Browsing by Author "Ladd, Helen F"
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Item Open Access Access and Absence: A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Effect of North Carolina School Health Centers on Student Absenteeism(2014-04-25) Smith, RyanThe first school-based health center (SBHC) was introduced in North Carolina in Greene County in 1983. Over the last thirty years, School Health Centers (SHCs), which include school-based, school-linked, mobile units and telemedicine units, have been introduced in over 80, primarily rural, public schools in 28 counties. These centers provide a wide range of health care services, with many providing comprehensive primary and mental health care services, to populations with historically limited access to health care. Some of these centers have closed in recent years due to budget cuts and competing priorities for limited funding. Given the scant amount of research on the effectiveness of SHCs in North Carolina, the difficulty in generalizing findings from other studies to this state, and the increased pressure on wraparound services to demonstrate their ability to improve student academic performance, this paper serves as a first step toward providing policy makers with a greater understanding of the effect SHCs in North Carolina have on reducing rates of student absenteeism. It is widely accepted that student absenteeism inhibits student learning and that children in poor health are more likely to miss school. Research shows that as the number of school days a student misses increases, academic achievement tends to decline. Studies on the relationship between SHCs and student absenteeism have been both limited in number and varied in their findings. Non-random assignment of SHCs in schools with high concentrations of students from low-income households, who are at increased risk for poor academic outcomes, makes assessing the effect of school health services on academic indicators difficult to accurately measure due to selection bias. To address evaluation challenges created by selection bias, as well as by a lack of reliable attendance data pre-2006 (long after many SHCs were introduced in North Carolina), I take advantage of student transitions between schools to examine the effect of entering or leaving a school with more robust health services. I follow four cohorts of students from 2006 to 2012 as they transition between schools in counties where SHCs are located. Using the timing of student entry and exit from schools combined with changes in health services available from year to year as a result of these school transitions, I estimate how enrollment in schools with primary care health services affects student absenteeism. Results from Poisson regression models indicate that SHCs are associated with moderate reductions in rates of student absenteeism. Students who transition from a school without a SHC to a school with a SHC miss, on average, 8.2 percent fewer days of school in the year of transition. By contrast, students who move to schools with less robust health services miss 13.2 percent more days of school in the year of transition. Students eligible for free and reduced price lunch and students with a history of chronic absenteeism benefit even more than the general student population from enrollment in schools with SHCs, especially if the model of care is a school-based health center. When these subgroups traditionally considered at higher risk for poor academic outcomes transition from schools without SHBCs to schools with SBHCs they miss, on average, 13.4 and 18.1 percent fewer days, respectively. These findings have important implications for public health and education policies aimed at improving the health and academic outcomes of North Carolina’s most at-risk children.Item Open Access An Outcomes-Based Program Evaluation of Student U(2011-05-01) McFarland, JoelExecutive Summary Program Overview Student U is a small nonprofit organization that offers summer and after-school educational programs to at-risk middle and high school students in Durham, North Carolina. Founded in 2007, the organization has grown rapidly, admitting a new cohort of fifty rising sixth-graders each summer. Student U continues to work with each cohort until high school graduation. The organization is currently piloting a high school program for the oldest cohort of participants, who entered ninth grade in the 2010-2011 school year. Evaluation Goals and Methods This project provides both a retrospective analysis of past program outcomes and a set of forward-looking recommendations for future evaluation and monitoring activities. It focuses on two separate questions: • Has Student U’s middle school programming achieved intended student outcomes? • What factors identify high school students who are not on track to achieve important program outcomes, such as high school graduation and college enrollment? Middle School Program Evaluation Data Limitations My analysis uses data on participants’ demographic characteristics and academic achievement levels, measured using North Carolina End of Grade (EOG) test scores. I was able to access longitudinal EOG data for only the first two cohorts of participants. Student records provided by Student U were incomplete, and as a result I was able to obtain EOG data for only 75.5% of participants in these cohorts. Participant Attrition Rates The data show a 17% dropout rate