Low-performing Schools Research Articles

Improvement Efforts in Rural Schools: Experiences of Nine Schools Receiving School Improvement Grants

Low-performing schools in rural settings can face challenges common to all struggling schools, such as low student motivation and maintaining a qualified teaching staff. However, aspects of rural schools’ settings, such as the distance from urban areas and the commute between the schools and the students’ and teachers’ homes, can exacerbate the challenges that rural schools face. This article focuses on the experiences of nine rural schools that were part of a study for the U.S. Department of Education on the school improvement process in a purposive sample of 35 schools receiving federal funds through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. In particular, it examines how respondents in the rural schools perceived that the schools’ rural setting influenced the schools’ challenges and improvement actions and presents findings on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, an activity integral to school improvement efforts under SIG.

Quality of teaching mathematics and learning achievement gains: evidence from primary schools in Kenya

This paper examines the contribution of quality mathematics teaching to student achievement gains. Quality of mathematics teaching is assessed through teacher demonstration of the five strands of mathematical proficiency, the level of cognitive task demands, and teacher mathematical knowledge. Data is based on 1907 grade 6 students who sat for the same test twice over an interval of about 10 months. The students were drawn from a random selection of 72 low- and high-performing primary schools. Multi-level regression shows the effects of quality mathematics teaching at both individual and school levels, while controlling for other variables that influence achievement. Results show that students in low-performing schools gained more by 6 % when mathematics instruction involved high-level cognitive task demands, with two thirds of all the lessons observed demonstrating the strands of mathematics proficiency during instruction. The implication to education is that quality of mathematics instruction is more critical in improving learning gains among low-performing students.

School choice, housing prices, and residential sorting: Empirical evidence from inter-and intra-district choice

This paper explores the relationship between school choice and housing price as well as residential sorting using school choice reform in the Seoul metropolitan area. With the newly implemented choice program, students are able to choose high schools outside as well as within their school districts. I estimate hedonic models using boundary fixed approach and panel fixed approach together. With sales price, rental price and advertised price of apartments as dependent variables, the findings consistently reveal that school choice reform reduces housing prices in a high-performing school district relative to the housing prices in a low-performing school district by approximately 10–27%. In addition, after reform, people in a high-performing school district are more likely to outmigrate to other communities compared to one in a low-performing school district. This implies that school choice could have unintended consequences driven by change in housing price and student composition.

The Type of Culture at a High Performance Schools and Low Performance School in the State of Kedah

This research aims to identify the type of culture at a High Performance School (HPS) and Low Performance School (LPS) in the state of Kedah. The research instrument used to measure the type of organizational culture was adapted from Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (Cameron & Quinn, 2006) based on Competing Values Framework Quinn and Rohrbaugh (1983) Model. Two HPSs and two LPSs representing 129 teachers were chosen as research samples. Research findings showed that the current dominant culture in both HPS and LPS is Hierarchy (M=36.76, M=30.63 & SD = 8.23, SD=7.83) consecutively. Both types of schools practice Market culture and the average scores for both types of schools are the same whereby HPS (M=25.7, SD=8.56) and LPS (M=25.94, SD=8.32). However, HPS practices less Clan culture (M=21.15, SD=8.74) compared to LPS (M=24.18, SD=6.97). The Clan culture is more prominent in LPS compared to HPS. Both types of schools practice Adhocracy less which are (M=17.75, SD=6.94) in HPS and (M=19.81, SD=6.78) in LPS respectively. The findings showed that teachers in both types of schools would like to have the Clan culture practiced in their schools with the same average scores, M=34.89, SD=8.22. HPS prefers the Market culture (M=26.01, SD=6.32) compared to LPS Market culture (M=23.01, SD=.22). However they accepted Adhocracy less in HPS (M=20.02, SD=8.31) and LPS (M=21.58, SD=7.89). Nevertheless, Hierarchy culture in HPS (M=19.32, SD=6.45) and in LPS (M=21.05, SD=6.68) are widely practiced. From the comparisons made, it can be concluded that both types of schools widely practice the Hierarchy and Market cultures in schools. The recommendations for further studies were also suggested.

