English Language Arts Achievement Research Articles

Reducing the math and language arts gender gaps in elementary school students through gender integration

Math and English Language Arts (ELA) are two major areas that continue to show gender achievement gaps in U.S. students. Given the importance of peer relations in academic success, the degree of gender integration in classrooms in early elementary school may shift student interest and performance to lessen these gender gaps. We tested the hypothesis that Gender Integration (GI; i.e., when students perceive that boys and girls work cooperatively in a classroom) would positively impact students' math and ELA-related outcomes. Further, we examined both cognitive and affective processes underlying this relation. Participants were 884 3rd to 5th graders (51.1 % boys; Mage = 9.04 years, SD = 0.90; 47.2 % White, 37 % Latine). Over the course of an academic year (fall, winter, and spring), we gathered student and teacher data. Path analyses showed that fall GI directly predicted greater spring ELA but not math achievement. Further, academic beliefs significantly mediated math achievement for girls and ELA achievement for boys. Because GI is malleable, the findings highlighted the importance of promoting GI early in students' educational environments as a way to promote both girls' and boys' educational beliefs and achievement.

Does subsidized public health insurance for parents improve children's human capital and close achievement gaps?

Between 2009 and 2018, many states dramatically changed income eligibility limits for parental Medicaid. We examine whether increasing parental Medicaid eligibility had spillover benefits on children's development. We study the effects of state-level changes in parental income limits for Medicaid on 3rd through 8th grade mathematics and English-language arts (ELA) achievement using county-level administrative test score data. We find that a 50-percentage point increase in parental Medicaid income limits, roughly equal to the average state increase in eligibility over this period, is associated with a 1.5% reduction in the socioeconomic achievement gap for math and a 3% reduction in the white-black math achievement gap. Math test scores improved significantly following parental Medicaid eligibility expansions among black students residing in poorer counties, with little estimated change in test scores for black students in higher income counties. We find no effect in ELA achievement gaps or white-Hispanic test score gaps. Our findings suggest that means-tested policies that improve parental and family wellbeing have important spillover benefits to children's educational achievement and can help reduce inequities in children's human capital development.

Apprehension and educational outcomes among Hispanic students in the United States: The impact of Secure Communities.

Prior research suggests that disruptive events, such as shocks induced by family instability, neighborhood violence, or relocation, tend to be detrimental for children’s educational outcomes, but findings are heterogeneous depending on the type of event. Limited evidence is available on how shocks resulting from immigration enforcement impact educational outcomes among targeted minority groups. This study contributes to the literature by assessing how a policy implementation in the US–Secure Communities–is related to the school district level achievement of Hispanic students. The Secure Communities program is a national level immigration enforcement policy that was rolled out on a county-by-county basis. The program has increased the risk of deportation and led to rising apprehension and insecurity among undocumented migrants and the wider Hispanic community. Using detailed information on the implementation of Secure Communities, data from the Stanford Education Data Archive, and the Current Population Survey, this study estimates dynamic difference in differences exploiting regional variation in the timing of the policy change to assess its impact on educational outcomes. Results show that the activation of Secure Communities is negatively associated with Hispanic students’ subsequent English language arts achievement, while white and black students’ achievement does not change. Findings further suggest that Hispanic students living in the South, rural areas, and areas with high proportions of likely undocumented migrants are disproportionately impacted by the program’s activation. Whereas, Hispanic students in sanctuary jurisdictions, which reduce the likelihood of deportation, are not impacted. These findings indicate that immigration enforcement can have negative consequences for educational and social inequalities in the United States.

Improving Low-Performing Schools: A Meta-Analysis of Impact Evaluation Studies

The public narrative surrounding efforts to improve low-performing K–12 schools in the United States has been notably gloomy. But what is known empirically about whether school improvement works, which policies are most effective, which contexts respond best to intervention, and how long it takes? We meta-analyze 141 estimates from 67 studies of post–No Child Left Behind Act turnaround policies. On average, policies had moderate positive effects on math and no effect on English Language Arts achievement on high-stakes exams. We find positive impacts on low-stakes exams and no evidence of harm on nontest outcomes. Extended learning time and teacher replacements predict greater effects. Contexts serving majority-Latina/o populations saw the largest improvements. We cannot rule out publication bias entirely but find no differences between peer-reviewed versus nonpeer-reviewed estimates.

Developing School Leaders: Findings From a Randomized Control Trial Study of the Executive Development Program and Paired Coaching

Principals are the second-largest school-based contributor to K–12 students’ academic progress. However, there is little research evaluating whether efforts to develop principals’ skills improve school effectiveness. We conducted randomized controlled trial studies of the impacts of a professional development program called the Executive Development Program (EDP) and of the incremental effects of coaching to help principals implement the EDP curriculum. We find that the EDP alone influenced principals’ practices, but not student achievement, within 3 years. Coaching had a small positive effect on students’ English Language Arts achievement, but no effect on math achievement or on principals’ practices. Coaching had the largest effects in disadvantaged schools. We hypothesize that coaching enhanced the quality of implementation of recommended practices.

