Federal incentives and requirements under the Obama administration spurred states to adopt major reforms to their teacher evaluation systems. We examine the effects of these reforms on student achievement and attainment at a national scale by exploiting the staggered timing of implementation across states. We find precisely estimated null effects,…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on student trust and to examine the relationship between student trust, behavior, and academic outcomes in high school. It asks, first, does trust have a positive effect on high school outcomes? Second, does trust influence student behavior, exerting an indirect effect on…

School reform on a large scale has largely been unsuccessful. Approaches designed to document and understand the variety of organizational conditions that comprise our school systems are needed so that reforms can be tailored and results scaled. Therefore, this article develops a configurational framework that allows a systematic analysis of many…

Recent state and federal policies generally focus on the individual teacher rather than the school organization. These reforms seem to assume that a teacher can do it all, that an individual who succeeds in one school can succeed in any school and, conversely, that a teacher who fails in one classroom will fail in all others. However, there is no…

For more than 30 years, the United States has been engaged in education reform efforts designed to dramatically boost student performance and close achievement gaps linked to poverty and ethnicity. Can schools afford those education ambitions? Most educators have their doubts. The author believes educators can improve student learning even when…

Although rearranging school organizational features is a popular school reform, little research exists to inform policymakers about how grade spans affect achievement. This article examines how grade spans and the school transitions that students make between fourth and eighth grade shape student performance in eighth grade. The authors estimate…

This article is focused on identifying the current issues in elementary education in the United States. In each of these issues, elementary educators are at the crossroads looking for solutions and directions. Based on the review of literature, the authors pinpoint the upcoming challenges elementary school educators will be facing in the future.…

In an era of increasing access to secondary education in the Caribbean, it becomes critical that we understand the effect that Universal Secondary Education (USE) has had on our education systems in order to inform current educational reform efforts and future educational planning. This study explores the experience of the country of Grenada with…

Proposals for school reform often focus on large and sometimes controversial systemic changes, such as charter schools, accountability standards, and changes to the way teachers are hired, fired, and compensated. Although these reforms may offer great opportunity to improve student outcomes, they may also be costly, face substantial implementation…

Public high schools today are faced with the challenge of preparing a diverse student population for both post-secondary education and entering the work force. However, they are doing so under the constraints of an educational structure that was developed years ago and one that has failed to adapt to the many changes in society. Schools are…

This follow-up study presents findings from 11 structured interviews that were conducted with principals engaged in a conversion from a large comprehensive high school to six small schools. Key findings are (a) the greatest barrier to improvement was entrenched instructional patterns and (b) goals of college readiness and social/emotional…

In this paper, the author asks what education policy might look like in the United States if it was based on the experience of its most successful competitors. He relies on research conducted by a team assembled by the National Center on Education and the Economy, at the request of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),…

The study involves "Teaming", a topic that is receiving attention in education today. Teaming is a school improvement initiative strategy used at many grade levels in many schools across the country. This plan of action brings core teachers, in such contents as Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Studies and connects them…

The first charter school law was passed in Minnesota in 1991 and with it, a new school reform movement began. After two decades, 41 states and Washington D.C. have adopted charter legislation. This special issue provides an opportunity for scholars to reflect upon the promises and limitations of charter schools and to offer policy advice for those…

The University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research and the American Institutes for Research (AIR) partnered to examine five different models initiated by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 36 schools. CPS was an early adopter of dramatic intervention strategies in low-performing schools, and the reforms in this study were implemented…