Indicators Of School Quality Research Articles

Determinants of Private Tutoring Demand in Rural India

: Private tutoring participation is increasing in several developing countries, and this expansion has attracted the interest of scholars spanning disciplines of economics, sociology and history. This paper presents a theoretical model of private tutoring demand. The model incorporates the household and school characteristics in a developing country context and demonstrates the source of gender gaps in access to private tutoring. Using a recent database from India and employing a hurdle model approach, the paper also provides estimates of the drivers of private tutoring participation and spending for pre-secondary students. Our results indicate evidence of gender gaps in private tutoring access, and that the socio-economic profile of a student is positively correlated with tutoring demand. Further, school quality indicators are negatively correlated with tutoring participation, suggesting that students at ‘better’ schools rely less on tutoring. Overall, the findings suggest that tutoring demand is influenced by a mix of demand-side (household, community drivers) and supply-side (school quality and learning environment) factors. The results bring into focus the equity implications of tutoring growth and the need to improve school quality in order to reduce the dependence on private tutoring.

Quantifying quality: The impact of measures of school quality on children's academic achievement across diverse societies.

Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy-skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school-related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4-12-year-olds, N=889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies. Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition. Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations. Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally.

Strategi Perpustakaan terhadap Peningkatan Minat Baca dan Budaya Baca Siswa di Perpustakaan SMA Negeri 2 Sukoharjo

The face of a nation can be seen from the face of its library and a nation's level of progress can be seen from the level of interest in reading. Directly or indirectly reading habit is an indicator of school quality and even nationally determines the high and low of the human development index (HDI) and the high or low of HDI which determines the quality of a nation. Based on the description above, the formulation of the problem in this research is as follows: 1) How is the library's strategy towards increasing students' reading culture in the SMA Negeri 2 Sukoharjo library?, 2) What are the obstacles that occur in the library's strategy towards increasing students' reading culture in the SMA Negeri 2 library? Sukoharjo?. The author suggests the following conclusions: 1) The library's strategy in increasing visitor interest in terms of user service aspects focuses on reliability, responsiveness, quality assurance of service, and a sense of empathy for users. 2) Library strategy in increasing visitor interest in terms of facilities and infrastructure: a) Placement of library rooms that are strategic and easily accessible by users b) Arrangement of shelves (bookcases, tables, reading chairs) strategic and orderly c) Provide collections (collections general books, references, journals) complete according to the needs of users. d) Provide complete and adequate facilities (bookcases, magazine racks, drawing cabinets, cabinets or catalog cabinets, bulletin boards, reading tables, chairs, display boards, OPAC). e) Providing an internet network that supports users to access information.

The Impact of Principal Attrition and Replacement on Indicators of School Quality

AbstractTransitions to a new principal are common, especially within urban public schools, and potentially highly disruptive to a school's culture and operations. We use longitudinal data from New York City to investigate if the effect of principal transitions differs by whether the incoming principal was hired externally or promoted from within the school. We take advantage of variation in the timing of principal transitions within an event-study approach to estimate the causal effect of principal changes. Changing principals has an immediate negative effect on student test scores that is sustained over several years regardless of whether hired internally or externally. However, externally hired principals lead to an increase in teacher turnover and a decline in perceptions of the school's learning environment, whereas transitions to an internally promoted principal have no such effects. This pattern of results raises important questions about leadership transitions and the nature of principal effects on school quality.

State-Level Indicators of Childhood Educational Quality and Incident Dementia in Older Black and White Adults