Engaging Practitioners in State School Improvement Initiatives

For most of U.S. history, local communities were the primary arbiters of school quality. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, states began assuming more and more control over school standards and outcomes. The question we seek to answer is whether and the extent to which a particular kind of local voice—the voice of education practitioners—is represented in states' current, significant initiatives to improve low-performing schools. In the article, we focus on the role that practitioner knowledge played in the development of school improvement policies across three state education agencies. We draw on interviews, surveys, and document analyses collected for a larger exploratory study of knowledge utilization. Contrary to earlier research showing weak or uneven connections between state agencies and practitioners, we found that practitioner advice networks were generally stronger than states' research advice networks. We found ample illustration of staff using this advice to make sense of research for their own contexts, and for their own approaches to school improvement. Agencies formed ties to practitioners in districts and schools, in professional membership associations, within their own agencies, or in other agencies wrestling with similar problems. Who they turned to differed depending on earlier improvement policies and institutional histories.

Transforming a school: A case study of a Catholic school principal in Indonesia

Transforming a struggling private Catholic Vocational School into a well-improved school requires a lot of hard work. Improving a school allowed for no short-cut to assure students’ high achievement. An outstanding school was the result of much hard work. The current case study shall focus on the journey of Mater Amabilis School for Training Home Economics Teachers (MA SGKP). More specifically, the paper shall focus on how a school principal transforms a low-performance school into a high-performance school, while considering the impact, and the perception of the local school community.

Carrot and Stick? Impact of a Low-Stakes School Accountability Program on Student Achievement

A key concern in the design of education policies relates to the structure of incentives in accountability systems. This paper examines a school accountability program that provides financial support to low-performing schools but has no direct punishment scheme for recipients who do not exhibit improvement. Although the program does not include high-stakes consequences, our estimates indicate that the program reduced the share of underperforming students by 18 percent. This paper's results suggest that to improve student achievement, a school accountability program does not need to set high-stakes consequences that potentially induce unwanted strategic behaviors on the part of school workers.

Predicting students' academic performance based on school and socio-demographic characteristics

Students' trajectories into university are often uniquely dependent on school qualifications though these alone are limited as predictors of academic potential. This study endorses this, examining associations between school grades, school type, school performance, socio-economic deprivation, neighbourhood participation, sex and academic achievement at a British university. Consistent with past research, large entry-level differences between students are generally narrowed by final year at university. Students from the most deprived areas performed less well than more affluent students. Asian and black students performed less well than white students. Female students performed better than their male counterparts. Contrasting with past research, though school performance was positively associated with entry grades, students from low-performing schools were more likely to achieve the highest degree classifications. Additionally, independent school students performed less well than comprehensive school students at final year despite entering with higher grades. These variations exemplify how patterns observed nationally may differ between universities.

‘I’m just a numbers person’: the complexity, nature and effects of the quantification of education

This paper draws upon the sociology of numbers, particularly work by Theodore Porter, to reveal the multifarious ways in which numbers actively constitute practices in schools. Drawing upon a case study of one low-performing school in a low-performing region in the state of Queensland, Australia, and theorising into the sociology of numbers, the research explores the complex ways in which numbers came to constitute and dominate the practices in this school site under a broader national, state and regional policy context demanding rapid improvements in various forms of standardised tests and associated practices. Specifically, the research reveals a strong and simultaneous focus by teachers upon a variety of numeric data collected at national, regional and local levels, and intricate relations between these data; multiple visualisation, triangulation and comparison approaches towards such data in virtual and physical formats; and the enumerative nominalisation of both students and their reading attainment in relation to specific, concretised levels of achievement and various types of scale scores. The research cautions against the sheer volume of such enumerative practices, which, while productive of teachers’ understandings of student capacity against standardised measures of achievement, may also lead to a more reductive view of education, dominated by concerns about achievement in standardised tests (and associated practices) alone.

