Low-performing School District Research Articles

Racial diversity: A secret of high-performing school districts across the United States

Objectives In this study, we aim to provide insights into the relations between racial composition and students’ academic performance in U.S. public school districts. Methods Extracting data from the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), which includes longitudinal data of state testing scores over a ten-year span, we conducted descriptive and independent-samples t-tests to measure the differences in racial diversity between high- and low-performing school districts. Results The quantitative data analysis of 300 U.S. school districts showed that at any given socioeconomic level: high, low, or national-average, there is a significant difference in racial diversity between high- and low-performing school districts. Conclusion High-performing districts at all three socioeconomic levels are more racially diverse compared to low-performing districts. This reveals that contrary to the stereotype that more students of color mean lower academic performance, racial diversity of a student body translates to higher academic performance. Keywords quality education, racial segregation, school choice, academic performance, socioeconomic status, sustainable development goals.

A question of reframing: How LSP improves math fluency, economics, and financial literacy at the secondary level

The purpose of this applied expository paper is to demonstrate how world language teachers at the secondary level can incorporate Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP) principles into their courses when it is not possible to offer standalone LSP courses. Multiple examples are provided that illustrate how many traditional classroom lessons, communicative activities, and projects can be reframed to incorporate interdisciplinary connections to provide students with a skill set that focuses on global awareness and communication, as well as economic and financial literacy. One rural and persistently low-performing school district created initiatives to integrate reading apprenticeship strategies, writing across the curriculum, and number fluency into weekly lessons in all classrooms at all grade levels in order to increase student academic achievement. Beginning world language courses at the secondary level, reframed through an LSP lens, can provide valuable support to other content areas. Further, these courses may potentially increase student engagement within the classroom and cause higher achievement on state assessments across multiple disciplines.

Miles from Home: Transforming the Poorest, Most Expansive School Districts in New Mexico

What specific actions can a school district take to spur dramatic improvement? This case details a partnership between the school board of one of the poorest-performing educational districts in New Mexico and the University of Virginia's Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education (Darden/Curry PLE). The Darden/Curry PLE turnaround approach helps transform low-performing schools into high-performing schools and allows administrators to identify and contextualize their most pressing issues and focus on cultivating sustainable change. In the Gallup-McKinley school district, the turnaround process faced challenges and resistance, even from stakeholders within the district. But administrators were motivated to identify the root cause of the district's struggles through data-driven instruction and committed to making the turnaround initiative work. Four years after the start of the Darden/Curry PLE intervention, Gallup-McKinley was number one among the largest New Mexico districts in English language arts two-year proficiency growth and number three in math two-year proficiency growth. What could school administrators around the country learn about the leadership and instruction changes necessary to overcome the challenges and barriers confronting low-performing school districts? Excerpt UVA-BC-0266 Rev. Feb. 28, 2019 Miles from Home: Transforming the Poorest, Most Expansive School Districts in New Mexico Mike Hyatt's mentor was out. It was 2016, and Gallup-McKinley County Schools (Gallup-McKinley) district superintendent Frank Chiapetti, who'd made Hyatt his assistant superintendent just two years earlier, had clashed with several members of the local school board. The superintendent who'd come in to shake everything up in the struggling New Mexico school district was being let go. . . .

Equal Access? Analyzing Charter Location Relative to Demographics in Ohio

ABSTRACTWe analyze the geographical distribution of, and access to, charter schools in the state of Ohio. Using poverty and race data from the U.S. Census, as well as publicly available student achievement scores, we analyze the locational preferences of charter schools. We use Geographic Information System (GIS) to visual display charter school locations relative to these community variables. Results suggest that policies limiting charters to locate in low performing school districts (labeled “challenged districts”) lead charters to cluster in urban cities; thus students living in poverty in large portions of the state lack easy access to school choice options. Further, we find that charters tend to avoid areas of the highest concentrations of poverty and Hispanic (though not Black) 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.

