Grades and Graduation: A Longitudinal Risk Perspective to Identify Student Dropouts

Studies of student risk of school dropout have shown that current predictors of “at-risk” status do not accurately identify a large percentage of students who eventually dropout. Through the analysis of the entire grade 1-12 longitudinal cohort-based grading histories of the class of 2006 for two school districts in the United States, this study extends past longitudinal conceptions of dropout to a longitudinal risk perspective, using survival analysis, life tables and discrete-time hazard modeling to appropriately account for student graduation, transfer or dropout. The risk of dropout began in grade 7, with the most hazardous years at grades 8 and 11. A novel calculation of teacher assigned grades, non-cumulative GPA, is identified as a strong predictor of student dropout

Ask and Ye Shall Receive? Automated Text Mining of Michigan Capital Facility Finance Bond Election Proposals to Identify which Topics are Associated with Bond Passage and Voter Turnout

The purpose of this study is to bring together recent innovations in the research literature around school district capital facility finance, municipal bond elections, statistical models of conditional time-varying outcomes, and data mining algorithms for automated text mining of election ballot proposals to examine the factors that influence the probability of school districts in the state of Michigan passing or failing capital facility finance bond elections from 1998-2014. Automated text mining is a data mining technique that identifies latent topics from a corpus of documents. We used an unsupervised correlated topic model to analyze the full text wording of all 1,210 school district capital facility bond election ballot proposals in Michigan over 16 years. The model identified 9 different latent topics across the bonds, including requests to purchase new buildings, renovations, and athletic facilities. Interestingly, equipment purchases appear to be a distinct category of bond proposal topics. We then examined the independent effect of the bond topics on the probability of passing the bond and voter turnout using modeling techniques and control variables from the recent literature. Bonds that focused exclusively on athletic facilities were 4.35 times less likely to pass than bonds that request new construction or omnibus ballot proposals. This work extends previous research to show that capital facility bond proposals that pass the most often include all facility needs in a single ballot proposal, are the first attempt at the polls, are at the top of the ballot, and request lower amounts of spending

What do Teacher Assigned Grades Measure? A One Page Research Summary

Historically, across the research on teacher grading and marking practices, in comparison to standardized test scores, teacher assigned grades have been maligned by researchers and psychometricians as subjective and unreliable measures of student academic achievement, often referred to as “hodgepodge” or “kitchen sink” grading practices. However, when teachers are asked what they assign grades for, they continuously report that they assign grades based on student academic knowledge and achievement, but also for student persistence, behavior, participation, and effort. In comparison to standardized test scores, for which researchers have struggled to find a link between scores and overall student schooling outcomes, grades are one of the strongest predictors of positive student outcomes, such as successfully transitioning from middle school to high school, graduating from high school, college-going and college graduation. Thus, grades are a useful assessment in education, but what exactly do they measure and is it reliable

Towards Measures of Different and Useful Aspects of Schooling: Why Schools Need Both Teacher Assigned Grades and Standardized Assessments

Summative assessments in classrooms typically result in teacher assigned grades. Grades are well known to be highly predictive of high school graduation, college enrollment and college completion, but there has been little research that explains why. In the psychometrics literature there is a persistent perception that while standardized test scores are objective measures of fundamental academic knowledge, grades are more subjective assessments that may vary school-by-school. This chapter examines the extent to which grades in high school include teacher perceptions of student effort, participation and behavior that is a different and useful measure for schools beyond what can be provided by standardized test scores, and to what extent grades vary between schools. The chapter is organized into three related sections: a review of the literature on the relationship of grades to standardized tests, an example analysis of a large high school student dataset, and, finally, a comparison of the findings from the literature and the analysis to discuss how grades are a useful yet multidimensional assessment of academic knowledge and engaged participation in the schooling process, with the latter being highly related to overall student life outcomes

Quantitative Research Methods Training in Education Leadership and Administration Preparation Programs as Disciplined Inquiry for Building School Improvement Capacity