Principals’ sense of efficacy: the influence of the Arkansas Leadership Academy

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between school principals’ sense of efficacy and their involvement with the Arkansas Leadership Academy's (the Academy) School Support Program (SSP).Design/methodology/approach– Data were collected from participating SSP principals to explore differences in mean principal self-efficacy given varied years of participation in SSP. The Principal Self-Efficacy Survey was used to measure the construct of principal self-efficacy of 27 principals participating in the Academy's SSP for low-performing schools.Findings– The findings suggest that principals of low-performing schools that participated in the Arkansas Leadership Academy's SSP for more years have a stronger sense of leadership efficacy than principals of low-performing schools that are just beginning the SSP.Post hocqualitative data were collected through a focus group discussion to provide insight regarding actual practices that led to increased perceived self-efficacy as a result of participating in the SSP.Research limitations/implications– This study is highly contextualized to the principals and school systems participating in the SSP, a limited population due to conditions under which schools qualify to participate in the program.Practical implications– As schools continue to be identified as needing to improve based on accountability measures, external sources of leadership development for the principals leading these schools should be considered as a possible means for increasing their senses of efficacy, and indirectly supporting the potential for improved school performance.Social implications– The attributes of highly efficacious principals – self-regulating, confident, and calm in difficult situations – may be more critical to leaders engaged in systemic change in low-performing schools where the challenges may be more complex.Originality/value– There could be a strong argument that the influence of an outside support program might be one strategy to consider when addressing the improvement of low-performing schools through raising leader efficacy.

The effect of school closings on student achievement

Many school districts across the country are shutting schools, but school closing policies remain a very controversial issue. The current study investigates the effects of school closing policies on student achievement by examining over 200 school closings in Michigan. Relative to the previous literature, the analysis uses a broader set of school closings to thoroughly investigate heterogeneity in treatment effects based on the performance level of the closed school. The results indicate that, on average, school closings in Michigan did no persistent harm to the achievement of displaced students. Moreover, students displaced from relatively low-performing schools experience achievement gains. The displacement of students and teachers creates modest negative spillover effects on the receiving schools, however. Hence, the closing of low-performing schools may generate some achievement gains for displaced students, but not without imposing spillover effects on a large number of students in receiving schools.

Transforming and turning Around Low-performing Schools: The Role of Online Learning

Transforming and turning Around Low-performing Schools: The Role of Online Learning

A bold approach to developing leaders for low-performing schools

Prompted by the need for leaders able to turn around chronically low-performing schools, states, universities, education groups, and school districts in the US have initiated a variety of principal development programs. Some programs focus on enhancing the skills of experienced administrators, while others target talented teachers and even individuals with no prior school experience. Nowhere has the quest for turnaround specialists been undertaken with a greater investment of resources or on a larger scale than in Florida, where the state Department of Education in concert with the Southern Regional Education Board has used generous funding from the federal Race to the Top initiative to launch the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program. This article presents an overview of the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program, including its Theory of Action and the Design Principles for Leader Development upon which it is based. Some background information is offered on the circumstances that have led to new approaches to principal preparation, such as the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program. Details are provided concerning the skill sets encompassed by the training and the key assignments required of all participants. Finally, issues and obstacles encountered in the process of designing and implementing the Florida Turnaround Leaders Program are also addressed.

Changes in School Enrollment Patterns After the First-Time Release of School-Level Test Scores in Milwaukee’s School Voucher Program

Since 1990, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) has enabled low and middle-income parents to attend private Milwaukee schools at state expense. In 2010, the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction released, for the first time, results of newly required state standardized tests for students using the MPCP. This article uses an original data set from Milwaukee’s two-decade-old private school voucher program to test several hypotheses on the impact of the first public release of test scores on school enrollment patterns. Specifically, the article uses quantitative methods to test (a) whether enrollment decreased at lower performing schools, (b) whether low-performing schools were more likely to close compared with higher performing schools, and (c) whether historical school-level growth patterns were significantly different after the release of test scores. The article finds that enrollment increases at higher performing schools were larger than at low-performing schools. However, the link between test scores and enrollment patterns disappears after controlling for available school-level characteristics. The analysis provides a first peek at how a transparency intervention affects enrollment patterns in an education marketplace.

Effectiveness of Supplemental Educational Services

: One of the modifications of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (known as the No Child Left Behind Act) gave parents of low-income students in low-performing schools a choice of Supplemental Educational Services (SEdS). SEdS include tutoring or other academic support services offered outside the regular school day, at no charge to students or their families, by public or private organizations that have been approved by the state. We examine the impacts of SEdS on test scores among 24,000 students in school districts where SEdS were oversubscribed in Florida, Ohio, and Connecticut. Oversubscribed school districts are required to make SEdS available to the lowest achieving students among eligible applicants, creating the opportunity to estimate impacts using a regression discontinuity design, which relies on districts’ use of a continuous measure of prior academic achievement to determine which eligible applicants will be offered services. We find no impact of SEdS on student test scores.

