A Study of the Relationships Between the Wallach & Kogan Tests of Creativity, the Barron-Welsh Art Scale and Ego Strength

A test of the Wallach and Kogan Tests of Creativity was conducted using the Barron Welsh Art Scale as a criterion of creativity. The Wallach and Kogan Tests measure verbal fluency and uniqueness of ideas, supposedly the basis of creative behavior. The Barron-Welsh Art Scale, on the other hand, differentiates known creative people from non-creative along a dimension of preference complexity or simplicity. The Barron Ego Strength Scale was included as a measure of a trait found to be higher in creative people than in the normal population. High intercorrelations between the three measures were hypothesized. No relationship was found, which leaves unanswered the question of the validity of either the Wallach and Kogan measures or the Barron scales. One possibility for this lack of correlation is that creative people, as differentiated by the Barron scales, are people who have committed themselves to a profession and so are different from those who do not

NEPC Review: Leveraging ESSA to Support Quality-School Growth

A report offers a how-to guide for reform advocates interested in removing communities&rsquo; democratic control over their schools. The report explains how these reformers can influence states to use the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Title I school improvement funds to support a specific set of reforms: charter schools, state-initiated turnarounds, and appointment of an individual with plenipotentiary authority over districts or schools. While the report acknowledges that the research evidence on the effectiveness of these reforms as school improvement strategies is limited, it uses a few exceptional cases to explain how advocates seeking to influence the development of state ESSA plans can advance them anyway. As this review explains, support for the effectiveness of these approaches is simply too limited to present them as promising school improvement strategies. The report omits research that evaluates the models relative to other school reform initiatives, and it fails to take into account the opportunity costs of pursuing one set of policies over another. It also relies on test-score outcomes as the sole measure of success, thus ignoring other impacts these strategies may have on students and their local communities or the local school systems where they occur. For these reasons, policymakers, educators and state education administrators should be wary of relying on this report to guide them as they develop their state improvement plans and consider potential strategies for assisting low-performing schools and districts.</p

NEPC Review: Federal School Finance Reform: Moving Toward Title I Funding Following the Child

This report argues that federal Title I funding needs to be reformed because, as currently structured, it does not address funding inequities between Title I and non-Title I schools, and because current regulations governing the program negate its effectiveness. The report proposes reforming Title I so that funding is portable, that is, it follows the child. That change would, among other things, facilitate school choice policies. To support its arguments, the report relies on two strategies: (1) it cites literature that supports its position while ignoring conflicting evidence, and (2) it uses rhetoric rather than evidence. The report ignores the complexity of Title I and of federal education funding generally. It also provides no analysis of the factors contributing to the alleged Title I problems. For these reasons and others, the report is little more than a polemic, using an eclectic assortment of disconnected facts and figures about Title I funding to promote choice and voucher policies. The report provides no evidence that its recommendations will improve academic outcomes and does not consider the adverse impact its recommended policies would have on improving educational opportunities, which is what Title I is designed to do.</p

State Accountability Rating Systems: A Review of School Report Cards as Indicators of School Quality

The Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 provided states with increased flexibility to design school accountability systems. A core element of the law is the requirement that states develop statewide systems allowing for meaningful differentiation among schools, and use this information to identify schools that should be the focus of improvement efforts. Individual states decide on the type of report card, or rating system, that they will use to report this information to the public. While states may take different approaches to measuring and reporting school performance, they have consistently chosen approaches of public reporting that collapse multiple school performance indicators into a summative rating. This policy brief discusses the difficulties that arise when states' school report cards use this summative-rating approach, and provides recommendations for resolving these challenges.</p

NEPC Review: School Accountability--Past, Present, and Future (Hoover Institution, November 2020)

A report from the Hoover Institution argues that state and federal officials should retain results-oriented accountability systems that use standardized assessments of students followed by consequences for not meeting performance goals. The report is problematic for a number of reasons. It ignores a plethora of literature on the deleterious impact of test-based accountability on outcomes that could provide a more nuanced understanding of these systems. It fails to explain why these systems should be extended to include more testing at more grades. It also provides no evidence on the efficacy of its preferred reform strategies for low-performing schools, which include combining external interventions with market-driven consequences. Rather than evidence, the report relies on unsupported theories of accountability and market-driven reform to provide a rationale for its conclusions and recommendations. For these reasons, policymakers, educators, and state education administrators should not rely on this report for guidance as they consider strategies for assisting low-performing schools and districts. </div

School Closure as a Strategy to Remedy Low Performance

This brief investigates whether closing schools and transferring students for the purpose of remedying low performance is an option educational decision makers should pursue. The authors draw on a relatively limited evidence base that consists of peer-reviewed research studies and well-researched policy reports. The authors conclude that school closures as a strategy for remedying student achievement in low-performing schools is a high-risk/low-gain strategy that fails to hold promise with respect to either student achievement or non-cognitive well-being. It causes political conflict and incurs hidden costs for both districts and local communities, especially low-income communities of color that are deferentially affected by school closings. It stands to reason that in many instances, students, parents, local communities, district and state policymakers may be better off investing in persistently low-performing schools rather than closing them

NEPC Review: School Accountability--Past, Present, and Future (Hoover Institution, November 2020)

A report from the Hoover Institution argues that state and federal officials should retain results-oriented accountability systems that use standardized assessments of students followed by consequences for not meeting performance goals. The report is problematic for a number of reasons. It ignores a plethora of literature on the deleterious impact of test-based accountability on outcomes that could provide a more nuanced understanding of these systems. It fails to explain why these systems should be extended to include more testing at more grades. It also provides no evidence on the efficacy of its preferred reform strategies for low-performing schools, which include combining external interventions with market-driven consequences. Rather than evidence, the report relies on unsupported theories of accountability and market-driven reform to provide a rationale for its conclusions and recommendations. For these reasons, policymakers, educators, and state education administrators should not rely on this report for guidance as they consider strategies for assisting low-performing schools and districts. </div

Sunderman, Gail L., The Unraveling of No Child Left Behind: How Negotiated Changes Transform the Law. Cambridge, MA: The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, 2006.

Reviews the changes allowed since 2001 to the states in NCLB\u27s rules for implementation