Higher educational attainment is associated with reduced dementia risk, but the role of educational quality is understudied, presenting a major evidence gap, especially as it may contribute to racial inequities. To evaluate the association between state-level educational quality during childhood and dementia risk. This cohort study analyzed longitudinal data collected from January 1, 1997, through December 31, 2019 (23-year follow-up period). The sample comprised members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNC), a large integrated health care delivery system, who completed an optional survey during 1964-1972. Eligible individuals were US born; non-Hispanic Black or non-Hispanic White; aged 65 years or older as of January 1, 1996; were still alive; and did not have a dementia diagnosis or lapse in KPNC membership greater than 90 days between January 1 and December 31, 1996. Historical state-level administrative indicators of school quality (school term length, student-teacher ratio, and attendance rates) linked to participants using birth state and birth year (with a 6-year lag) and divided into tertiles using the pooled sample. Dementia diagnoses from electronic health records between 1997 and 2019 were analyzed between March 1 and August 31, 2022. The associations of educational quality with incident dementia were estimated using Cox proportional hazards regression models. Among 21 450 KPNC members who participated in the optional survey, individuals born before availability of educational quality records (n = 87) and missing educational attainment (n = 585) were excluded. The final analytic sample was 20 778 individuals (56.5% women, 43.5% men; mean [SD] age, 74.7 [6.5] years; 18.8% Black; 81.2% White; 41.0% with less than high school education). Among Black individuals, 76.2% to 86.1% (vs 20.8%-23.3% of White individuals) attended schools in states in the lowest educational quality tertiles. Highest (vs lowest) educational quality tertiles were associated with lower dementia risk (student-teacher ratio: hazard ratio [HR], 0.88 [95% CI, 0.83-0.94]; attendance rates: HR, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.73-0.88]; term length: HR, 0.79 [95% CI, 0.73-0.86]). Effect estimates did not differ by race and were not attenuated by adjustment for educational attainment. In this cohort study, lower state-average educational quality was more common among Black individuals and associated with higher dementia risk. Differential investment in high-quality education due to structural racism may contribute to dementia disparities.

An empirical study for determining the quality indicators for the primary and secondary school of Bangladesh: A structural equation modeling approach

Primary and secondary school quality indicators need to be defined, assessed, and monitored due to their incomparable contributions to the entire educational process as well as for the overall development of a country. However, previous studies rarely emphasized indicators that have a substantial impact on school quality, especially in the context of developing countries. Bangladesh is one of them where this has yet to be adequately studied. To bridge this gap, this study aimed to explore the key “driver” constructs of primary and secondary level school quality. Adopting a quantitative cross-sectional research design, the present study was conducted between April 2021 to January 2022 at 128 primary and secondary level schools in 38 different districts of Bangladesh. Data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). Empirical findings revealed that teacher quality (β = 0.588, t = 12.242, p < 0.001), technology (β = 0.279, t = 5.402, p < 0.001), school leadership (β = 0.132, t = 2.383, p < 0.05) have positive influence on students' academic achievement which ultimately affects (β = 0.923, t = 92.713, p < 0.001) the overall quality of the school. While school environment does not significantly influence students’ academic achievement or school quality. The overall findings of this study are expected to assist the devolved authorities in implementing synchronized policies for the improvement of primary and secondary level school quality.

Can a school climate survey accurately and equitably measure school quality? Examining the multilevel structure and invariance of the Georgia School Climate Scale

School climate measures are increasingly utilized as one indicator of school quality within educational accountability systems. However, concerns have been raised about the accuracy of these indicators given that school climate surveys are often not validated using multilevel methods. Further, cross-school comparisons in climate may not be trustworthy because the school-level invariance of climate surveys has not been investigated. There is a need to examine the validity of school-level climate constructs and to determine if surveys measure climate equitably for schools that serve underrepresented populations. The aim of the current study was to examine the multilevel factor structure of a statewide school climate survey to determine whether it measured climate equitably for students of different races/ethnicities and across schools with varying racial/ethnic and socioeconomic compositions. Participants included 259,778 students from 427 middle schools throughout a southeastern U.S. state. Cross-level invariance analyses revealed that the climate constructs were measured differently across levels of analysis, and school-level climate could not be interpreted as merely the aggregate of individual-level climate. Student- and school-level factorial invariance was tested using multilevel modeling procedures. Results revealed item bias with respect to student and school characteristics, and the relationships between school climate and student and school demographics changed after accounting for identified bias. As more educational agencies consider including school climate surveys in their accountability systems, these findings suggest that multilevel validation procedures and school-level invariance analyses are necessary to ensure accurate and equitable measurement.