MIGRANT ACHIEVEMENT PENALTIES IN WESTERN EUROPE. WHAT ROLE FOR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS

This paper presents a comparative examination of educational underachievement of second-generation immigrants in Western Europe near the end of compulsory schooling, based on the 2006-2009 waves of the PISA survey. We propose a measure for migrant educational penalty revealing the relative position of migrant children within the achievement distribution of natives with the same socio-economic background. We find that migrant specific disadvantage is severe in most Western European countries. We then analyze how this measure varies across countries and find it negatively related to the effect of socio-economic background on natives’ achievement. Hence, migrant penalties and socio-economic penalties come forth as two distinct dimensions of educational inequalities. By means of recursive partitioning methods, we explore whether features of educational systems account for cross-country differences in migrant-specific penalties. We find that institutional dimensions theoretically related to educational careers of children of immigrants – entry age into (pre)school and degree of marginalization in low-performing schools –matter, in spite of the more or less comprehensive character of the secondary school systems.

Are the Reading Rich Getting Richer? Testing for the Presence of the Matthew Effect

The Matthew effect, where good readers get increasingly better over time compared to relatively lower-ability readers, is an often cited phenomenon in reading research. However, researchers have not always found empirical evidence supporting a Matthew effect. We used hierarchical growth curve modeling to test for the presence of the Matthew effect using a longitudinal sample of 1,573 children in high-poverty, low-performing schools. Our results failed to support the presence of a Matthew effect, but instead we found a compensatory growth trajectory whereby reading achievement gaps closed over time. We discuss several possible explanations for the growth patterns.

RANKING UP BY MOVING OUT: THE EFFECT OF THE TEXAS TOP 10% PLAN ON PROPERTY VALUES

Texas engaged in a large-scale policy experiment when it instituted the Top 10% Plan. This policy guarantees automatic admission to their state university of choice for all high school seniors who graduate in the top decile of their high school class. We find evidence that households reacted strategically to this policy by moving to neighborhoods with lower-performing schools, increasing property values in those areas. The effect is strongest among schools that were very low-performing before the change in policy. We also find evidence that these strategic reactions were influenced by the number of local schooling options available, as these effects of the Top 10% Plan were weaker in areas that had fewer school choices.

Improving the Implementation and Effectiveness of Out-of-School-Time Tutoring

School districts are spending millions on tutoring outside regular school day hours for economically and academically disadvantaged students in need of extra academic assistance. Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), parents of children in persistently low-performing schools were allowed to choose their child's tutoring provider, and together with school districts, they were also primarily responsible for holding providers in the private market accountable for performance. We present results from a multisite, mixed-method longitudinal study of the impact of out-of-school time (OST) tutoring on student reading and mathematics achievement that link provider attributes and policy and program administration variables to tutoring program effectiveness. We find that many students are not getting enough hours of high-quality, differentiated instruction to produce significant gains in their learning, in part because of high hourly rates charged by providers for tutoring. We identify strategies and policy levers that school districts can use to improve OST tutoring policy design and launch improved programs as waivers from NCLB are granted.

Perceptions of Teachers and Learners about Factors that Facilitate Learners' Performance in Mathematics in South Africa

Under-performance in mathematics is a challenge in South African schools. The purpose of this study is to advance views expressed by teachers and learners on factors that facilitate learners' performance in mathematics. The participants in this research were educators and learners from historically disadvantaged schools from similar socio-economic backgrounds in the Limpopo Province. Ten rural schools participated in the study, all government schools, with schools selected on the basis of their accessibility and performance. They represent both high-performing and low-performing schools in mathematics. Data were collected from learner focus group interviews and individual teacher interviews. Perceptions expressed by educators and learners from high-achieving schools and from low-achieving schools are juxtaposed and point to factors such as learners' and teachers' commitment and motivation, attitudes and self-concept, learners' career prospects, learners' perceptions of peers and teachers and teachers' perceptions of learners. These factors appear to influence disadvantaged learners' decisions to persist and achieve in mathematics despite their difficult circumstances.