Evaluating Education Governance: Does State Takeover of School Districts Affect Student Achievement?

AbstractLocal school boards have primary authority for running educational systems in the U.S., but little is known empirically about the merits of this arrangement. State takeovers of struggling districts represent a rare alternative form of educational governance and have become an increasingly common response to low performance. However, limited research explores whether this effectively improves student outcomes. We track all takeovers nationwide from the late 1980s, when the first takeovers occurred, through 2016 and describe takeover districts. While these districts are low performing, we find academic performance plays less of a role in predicting takeover for districts serving larger concentrations of African American students. We then use a new data source allowing for cross‐state comparisons of student outcomes to estimate the effect of takeovers that occurred between 2011 and 2016. On average, we find no evidence that takeover generates academic benefits. Takeover appears to be disruptive in the early years of takeover, particularly to English Language Arts achievement, although the longer‐term effects are less clear. We also observe considerable heterogeneity of effects across districts. Takeovers were least effective in districts with higher baseline achievement and least harmful in majority‐Hispanic communities. Leaders should be cautious about using state takeover without considering local context and a better understanding of why some takeovers are more effective than others.

Peer Disruption and Learning: Links between Suspensions and the Educational Achievement of Non-Suspended Students

Abstract To evaluate the net effects of classroom disciplinary practices, policy makers and educators must understand not only their effects on disciplined students but also their effects on non-disciplined peers. In this study, we estimate the link between peer suspensions and non-suspended students’ learning trajectories in a California school district where middle and high school students took up to twelve basic skills tests in mathematics and English Language Arts (ELA) over the course of the 2009–10, 2010–11, and 2011–12 school years. We find that Hispanic students, students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, English language learners, students enrolled in special education, and low-achieving students are disproportionately exposed to classmate suspensions. Analyses with student and classroom fixed effects show that student achievement in mathematics increases when their classmates receive suspensions, particularly suspensions attributed to disruptive behavior. We find no association between classmate suspension and ELA achievement. Because these results come from schools in which suspensions are relatively rare events, they may not generalize to settings with draconian disciplinary cultures. Nonetheless, our findings imply that suspensions, when used appropriately, can improve the academic achievement of non-suspended students, particularly for students from vulnerable populations.

Making the Most of School Vacation: A Field Experiment of Small Group Math Instruction

Catching students up who have fallen behind academically is a key challenge for educators, and can be difficult to do in a cost-effective manner. This field experiment examines the causal effect of a program designed to provide struggling sixth and seventh graders with math instruction delivered in small groups of roughly ten students by select teachers over weeklong vacation breaks. The program was implemented in a set of low-performing Massachusetts middle schools undergoing turnaround reforms. Attendance at these “Vacation Academies” increased the probability that students scored proficient or higher on Common Core–aligned math exams by 10 percentage points and reduced students’ exposure to exclusionary discipline by decreasing out-of-school suspensions post-Academy. I find suggestive evidence of positive spillover effects on English Language Arts achievement and end-of-course grades in math and reading. Participants assigned to a single primary teacher for the entire week saw larger reductions in out-of-school suspensions than did students who rotated through teachers specializing in particular lessons. However, teacher specialization was associated with greater test score gains, suggesting a trade-off in outcomes depending on program design. Overall, the program's low cost and lack of a highly competitive teacher selection process make it a scalable approach to individualizing instruction.

Crime and Inequality in Academic Achievement Across School Districts in the United States.

This study investigates the effect of violent crime on school district-level achievement in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. The research design exploits variation in achievement and violent crime across 813 school districts in the United States and seven birth cohorts of children born between 1996 and 2002. The identification strategy leverages exogenous shocks to crime rates arising from the availability of federal funds to hire police officers in the local police departments where the school districts operate. Results show that children who entered the school system when the violent crime rate in their school districts was lower score higher in ELA by the end of eighth grade, relative to children attending schools in the same district but who entered the school system when the violent crime rate was higher. A 10% decline in the violent crime rate experienced at ages 0-6 raises eighth-grade ELA achievement in the district by 0.03 standard deviations. Models that estimate effects by race and gender show larger impacts among Black children and boys. The district-wide effect on mathematics achievement is smaller and statistically nonsignificant. These findings extend our understanding of the geography of educational opportunity in the United States and reinforce the idea that understanding inequalities in academic achievement requires evidence on what happens inside as well as outside schools.

