The “Good” Schools: Academic Performance Data, School Choice, and Segregation

We examine the effects of disseminating school-level academic performance data—achievement status, achievement growth, or both—on parents’ school choices and their implications for racial, ethnic, and economic segregation. Many researchers consider growth to be a superior (if still imperfect) measure of school effectiveness relative to status. Moreover, compared to status, growth has weaker relationships with schools’ demographic compositions. We conduct an online survey experiment featuring a nationally representative sample of parents and caretakers of children ages 0–12. Participants choose between three randomly sampled elementary schools drawn from the same school district. The provision of status information guides participants toward schools with higher achievement status and fewer Black, Hispanic, and economically disadvantaged students. The provision of growth information and the provision of both types of academic performance data guide participants toward higher growth schools. However, only growth information—alone, and not in concert with status information—tends to elicit choices with desegregating consequences

Between Public and Private : Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform

https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/all_books/1381/thumbnail.jp

Collective Impact and the New Generation of Cross-Sector Collaborations for Education: A Nationwide Scan

This report describes developments in the new generation of cross-sector collaborations for education and presents findings from a scan of such initiatives across the United States. We describe the broad ecology of cross-sector collaborations for educational improvement and examine various rationales for the current interest in collaboration. We explore the prominent new model of collaboration known as "collective impact," review the history of cross-sector collaborations for education, and revisit some reasons for cautious optimism about the changing context for collaboration. Then, using information from public websites, we describe characteristics of the national array of current collaborations. We report an additional analysis, based on multiple data sources, of factors that seem to position some cities to develop cross-sector collaborations while others are less likely to do so. To conclude, we revisit some trends and considerations that are worth watching, acknowledging that new efforts are often layered on the foundation of previous collaborations but also take place in an altered context with new possibilities and challenges

Policy dynamics and the evolution of state charter school laws

Public policy, Punctuated equilibrium, Pluralism, Charter schools, Education,

The Impact of Gentrification on Voter Turnout

The goal of this article is to test between two competing theories (mobilization vs. destabilization) about the impact of gentrification on political participation. Copyright (c) 2006 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.