Little research compares hybrid to online and face-to-face (F2F) teaching. Nearly all this research assumes no difference in the students' demographics entering F2F, hybrid, or online sections of a course. This study used all the data from 5 years of undergraduate courses at Kennesaw State University. The data set, which includes individual…

This is the Mackinac Center's fourth school report card and covers elementary and middle schools. A similar report card was published in 2013, and this edition includes two years' worth of new data. A unique characteristic of this report card is that takes into consideration the "context" of a school when assessing its performance.…

The District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) was created by Congress to provide tuition vouchers to low-income parents who want their child to attend a private school. The Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act of 2011 also mandated an evaluation of the OSP program. This report examines impacts one year after…

Schools and neighborhoods are thought to be two of the most important contextual influences on student academic outcomes. Drawing on a unique data set that permits simultaneous estimation of neighborhood and school contributions to student test score gains, we analyze the distributions of these contributions to consider the relative importance of…

This paper examines whether the closure of poor performing primary schools improved students' educational attainment. It is believed that school closure affects children's educational outcomes positively because children switch to better primary schools. At the same time, school closure creates a social disturbance such that educational outcomes…

"Ohio Education by the Numbers" offers busy policy makers, journalists, and civic and business leaders simple and easy-to-use vital statistics about Ohio's schools and the students they serve. The facts and figures contained within offer an overview of Ohio's students; where they go to school; their achievement on national and state…

Although the recent wave of mortgage foreclosures has clearly been accompanied by economic hardship, relatively little research has examined how foreclosures affect the academic performance of students. This paper investigates the relationship between mortgage foreclosures and the academic performance of students using a unique dataset that…

The 2014 Michigan Public High School Context and Performance Report Card is the Mackinac Center's second effort to measure high school performance. The first high school assessment was published in 2012, followed by the Center's 2013 elementary and middle school report card, which used a similar methodology to evaluate school performance. The…

In higher education in the state of Arkansas, two courses are considered to be gateway courses to obtaining a college degree--College Algebra and English Composition I. While students may obtain Certificates of Proficiency and Technical Certificates without taking these courses, few, if any, can earn an Associate's or Bachelor's degree without…

Purpose: Charter schools are unique public schools in part because this type of school can close if it fails to meet objectives set forth by the chartering body that approved it. Thus far, however, little research has been conducted into the causes of charter school closures. In this article, we examine charter school accountability. Research…

This paper examined whether year round schooling (YRS) in California had an effect upon the outcome and growth of schools' Academic Performance Index (API) scores. While many previous studies had examined the connection between YRS and academic achievement, most had lacked the statistical rigour required to provide reliable interpretations. As a…

In this set of four supplemental tables, the authors compare the baseline test scores of the treatment and matched control group samples observed in each year after KIPP entry (outcome years 1 to 4). As discussed in Chapter III, the authors used an iterative propensity score estimation procedure to calculate each student's probability of entering…

A critical state-level indicator of progress in public education is student achievement annual performance and change over time. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) has been very active in tracking and reporting on student achievement results and using state assessment scores and other data to analyze achievement trends. A central…

In just the last ten years, goaded by broad and still unsettled cultural shifts, education practices have changed dramatically. Schools are no longer just recording and analyzing inputs--dollars spent, number of days of instruction, numbers of students per teacher--but pushing their data-gathering and analysis efforts into the brave new world of…

This report presents a new analysis of student achievement scores and educational progress for states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Results based on score quartiles show that states are generally making more progress in mathematics achievement than in reading, good readers are getting better at the same time weak readers are…