The quantitative research methods course is a staple of graduate programs in education leadership and administration. Historically, these courses serve to train aspiring district and school leaders in fundamental statistical research topics. This article argues for programs to focus as well in these courses on helping aspiring leaders develop skills as practitioner-scholars, including deepening their practice around data analytics, providing opportunities to read and evaluate peer-reviewed research, analyzing data using current methods, and applying findings to facilitate building evidence-based improvement cycles in their schools. Additional data leadership training should be offered for the practicing administrator, educational quantitative analyst, research specialist and district data scientist. KEYWORDS: Quantitative Methods, Statistical Analysis, Educational Administration, School Administration, Leadership, College Programs, Doctoral Programs, Graduate Study, Methods Courses, Methods Research, Data Analytics, Data Science, Design-based research, Continuous Improvemen

Analyzing the longitudinal K-12 grading histories of entire cohorts of students: Grades, data driven decision making, dropping out and hierarchical cluster analysis

School personnel currently lack an effective method to pattern and visually interpret disaggregated achievement data collected on students as a means to help inform decision making. This study, through the examination of longitudinal K-12 teacher assigned grading histories for entire cohorts of students from a school district (n=188), demonstrates a novel application of hierarchical cluster analysis and pattern visualization in which all data points collected on every student in a cohort can be patterned, visualized and interpreted to aid in data driven decision making by teachers and administrators. Additionally, as a proof-of-concept study, overall schooling outcomes, such as student dropout or taking a college entrance exam, are identified from the data patterns and compared to past methods of dropout identification as one example of the usefulness of the method. Hierarchical cluster analysis correctly identified over 80% of the students who dropped out using the entire student grade history patterns from either K-12 or K-8. Accessed 8,060 times on https://pareonline.net from May 12, 2010 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

Report Card Grades and Educational Outcomes

Over the last 100 years, researchers have criticized teacher-assigned grades as subjective and unreliable measures of student academic achievement (Allen, 2005; Banker, 1927; Carter, 1952; Evans, 1976; Hargis, 1990; Kirschenbaum, Napier, & Simon, 1971; Quann, 1983; Simon & Bellanca, 1976), referring to them as "hodgepodge" (Brookhart, 1991) or "kitchen sink" practices (Cizek, 2000; Cizek, Fitzgerald, & Rachor, 1995–1996). When teachers are asked what they are assessing with their grades, they consistently say not only student academic knowledge and achievement but also student persistence, behavior, participation, and effort (Henke, Chen, Goldman, Rollefson, & Gruber, 1999; Randall & Engelhard, 2009, 2010). Mixing academic and nonacademic information in one grade results in a measure that is hard to interpret. However, as Cross and Frary (1999) note, "We must ask, if hodgepodge grading is so deplorable, why haven't students, parents and administrators or the general public called for reform? It may well be that they share a common understanding that grades often do, in fact, represent a hodgepodge of attitude, effort, conduct, growth, and achievement and that is what they expect and endorse". (p.70) Despite 100 years of research on the subjective nature of grades, mixed grading practices continue unabated alongside the rise of standardized testing responsibilities (Busick, 2000; Farr, 2000; Trumbull, 2000). The research shows that grades can be useful indicators of a host of factors besides academic progress (Bisesi, Farr, Greene, & Haydel, 2000; Folzer-Napier, 1976; Linn, 1982); as Swineford (1947) noted in a study on middle and high school grading practices, "the data clearly show that marks assigned by teachers in this school are reliable measures of something but there is apparently a lack of agreement on just what that something should be" (p.47). Indeed, over the past 100 years, a strong line of research has attempted to understand the different components represented by grades as a means to inform decision making in schools and classrooms (Bowers, 2009; Parsons, 1959). Additionally, a persistent finding across this literature is that while standardized test scores have low criterion validity for overall schooling outcomes, such as graduation from high school and admission to post-secondary institutions, grades have consistently been the strongest predictors of K–12 educational persistence, completion, and transition from high school to college (Atkinson & Geiser, 2009; Bowers, Sprott, & Taff, 2013). In this chapter, I will review the quantitative research over the past 100 years regarding what this "something" is that teacher-assigned grades represent beyond the fundamental academic skills assessed by standardized test scores. I will also examine recent research in this area over the last few decades showing that teacher-assigned grades and marks assess not just student achievement but also persistence, behavior, and substantive engagement in the schooling process. Finally, I will review the research on how grades align to educational outcomes

