 2004 within the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), a large, poor urban school district. In response to low passing rates in 9th grade algebra,…

Learning to read is one of the most important skills in modern society. Not only does reading serve as the major foundational skill for school-based learning, but reading ability is strongly related to opportunities for academic and vocational success. For children, a critical transition takes place during elementary school: until the end of third…

Students in an Ohio community (363 males and 332 females) took the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in the spring of their eighth-grade year and the Ohio Ninth Grade Proficiency Test (ONGPT) in the following fall of their ninth-grade year. The scores from both tests, for a period of 3 consecutive years, were correlated to determine the predictability of…

The Iowa Tests of Basic Skills were administered to over 600 black and white students in grades six through nine, to determine if the test showed bias against minorities. Outliers were identified from test results. Outliers are items which differ from the central core of test items because they fall outside the range expected from a random…