Information shocks and parental response in education. A case study of an open government initiative

Although a large body of literature has examined the effects of open government from a theoretical perspective, evidence on the empirical effects is still limited. This paper analyses parental response to an open government initiative consisting of the publication on a government website of school inspection reports. As an indicator of school quality, school inspection reports allow parents to make well informed school choices for their children. We employ a unique natural experiment in Belgium where schools are randomly selected for inspection, and online school inspection reports are the first and only source of objective quality data publicly available. This results in exogenous information shocks. Our findings indicate that information about school quality strongly affects school choice. After the publication, inspected schools experience higher enrolments, with effects driven by positively evaluated schools and rural schools. No differentiated response is observed by schools' socioeconomic composition. We interpret these findings as evidence that parents made extensive use of the government website on which school inspection reports were published.

Challenging the Core Assumption of Chronic Absenteeism: Are Excused and Unexcused Absences Equally Useful in Determining Academic Risk Status?

In response to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (2015), 36 U.S. states have adopted chronic absenteeism as an indicator of school quality and student success. It is also being increasingly utilized within schools to identify students at risk for future educational problems, as research consistently shows that early absences are related to later achievement issues. By leveraging readily available attendance records, schools can identify students at risk of poor outcomes early in their educational lives and provide them with supports before challenges worsen. Despite its pervasive use, major theoretical assumptions underlying this indicator have never been validated. The current study represents the first empirical test of the most basic assumption of chronic absenteeism—that all absences from school are equally useful in providing diagnostic information to determine future risk status. To test the diagnostic utility of different absence types across the early elementary grades, this study employed ROC analyses with administrative data from a large, urban school district. Findings indicate that only unexcused absences provide diagnostic accuracy in determining future achievement status in the early elementary grades, whereas excused absences provide no diagnostic accuracy and actually dampen the ability of unexcused absences to determine students’ achievement risk status when used in conjunction with them. These results have implications for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners and necessitate additional empirical studies that test the underlying assumptions of chronic absenteeism to ensure that it is being used both effectively and ethically in the early identification of at-risk students.

Spread Too Thin: The Effect of Specialization on Teaching Effectiveness

Although the majority of elementary school teachers cover all major subjects in self-contained classrooms, a growing number of teachers specialize in teaching fewer subjects to higher numbers of students. We use administrative data from Indiana to estimate the effect of teacher specialization on teacher and school effectiveness in elementary schools. We find that teacher specialization leads to lower teaching effectiveness in math and reading, and the negative effects are larger when teaching students who are more likely to experience obstacles in school. Moreover, we find no evidence that increasing the proportion of teacher specialists at the school level generates improvements in indicators of school quality. Our findings underscore the importance of fostering opportunities to develop stronger student–teacher relationships.

A moving target: Black middle-class parents school strategies in a segregated city and suburb

ABSTRACT Drawing from an ethnography, this paper evaluates the motivations of Black American and Black immigrant parents when selecting high schools for their millennial teenage children in a segregated city and suburbs of New York. Black middle class parents encounter racial exclusion in the areas of work and residence. However, more research is needed to understand how they negotiate segregated schools. Analysis of interviews with 60 Black middle class parents suggests that choosing schools reveals parents’ strategies of intergenerational mobility for their Black children. Urban parents believed that contact with a racially diverse student body was a key indicator of school quality. Black American suburban parents who chose their local school exhibited faith in the curricular diversity of public schools, while immigrant parents believed in the superiority of a private school education. This pattern exacerbated the economic vulnerability of immigrant families who pay high tuition costs in an already high tax suburbs. These findings demonstrate how racial inequity, class precarity, culture and space shape how Black families navigate the moving target of educating their children.

The Predictive Role of School Performance Indicators on Students’ College Achievement

The adoption of market theory as a guiding principle of education policy increased the need for assessments of school performance that families could use to compare academic benefits of attending one school to another. Prominent among measures used by states are the school proficiency and growth indicators resulting from high-stakes tests. Using a longitudinal dataset of college-bound public high school students in North Carolina ( N = 17,565), we test the usefulness of proficiency and growth scores of high schools in predicting students’ performance in college. We find both indicators to be useful and have the strongest associations with outcomes for students taking a mix of honors and non-honors classes. We also find that academic track placement has a stronger association with outcomes than either measure of school performance. Therefore, this study shows that reliance on school quality indicators can be inadequate because they exaggerate differences between schools and ignore differences within schools.

