The focus of this special edition is students' literacy development over the school years. Drawing on data that includes classroom interactions, analyses of texts, and interviews with students, this edition builds on the seminal treatment of the question of literacy transitions provided in Christie and Derewianka (2008). This paper aims to…

As public budgets have grown tighter over the past decade, states and school districts have sought ways to control the growth of spending. One increasingly common strategy employed to rein in costs is to offer experienced teachers with high salaries financial incentives to retire early. Although early retirement incentive (ERI) programs have been…

This paper tests three theories of class size determination: that schools assign better-behaved students, higher quality teachers, or higher-achieving students into larger classes. Furthermore, we estimate how these methodologies differ between public and private schools. Using a nationally representative sample from the USA, we show that, within…

In this study, we examined the development of maths skills in 269 Estonian primary school children (119 boys and 150 girls; 20 classes). Testing was carried out over a three-year period (Grade 1-Grade 3). Before the last testing session, children's verbal skills and motivational orientations were also tested. In addition, teachers evaluated…

Recent studies of the relationship between teacher preparation pathways and student achievement have resulted in similar statistics but contradictory conclusions. These studies as a group have several limits: they sometimes focus on student-level indicators when many policy decisions are made with indicators at the school-level or above, are…

Using percentage of students at proficient and advanced levels for science on the Missouri Assessment Program in St. Louis area school districts, this study investigates the relationship of scientific attainment with school variables of enrollment, percentage of students receiving free/reduced lunch, instructional expenditures per student,…

Recent studies have used increasingly complex methodologies to estimate the effect of peer characteristics--race, poverty, and ability--on student achievement. A paper by Hanushek, Kain, and Rivkin using Texas state testing data has received particularly wide attention because it found a large negative effect of school percent black on black math…

In an era dominated by issues of school finance adequacy, it seems particularly important to provide evidence that, despite a number of claims to the contrary, educational resources are indeed positively related to improved student achievement. One of the hypotheses of this article is that expenditures per pupil must be disaggregated into more…

Substantial uncertainty exists about the impact of school quality on the black-white achievement gap. Our results, based on both Texas Schools Project (TSP) administrative data and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey (ECLS), differ noticeably from other recent analyses of the black-white achievement gap by providing strong evidence that…

We study the effects of various types of education and training on the ability of teachers to promote student achievement. Previous studies on the subject have been hampered by inadequate measures of teacher training and difficulties addressing the non-random selection of teachers to students and of teachers to training. We address these issues by…