Examining Teachers’ Beliefs about African American Male Students in a Low-Performing High School in an African American School District

Background/ContextThe study examines teachers’ and administrators’ perspectives on the persistent academic failure of African American male high school students. The study took place between 2003 and 2005 in a low-performing high school in Summerfield County, a Black suburban county in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States with a poverty rate below 8%, according to the 2000 United States census. At the time of the study, there were a number of initiatives across the state designed to address what was being referred to as “the minority achievement gap.” The researchers—most of whom were African American faculty and graduate students at the University of Maryland—were interested in understanding what teachers and other school personnel such as counselors and administrators would have to say about why African American students, particularly males, tended to persistently underperform on standardized measures of achievement, had higher rates of suspension and expulsion from school, were overrepresented in special education, and had significantly higher dropout rates than all other subgroups in this mostly Black and middle-class suburban school district.Purpose and Research QuestionsIn the present article, we build on the work of scholars of critical race studies in education and scholars concerned about teachers’ impact on student achievement to explore teachers’ beliefs about African American students, and we discuss the possible implications for African American males in troubled schools. We used critical race ethnographic methods to collect data on the following research questions: (1) How does a low-performing high school in a low-performing school district cope with the persistent problem of African American male underachievement? (2) In particular, how do teachers and administrators understand the problem? (3) How might this impact their ability to work successfully with African American male students?SettingThe study took place in Summerfield County, a majority-Black suburban county in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. The county is known as the wealthiest Black county in the nation. With over 100,000 students, its school district is one of the largest and lowest performing in the state. At the time of the study, the district was ranked 23rd out of 24 districts in the state in measures of standardized achievement. The research took place in a midsized all-Black high school in a section of the county that is contiguous with one of the poorer sections of a nearby city. The high school, with a 99% Black population of slightly fewer than 1,000 students, was one of the lowest performing high schools in the district.ParticipantsThe main participants in the study consisted of two groups: (1) a sample of 50 teachers, administrators, and counselors, and (2) a subsample of 6 teachers in art, music, technology, social studies, and math who participated in ongoing individual interviews, a focus group, and classroom observations.Research DesignThis study involved a series of focus groups, formal and informal interviews with teachers, counselors, and administrators, and 18 months of ethnographic observations in the school.ConclusionsResearchers found that school personnel overwhelmingly blamed students, their families, and their communities for the minority achievement gap. In short, the school was pervaded by a culture of defeat and hopelessness. Ongoing conversations with a smaller group of teachers committed to the success of African American male students revealed that the school was not a safe space for caring teachers who wanted to make a difference in the lives of their students.

An Examination of the Impact of Selected Teacher Variables on Student Achievement

An Examination of the Impact of Selected Teacher Variables on Student Achievement

Effects of Student Achievement on Satisfaction of Newly Appointed Teachers: A Cognitive Dissonance Perspective

Research addressing attraction and selection of employees within the public school setting seems to indicate that the higher a school's student achievement the more likely a potential job candidate is to assess a position at that school favorably. However, the validity of this finding has failed to be assessed with “real teachers” accepting actual job offers. To fill this void, we compared the satisfaction with working conditions of newly appointed teachers in high- and low-performing elementary schools at the beginning and end of their work year. We cast these findings on a cognitive dissonance framework and our results are consistent with cognitive dissonance theory. That is, once teacher candidates choose to accept a position in a low-performing school district they experience a higher level of satisfaction with their working conditions than those accepting a new position in a high-performing school district. This initial difference between groups disappeared by the end of the work year.

Accountability, school reform, and equity: The troubling case of Sylvan school district

Most educational accountability systems draw upon relatively simplified indicators of student learning. Despite sufficient criticism and evidence of their misuse, test scores continue to be emphasized—even though they have a deadening effect on the very school district these accountability systems intend to primarily influence. This paper focuses on one of these low-performing school districts. The case study of Sylvan One reveals that the influence of state policy is especially circumscribed in a district like Sylvan's that is beset by such prevailing conditions as the politics of race, the culture of poverty, vacuums in communication and leadership, and the uncritical mass of human resources. Each of these conditions limits change and reform dramatically. Account-ability and reform must focus on a rigorous curriculum and well-understood standards—but only in the context of this community, replete with its problems ofrelationships, resources, andracism. These are the “three Rs” that are tantamount to creating and sustaining reform. And this approach is more about political development than anything else. Recommendations for moving beyond the traditional policymaking tools of mandates and inducements are suggested, recognizing that policy may at best promote equality, but not necessarily excellence and equity.