Neuropsychological and environmental predictors of reading performance in Brazilian children

Word-level reading is strongly associated with phonological processing. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive and environmental variables on word reading performance. Our sample consisted of 185 fourth-grade students. Linear regression analyses were used to investigate the role of the following variables as potential predictors of word reading accuracy and fluency: phonological processing (phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and phonological memory); verbal fluency; working memory; socioeconomic status and an indicator of school quality (IDEB) in Brazil. Phonological awareness and rapid automatic naming were the best predictors of reading, supporting the role of phonological processing as a key contributor to the lexical aspects of reading, beyond the early years of literacy acquisition. Environmental variables were significant predictors of irregular word reading (socioeconomic status) and fluency (IDEB), corroborating multicomponent models of reading performance. The present findings demonstrate the complex interplay of factors underlying reading performance and highlight the importance of a multidimensional approach to the study of reading.

Consumers’ valuation of academic and deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance in England

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the willingness of households to pay for academic and deprivation-compensating components of the Contextual Value Added (CVA) indicator of school quality used in England in order to locate themselves in the catchment area of state schools. Deprivation-compensating school performance, defined as the difference in the disadvantaged intake between two schools with the same academic performance.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis, based on data drawn from three independent UK data sources, used parametric and non-parametric analysis approaches. The analysis conducted separately for primary and secondary schools, because household behaviour can differ between these two levels of education.FindingsConsumers are willing to pay for houses in the catchment area of primary and secondary schools with high academic achievement, as measured by the mean score; whereas, the component of the CVA indicating deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance is found to have a positive effect only on the price of houses in the catchment area of primary schools in London; its impact on the price of houses elsewhere is mostly negative.Practical implicationsThe analysis in this study suggested that the recently adopted practice of using CVA as a measure of school quality in England can encourage government and Local Authorities to pay more attention to raising the deprivation-compensating aspects of school performance of their schools.Originality/valueThis is the first study to explore the value which households attach to deprivation-compensating outcomes, at a given level of academic performance using the CVA indicator.

Why teachers cooperate: an expectancy-value model of teacher cooperation

While cooperation among teachers is considered an important indicator of school quality, the empirical evidence on the efficacy of teacher cooperation is manifold. Some findings show that cooperation leads to improvements in teachers’ professionalization by reducing stress, while others show positive effects with regard to students’ academic performance. In order to better comprehend – and ultimately promote – cooperation among teachers, conditions of successful cooperation – such as voluntariness, shared objectives, and trust – have been identified. Thus far, however, research has not focused on the individual motivations of teaching staff in terms of why they do or do not cooperate. To explore this topic both theoretically and empirically, an expectancy-value model will be employed. The theoretically derived model is tested empirically by means of a structural equation model using data gathered in the German [place holder] project (N = 582). The results indicate that the subjective value component, in particular personal relevance, is the decisive factor in determining why teachers cooperate in teaching-related forms of cooperation. It is therefore key for all forms of cooperation that the individual teacher voluntarily wants to cooperate and shows interest in doing so. No relationship is found between the expectation of success and cooperation.

Are all Homeowners Willing to Pay for Better Schools? ─ Evidence from a Finite Mixture Model Approach

School quality indicators such as student test scores have been shown to be capitalized into the value of local homes. The presence of households with different preferences for education implies that the implicit price of improvements in school quality might vary even within a region. In this paper, we employ a finite mixture model (FMM) to capture unobserved heterogeneity in household preferences. Using school quality and residential property sales data from Pitt County, North Carolina, we find evidence of two subpopulations of houses, where the prices for one group are virtually invariant to school quality. Consistent with recent research by Davis et al. (2017) these results indicate that heterogeneous valuation of educational quality by households with different socio-economic backgrounds should be taken into consideration when devising policies targeted at the local level.