Deportations Near the Schoolyard: Examining Immigration Enforcement and Racial/Ethnic Gaps in Educational Outcomes

With increased tensions and political rhetoric surrounding immigration enforcement in the United States, schools are facing greater challenges in ensuring support for their students of immigrant and Latino/a origin. This study examined the associations between deportations near school districts and racial/ethnic gaps in educational outcomes in school districts across the country. With data from the Stanford Educational Data Archive, the Civil Rights Data Collection, and the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, this study used longitudinal, cross-sectional analyses and found that in the years when districts had more deportations occurring within 25 miles, White-Latino/a gaps were larger in math achievement and rates of chronic absenteeism. No associations were found for gaps in English language arts achievement or rates of bullying. Implications for researchers, policymakers, and school leaders are discussed.

Schooling During the Great Recession: Patterns of School Spending and Student Achievement Using Population Data

The Great Recession was the most severe economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression. Using data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), we describe the patterns of math and English language arts (ELA) achievement for students attending schools in communities differentially affected by recession-induced employment shocks. Employing a difference-in-differences strategy that leverages both cross-county variation in the economic shock of the recession and within-county, cross-cohort variation in school-age years of exposure to the recession, we find that declines in student math and ELA achievement were greater for cohorts of students attending school during the Great Recession in communities most adversely affected by recession-induced employment shocks, relative to cohorts of students that entered school after the recession had officially ended. Moreover, declines in student achievement were larger in school districts serving more economically disadvantaged and minority students. We conclude by discussing potential policy responses.

Examining the Association Between DIBELS Next® and the SBAC ELA Achievement Standard

This study examined expectations for reading proficiency in the context of Common Core State Standards assessments and how DIBELS Next can inform decisions about student skills relative to these expectations. Data for cohorts of students in grades 3–5 were analyzed to determine the concurrent and predictive validity of the DIBELS Next Composite Score (DCS) relative to outcomes on the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) English Language Arts (ELA) achievement standard. We examined the strength of the association between the DIBELS Next Composite Score and the SBAC ELA achievement standard. The percent of students who met or exceeded the grade-level SBAC ELA achievement standard was determined for each DIBELS Next benchmark status category. In addition, the likelihood of meeting or exceeding the SBAC ELA achievement standard given each DIBELS Next Composite Score was determined. Results are discussed with respect to implications for practice and future research.

Rolling Back Zero Tolerance: The Effect of Discipline Policy Reform on Suspension Usage and Student Outcomes

ABSTRACTBeginning in the early 1990s, states and districts enacted zero-tolerance discipline policies that relied heavily on out-of-school suspensions. Recently, districts nationwide have revised these policies in favor of more tempered disciplinary responses. In 2012–2013, Philadelphia reformed its discipline policy to limit suspensions for nonviolent student misconduct and granted principals greater discretion in responding to more serious occurrences of student misconduct. Employing a difference-in-differences approach, we find that Philadelphia's reform resulted in a modest decline in suspensions for nonviolent infractions in the year of reform; however, total suspensions remained unchanged while serious incidents of student misconduct increased. Further, the truancy rate increased and district math and English language arts achievement declined following the policy reform. These findings should inform policymakers and practitioners on the implications of district-level reforms for suspension usage and the potential consequences for student outcomes.

See the Connections? Addressing Leadership and Supervision Challenges to Support Improved Student Achievement in a Small Rural School

This case study was developed for educational leadership courses addressing supervision and school improvement. Various data are presented for students to analyze and identify key concerns at a low-performing, rural, racially diverse, K-8 school. It challenges leadership candidates to recognize interrelated problems and solutions in a school. Students are asked to prioritize responses to issues of changing school leadership, professional development to address teacher expectations, English Language Arts achievement, instructional and disciplinary practices, student behaviors and attendance, and parent engagement practices. They will develop a specific schoolwide professional development plan within an overall School Improvement Plan to address these concerns.

The Impact of the Great Recession on Student Achievement: Evidence from Population Data

The Great Recession was the most severe economic downturn in the United States since the Great Depression. Using newly available population-level achievement data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), we estimate the impact of the Great Recession on the math and English language arts (ELA) achievement of all grade 3-8 students in the United States. Employing a difference-in-differences strategy that leverages both cross-district variation in the economic shock of the recession and within-district, cross-cohort variation in school-age years of exposure to the recession, we find that the onset of the Great Recession significantly reduced student math and ELA achievement. Moreover, the recessionary effect on student achievement was concentrated among school districts serving more economically disadvantaged and minority students, indicating that the adverse effects of the recession were not distributed equally among the population of U.S. students. We also find that the academic impact of the recession was more severe for students who were older at the time of first exposure to the recession, compared to their younger counterparts. Finally, the recession’s effects on student achievement were concentrated in districts with the largest reductions in teacher personnel, providing evidence that the effects we observe are driven, in part, by the recession’s negative effects on school resources. We discuss the implications of and potential policy responses to economic shocks that adversely affect student achievement and widen educational inequality.

