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"Kohn's analytical style ... is brought to bear on big-picture policy issues as well as small-scale classroom interactions. He looks carefully at research about homework, play, the supposed benefits of practice, parent involvement in education, and summer learning loss - discovering in each case what we've been led to believe doesn't always match what the studies actually say. Kohn actually challenges us to reconsider the goals that underlie our methods, to explore the often troubling values that inform talk about everything from the disproportionate enthusiasm for STEM subjects to claims made for "effective" teaching strategies."--Back cover.
First published in 1951. This book examines the challenges and difficulties that schools may face when it comes to the teaching of children with special needs. The author explores the argument that any challenges can be eliminated by the expenditure of more money, or whether these challenges cannot be solved merely by increased expenditure and a well-directed administrative effort to provide teachers, classrooms and materials.
My dissertation examines the determinants of school quality and its impact on student achievement. The first essay studies the impact of class size on student achievement. The impact of class size on student achievement remains an open question despite hundreds of empirical studies and the perception amongst parents, teachers, and policymakers that larger classes are a significant detriment to student development. This essay attempts to shed new light on this ambiguity by explicitly recognizing the distributed nature of educational outcomes. This paper utilizes recently developed nonparametric tests for stochastic dominance to uniformly rank entire distributions of test scores. Moreover, by using bootstrap techniques, we are able to report the results of the dominance tests to a degree of statistical certainty. This type of analysis is very useful for policy decisions as it lends itself to broad-based, consensus ranking of outcomes. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, we estimate the effects of eighth and tenth grade class size on the unconditional and conditional distributions of contemporaneous test scores, subsequent test scores, and test score gains. The results are quite surprising. First, after controlling for a host of determinants of student achievement, we find compelling evidence suggesting that students benefit from relatively large classes. Second, we document several instances where the relationship between student achievement and class size is non-monotonic. Finally, these conclusions are unaltered when we allow for heterogeneous effects of class size by student race or subject matter. In my second essay, I address questions regarding school competition using a spatial autoregressive model. Education reforms involving expanded school choice are receiving increased attention. Many view the heightened competition that would presumably result from such reforms as a panacea for the ills currently plaguing the US public education system. However, the present system is not devoid of competition even absent such reforms; public schools compete for students through the Tiebout (1956) process. Thus, this essay seeks to answer two questions: (i) Does competition alter the behavior of public school districts? and (ii) Do public school districts compete with neighboring public school districts? To answer such questions, we utilize panel data from Illinois over the period 1990-2000 and estimate a multi-dimensional mixed regressive, spatial autoregressive model via instrumental variables, thereby eliminating the possibility of confounding strategic competition with spatial error correlation. The data come from two sources: the Common Core of Data and the Census of Population and Housing. We find robust evidence that public school districts incorporate the educational input decisions of other public school districts in the same county into their decision calculus, thereby acting strategically when setting own input levels. Thus, reforms leading to expansion of school choice would not introduce competition into the US school system, but rather would at best accentuate the level of competition. The third essay examines the impact of peer group effects on student achievement. The current empirical evidence on the magnitude of these effects is, however, inconclusive. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, I assess the impact of peer group influences on the test scores of tenth grade students using school-by-subject specific fixed effects models, as well as a Generalized Methods of Moments approach (via instrumental variables) to account for potential endogeneity of the peer group formation. The results are striking. In particular, I fail to uncover widespread evidence in favor of positive peer group effects. The OLS estimations yield strong and positive effects of peer group achievement on test score gains. When I account for potential endogeneity of peer group formation via instrumental variables and fixed effects these effects disappear. In addition, the dispersion of peer group achievement has no systematic influence on achievement growth. Moreover, I find no evidence supporting the hypothesis that peer effects have differential impacts in schools in which tracking is present. The only exception to the above findings is in models that control for both peer effects and tracking, and allow the effect of each to differ according to student ability. In this case, while the impact of tracking is not found to be substantially different in tracked versus nontracked schools, the results are consistent with a nonuniform effect of tracking on achievement across students of different abilities. Finally, these fundamental conclusions are not substantially altered when I allow for changes in the definitions of peer group effect and tracking.
This dissertation consists of three studies which collectively seek to examine: what the barriers are to receiving a high-quality education in a merit-based school choice setting; how policy reforms can address these barriers; and what benefits students gain from attending a high-quality school. Altogether, the papers focus on understanding the role of socio-economic background in explaining differences in education-related decisions and student outcomes. Chapter 2 examines whether school choice programs increase opportunities for educational mobility or reinforce initial disparities in schooling. I address this question in the context of the public education system in Ghana, which uses standardized tests and a nation-wide application process to allocate 150,000 elementary school students to 650 secondary schools. As has been found in other settings, students from lower-performing elementary schools in Ghana apply to less selective secondary schools than students with the same test scores from higher-performing elementary schools. I consider four potential explanations for this behavior: differences in decision-making quality, imperfect information about admission chances, costs and accessibility of schooling, and preferences for school quality. I use detailed data from three cohorts of applicants to evaluate the relative importance of these explanations. My analysis suggests that differences in application behavior are largely due to poor decision-making and incorrect beliefs about admission chances, rather than differences in preferences or the costs and accessibility of schools. Building on the theoretical framework outlined in the preceding analysis, Chapter 3 evaluates the impact of institutional reforms in school choice settings. Focusing again on the case of Ghana, I estimate the effects of a series of reforms in the application process that expanded the number of choices students could list and encouraged students to select a diversified portfolio of schools. I use a difference-in-differences approach to analyze the effect of each reform and find that both reforms decreased the difference in selectivity of schools chosen by students from high-performing and low-performing elementary schools, which suggests that application and admission rules play a significant role in explaining differences in application behavior. Moreover, these results are consistent with a setting in which imperfect information has a strong impact on students' choices and the effects can both be explained as a consequence of uncertainty in the Ghanaian choice system. Chapter 4 uses a unique dataset on Ghana's education system to examine the effect of school quality on student outcomes. My analysis draws on exogenous variation in student assignment due to the fact that admission of elementary school students into secondary school in 2005 was based on students' ranking of their three most preferred choices and their performance on a standardized test. I compare students on different sides of the cutoff for admission to their lowest-ranked choice and find that students who are not admitted to their chosen school are assigned to schools of lower-quality and are less likely to complete secondary school. Additionally, these students are more likely to transfer out of their initially-assigned schools. However, those who do complete secondary school do not perform any worse on the exit exam several years later. Thus, students' behavioral responses to their admission outcomes appear to moderate the effects of school quality on educational attainment in this context.
An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.