The impact of ISO quality management systems on primary and secondary schools in Spain

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to evaluate the application of quality management systems (QMS) based on international standards of quality in education (ISO 9001:2008) and ascertain the influence of this quality model on primary and secondary schools in Spain.Design/methodology/approachThe study was conducted in 26 publicly funded, private schools in Spain. The research design was a three-phase, mixed-methods evaluation. In all, 809 teachers answered the main survey questionnaire in Phase 3, which was validated through expert reviews and exploratory factor analysis against two theoretically derived dimensions of quality. The total scores of the two dimensions demonstrated Cronbach’s alpha reliability estimate > 0.95. A discriminant function analysis was applied next to compare three groups of schools based on teachers’ QMS ratings, using students’ achievement and other school quality indicators as predictors.FindingsThe QMS model was perceived to have contributed to improvements in documentation and management through evaluation, continuous improvement processes, the schools’ external image, management of resources and user satisfaction levels. Some of the improvements lasted over time. The schools rated as “high” by teachers on QMS implementation levels had better educational outcomes, as well as user perception and satisfaction levels, as compared to schools rated as “low”. Drawbacks of the QMS model were perceived as high bureaucratic workloads and a top–down management culture.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that ISO standards of QMS can be adopted in primary and secondary education institutions successfully, and that they are suitable for improving schools and educational systems overall.Originality/valueThe study’s originality lies in the demonstrated outcomes of the QMS approach, originally created for industrial environments, in a large Spanish primary and secondary education institution using a three-phase, mixed-methods design.

Strategi Peningkatan Hasil Ujian Nasional di SMP Al Irsyad Al Islamiyyah Purwokerto Tahun Pelajaran 2016/2017

National Examination is one of the indicators of school quality. Therefore, efforts to improve the national exam results are important for schools as part of quality assurance. This study aims to find out the strategy of SMP Al Irsyad Al Islamyyah Purwokerto in improving the results of National Examination. This is a qualitative study with a case study approach. Source of the data are informants and document archives. Data were obtained through interview and documentation and their validity was achieved through triangulation of source. Steps of data analysis were data reduction, data presentation and verification. The results of this study indicate that: (1) The strategy in improving the results of national examination conducted by SMP Al Irsyad has been good enough, covering academic fields (academic matriculation, afternoon tutoring, try out, intensive study guidance, peer tutor and night study) and non-academic field (commitment day, inviting inspirative figures, fun class managers, out bond and prayer together before the National Examination); (2) Optimal implementation of strategies that have been arranged; (3) The obstacles related to improving the national exam results are: students' boredom, students' different characters, and weather conditions.

An empirical test of Oklahoma’s A-F grades

Oklahoma is one of 16 states electing to use an A-F letter grade as an indicator of school quality. On the surface, letter grades are an attractive policy instrument for school improvement; they are seemingly clear, simple, and easy to interpret. Evidence, however, on the use of letter grades as an instrument to rank and improve schools is scant at best. We address the gap in the literature by using student test scores to evaluate the use of Oklahoma’s A-F grades as a school quality indicator. Achievement differences between letter grades were small and in most cases not statistically significant when student and school characteristics were held constant. School grades did not reveal large achievement gaps in the highest ranked schools. Additionally, free/reduced lunch and minority students in D and F schools outperformed peers in A and B schools.

The Dissonance between Schooling and Learning: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

Using a basic mathematics competence test based on the primary school curricular standard, we examine the extent to which years spent in school actually increases numeracy achievement in rural Bangladesh. Our sample includes 10–18-year-old children currently enrolled in school as well as those out of school. About half of the children failed to pass the written competence test, a finding that also holds for those having completed primary school. Even after holding constant a wide range of factors such as household income, parental characteristics, current enrollment status, child ability, and aggregate institutional indicators of school quality, there remains a statistically significant correlation between schooling attained and basic mathematics competence above and beyond primary school completion—but the estimated schooling-learning profile is relatively flat. The findings have wide implications for reformulating policies that tend to focus on quantitative expansion of education in developing countries...