Site Selection in School District Research: A Measure of Effectiveness Using Hierarchical Longitudinal Growth Models of Performance

School districts in the United States are an active area of study in education research as findings have shown that some districts find success in certain contexts, while others struggle. However, while significant resources are needed to study the complex day to day practices of district and central office staff, including researcher time and effort, to date the research domain has had few actionable methods for site selection to determine the extent to which a district should be considered unusually effective, while taking into account the cautions from 40 years of school effectiveness research. The present study analyzes all school districts in the state of Ohio (n=610) from 2005-06 through 2012-13 using a two-level hierarchical linear growth model to identify districts that significantly outperform or underperform the background and demographic variables in the Ohio Performance Index Score, that are outside the influence of the district administration. The aim of the study is to provide a framework for researchers, practitioners and policy-makers looking to select comparison and contrast sites for deep district effectiveness research. This study builds upon recent work by capturing the school level variance within districts to control for overall average district performance over an eight year period analyzing the entire population of districts. Fifteen outperforming districts are named as potential sites for site selection for in-depth qualitative studies of districts in comparison to similar districts that are at the norm for the state. Keywords: School District, District Effectiveness Research (DER), Hierarchical Modeling, Longitudinal Studies, School Effectiveness Research (SER), Student Attendance, Rural Urban Differences, Suburban, Municipalities, Enrollmen

Toward Addressing the Issues of Site Selection in District Effectiveness Research: A 2-Level Hierarchical Linear Growth Model

District effectiveness research (DER) is an emerging field concerned with identifying the organizational structures, administration, and leadership practices at the school district level that help districts find success with all of their students across the schools within the system. This work has mirrored much of the early school effectiveness research (SER). However, to date across the DER literature, site selection for in-depth studies of districts deemed “effective” has been haphazard and nonsystematic. This is problematic given the long history of critiques centered on site selection in SER. The purpose of this study is to address and adapt the critiques from SER to a method of site selection for DER and test the method using a large multi-year dataset to identify districts that are significantly unusual and effective. Research Methods: A 2-level hierarchical linear growth model which nests multiple time points per district (level 1) within districts (level 2) was used to predict gains in district achievement for all school districts in the state of Ohio during a seven-year period, 2001-02 through 2007-08. Findings: Districts that statistically significantly outperformed their predicted gains in achievement, controlling for background and demographic variables over the period are identified as possible sites for in-depth qualitative studies for DER in comparison to districts performing at the norm. Implications for Research and Practice: This study proposes and tests a method for district identification in DER that addresses the critiques from SER through controlling for achievement covariates, modeling district gains over time, and examining the population of districts within an entire state

Promoting Excellence: Good to Great, NYC’s District 2, and the Case of a High Performing School District

This paper compares two celebrated studies - New York City Community School District 2 (Elmore & Burney, 1999), and Good to Great (Collins, 2001) which examined sustained success in American corporations - to the case of a single high performing school district. The question of interest concerns how school districts achieve and maintain high performance. The study focuses on five central issues from a combined theory from District 2 and Good to Great: 1) An organization-wide disciplined system that provides boundaries for participants but allows for creativity and innovation within those boundaries. 2) A central defined organizational focus that drives day-to-day decisions and is separate from an organization’s vision and mission. 3) Getting the right people into the organization through innovative hiring and training practices. 4) Funneling budgetary resources to district priorities through multi-pocket budgeting. 5) And a long-term commitment to success through continuous improvement while maintaining a focus on the current challenges facing the organization