RAND Experts Available to Discuss Back-to-School Issues

Students may have taken the summer off, but the national discussion on education reform continues.

This week the White House announced a program to grant states waivers from key provisions of the No Child Left Behind law, but only to those states willing to embrace education reform. RAND researchers are available to discuss this and many other education issues as students prepare to return to schools, including:

• K-12 School Reform
• Schoolwide Bonuses and Teacher Performance
• Improving Summer Programs to Boost Children's Learning
• Expanding Measures of School Performance
• The Roles of Federal and State Governments in Education
• Technology, Information, and Innovation
• Education and Military Families: The Post-9/11 G-I Bill

A Big Apple for Educators: New York City's Experiment with Schoolwide Performance Bonuses
Julie Marsh, Daniel McCaffrey

A program designed to improve student performance through school-based financial incentives for teachers did not work, most likely because it did not change teacher behavior and the conditions needed to motivate staff were not achieved.

Expanding Measures of School Performance Under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Heather L. Schwartz, Laura S. Hamilton, Brian M. Stecher, Jennifer L. Steele

How the upcoming reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—known as the "No Child Left Behind Act"—encourage states to expand their measures of school performance to address goals beyond just mathematics and English Language Arts?

Making Summer Count: How Summer Program Can Boost Children's Learning
Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Catherine Augustine

The loss of knowledge and educational skills during the summer months is cumulative over the course of a student's high school career and further widens the achievement gap between low- and upper-income students.

Hawaii P-3 Initiative: Findings from the First Year of the Evaluation
Gail L. Zellman, M. Rebecca Kilburn

In 2007, Hawaii launched its P-3 initiative, which aims for every child to read at grade level by third grade. The first year of RAND's evaluation examined plans, activities, and policy in two demonstration sites and for the initiative as a whole.

Federal and State Roles and Capacity for Improving Schools
Michael A. Gottfried, Brian M. Stecher

The authors draw three key conclusions: the federal government has multiple policy alternatives from which to choose, and reauthorized legislation need not merely replicate approaches from the past; the challenge educators and policymakers face involves developing rather than replicating successful strategies to improve low-performing schools; and states vary tremendously in terms of their strategies to improve low-performing schools.

Service Members in School: Military Veterans' Experiences Using the Post-9/11 GI Bill and Pursuing Postsecondary Education
Jennifer L. Steele, Nicholas Salcedo, James Coley

This study provides data on the experiences of student veterans and campus administrators during the first year of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, and explores student experiences with transferring military training to academic credit and transitioning from military service to campus life.

Hours of Opportunity
Susan J. Bodilly, Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Jennifer L. Steele, Laura S. Hamilton, Brian M. Stecher

A three-volume study that examines different ways that school systems in major urban areas are improving after-school, summer school, and other out-of-school-time programs.

Reauthorizing No Child Left Behind
Brian M. Stecher, Georges Vernez, with Paul Steinberg

Congress and the Obama administration should use the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 to promote more consistent and rigorous academic standards across states, as well as more consistent and relevant teacher qualification requirements.

Teacher Qualifications and Student Achievement in Urban Elementary Schools
Richard Buddin, Gema Zamarro

This report examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher attributes affect elementary student achievement, using longitudinal student-level data from Los Angeles.

Improving School Leadership: The Promise of Cohesive Leadership Systems
Catherine H. Augustine

Recent research has shown that the quality of the principal is, among school-based factors, second only to the quality of the teacher in contributing to what students learn in the classroom. Creating more-cohesive policies and initiatives to improve instructional leadership in schools appears to be a promising approach to developing school principals who are engaged in improving instruction.

Toward a Culture of Consequences: Performance-Based Accountability Systems for Public Services
Brian Stecher, Frank Camm

Performance-based accountability systems link incentives to measured performance to improve services to the public. These systems can improve how employees deliver public services, but evidence demonstrating how effective these systems are at achieving their performance goals is rare. This report discusses their effectiveness in child care, education, health care, emergency preparedness, and transportation.

Ending Social Promotion Without Leaving Children Behind: The Case of New York City
Jennifer Sloan McCombs, Sheila Nataraj Kirby, Louis T. Mariano, et al

The New York City Department of Education asked RAND to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of its 5th-grade promotion policy. The findings provide a comprehensive view of the policy's implementation and its impact on student outcomes.

Select RAND Education Research Staff

Darleen Opfer, director of RAND Education and Distinguished Chair in Education Policy, concentrates on education policy, educational administration, and teachers and teaching.

Brian Stecher, associate director of RAND Education, focuses on K-12 education, No Child Left Behind, education assessment and accountability, school reform evaluation, mathematics and science teaching.

Catherine Augustine is a behavioral scientist at RAND focusing on higher education, international education, K-12 education governance and reform, mayoral control of schools, middle school, teacher preparation and professional development.

Laura Hamilton is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND focusing on elementary and middle/secondary education, K-12 assessment and accountability, and teachers and teaching.

Daniel F. McCaffrey, senior statistician and PNC Chair in Policy Analysis at the Pittsburgh office of RAND, focuses on education accountability and assessment.

Jennifer L. Steele is an associate policy researcher focusing on teacher quality, teacher compensation, school reform, school leadership and data-driven decision making in schools.

Georges Vernez, a senior social scientist at RAND Corporation, focuses on No Child Left Behind, economics of education, program implementation, program evaluation, and school restructuring and takeover.

Gema Zamarro is an associate economist focusing on education and health economics, teacher quality and student performance, determinants of school choice.