More Than Content: The Persistent Cross-Subject Effects of English Language Arts Teachers’ Instruction

Evidence that teachers’ short-term instructional effects persist over time and predict substantial long-run impacts on students’ lives provides much of the impetus for a wide range of educational reforms focused on identifying and responding to differences in teachers’ value-added to student learning. However, relatively little research has examined how the particular types of knowledge or skills that teachers impart to students contribute to their longer-term success. In this article, we investigate the persistence of teachers’ value-added effects on student learning over multiple school years and across subject areas. We find that, in comparison with math teachers, English language arts (ELA) teachers’ impacts on same-subject standardized achievement scores are smaller in the year of instruction, but that teacher-induced gains to ELA achievement appear to reflect more broadly applicable skills that persist in supporting student learning in the long run across disciplines. Our results highlight important variation in the quality of teacher-induced learning for long-run success, distinct from the variation across teachers in more typically measured short-term learning effects.

The Variation in Student Achievement and Behavior Within a Portfolio Management Model

A growing number of states experimented with alternative governance structures in response to pressure to raise student achievement. Post-Katrina experimentation in New Orleans was widely regarded as a model example of new governance reforms and provided a unique opportunity to learn about the variation in student achievement and behavior within and between school sectors and school types. Our results indicated many of the sector and school type combinations that produced higher math and English Language Arts achievement also positively impacted students’ behavior, suggesting that the achievement results were not merely driven by teaching to the test. Finally, our results suggested in a low-performing district, schools may benefit from the collaborative opportunities of belonging to a local school district or network of schools.

Infusing Career Development to Strengthen Middle School English Language Arts Curricula

An approach is presented for strengthening middle school standards‐based English language arts (ELA) classroom instruction by infusing theory‐ and research‐supported career development constructs and practices. Over an 8‐week period, 90 urban 7th graders participated in an integrated ELA–career development curriculum. Career agency emerged as an important construct for students. It was related to key markers of ELA achievement (i.e., standardized test scores, grades, and positive change in 6th‐ to 7th‐grade test scores) and elaborated on in nuanced ways by students in their written narratives. Four themes related to career agency were identified in student writings: time perspective, challenges of self‐direction, career development, and social and emotional development. Advantages for students and schools related to synergy, scale, and sustainability are discussed.

The Effects of Changing Test‐Based Policies for Reclassifying English Learners

AbstractWhen students labeled English Learners (ELs) are reclassified as Fluent English Proficient, changes often occur in services and settings (e.g., changes in teachers, peers, and ancillary services). Policymakers play an important role in the reclassification process because they establish test‐based criteria that an EL must attain in order to become reclassified. If the criteria established by policymakers are incongruent with the instructional changes that result from reclassification, then services and settings may be denied to students who would otherwise benefit from them. In response to teachers’ and administrators’ concerns that some ELs who were reclassified were not succeeding without additional supports, California policymakers in 2006 to 2007 changed the reclassification criteria. In this paper, we examine the effects of changing these criteria using data on Latino/a students from the Los Angeles Unified School District, the U.S. district serving the largest number of ELs. Using “difference‐in‐regression‐discontinuities” approaches, we find consistent evidence that this policy change, which increased the difficulty of attaining the test‐based criteria for EL reclassification eligibility, had significant effects on high‐school students’ subsequent English language arts achievement (0.18 SDs) and graduation outcomes (11 percentage points). Specifically, when the criteria for reclassification were lower, students experienced negative effects of reclassification; but when the criteria were raised, students no longer experienced these negative effects. Highlighting the complex interplay between assessments, instruction, and policy, these findings demonstrate the important role policymakers play in the academic success of ELs and speak to policymaker considerations when implementing assessment and accountability systems.

The Impact of Every Classroom, Every Day on High School Student Achievement: Results From a School-Randomized Trial

Every Classroom, Every Day (ECED) is a set of instructional improvement interventions designed to increase student achievement in math and English/language arts (ELA). ECED includes three primary components: (a) systematic classroom observations by school leaders, (b) intensive professional development and support for math teachers and instructional leaders to reorganize math instruction, assessment, and grading around mastery of benchmarks, and (c) a structured literacy curriculum that supplements traditional English courses, with accompanying professional development and support for teachers surrounding its use. The present study is a two-year trial, conducted by independent researchers, which employed a school-randomized design and included 20 high schools (10 treatment; 10 control) in five districts in four states. The students were ethnically diverse and most were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. Results provided evidence that ECED improved scores on standardized tests of math achievement, but not standardized tests of ELA achievement. Findings are discussed in terms of differences between math and ELA and of implications for future large-scale school-randomized trials.