for the first two cohorts of participants. This dropout rate includes all students, not just the 75% of students for whom I was able to access EOG data. Although I find no racial or ethnic disparities between program dropouts and continuing participants, boys were twice as likely to drop out as girls. Interviews with program staff indicate that the students who dropped out likely needed academic support, but were unwilling or unable to commit to Student U’s intensive programming. This high attrition rate may undermine the program’s mission of keeping promising educationally-disadvantaged students engaged with school. Student Achievement To compare participants’ academic outcomes with those of demographically similar non-participating students, I form a non-randomized control group using nearest neighbor matching. A comparison of the treatment and quasi-experimental control group generates no significant effect of program participation on EOG scores. I acknowledge, however, that the small sample size and poor data quality could undermine the validity of my estimates. Moreover, even if the program has no effect on EOG scores, this finding does not indicate that the program fails to achieve any of its goals. Student U also focuses on students’ social development and attitudes toward school, which are not considered in this analysis. High School Program Benchmarks Policy Review The North Carolina Standard Course of Study defines four high school curricula that students may complete in order to fulfill graduation requirements. Student U participants should complete the college/university prep curriculum in order to be well prepared for postsecondary success. In addition, the University of North Carolina system sets minimum GPA, ACT, and SAT scores for admission to a campus of the university system. The UNC minimum standards, however, are set at extremely low levels. In order to be prepared for college-level academics, students should be encouraged to achieve at levels above the minimal standards. Literature Review My review of academic research summarizes a variety of indicators that predict high school graduation and college enrollment. These factors fall into three general categories: academic performance, educational engagement, and student background characteristics. While SU staff could collect data on many of these indicators, I recommend focusing on those factors most closely tied to academic requirements outlined in the policy review section, and on attitudinal factors that can be measured through Student U’s annual student survey. Recommendations to Facilitate Future Evaluations Set modest, but sustainable data collection goals. While there are many available indicators of student success, collecting data on all of them will be unsustainable. Student U should establish a few, high-quality measures of student success. These factors include course enrollment, course performance, SAT, and ACT test scores, and surveys measuring student attitudes and confidence about their future educational experiences. Administer consistent surveys and maintain results. Without survey data, SU will be unable to assess its impact on important non-academic goals. Maintaining and analyzing survey responses is a time-consuming task, but Student U’s decision to begin using a standardized, externally generated survey is a promising first step. To facilitate evaluation of individual student performance, SU must maintain survey records in a manner that allows individual student responses to be tracked across years. Monitor attrition rates and explore the causes of student attrition. As outlined in Chapter 2, participant attrition poses a significant challenge for Student U. Depending on the reasons students drop out, this attrition may be a sign that the program is not keeping students engaged with school. Student U should monitor attrition rates, uncover the reasons why students drop out, and take steps to reduce attrition.Item Open Access Charter School Location Choices and Community Characteristics: Evidence from North Carolina(2013-04-19) Monger, DrewItem Open Access Communities In Schools (CIS) Graduation Coach Program: A Logistic Analysis of Program Eligibility Criteria(2013-04-22) Pantoja, MauThe purpose of this project was to investigate the extent to which Communities In Schools (CIS) of Durham is using the appropriate eligibility criteria for admission into its graduation coach program. The study provides information that could help the organization better target at-risk students for coaching services by answering the following research question: Is CIS of Durham’s eligibility methodology appropriate for selecting students into its graduation coach program?
II. Description of CIS of Durham
Created in 1992, CIS of Durham is a member of Communities In Schools, one of the largest dropout prevention networks in the United States. The organization uses the graduation coach program to help at-risk students stay in school and graduate. The program includes college tours, mentoring, skills development, and internships (level II services) for a select number of students. The program also provides school-wide services, including basic needs resources and health screenings (level I services). All services are voluntary.
CIS of Durham targets students for level II services that it has identified as being at risk of dropping out. The organization selects students using attendance, academics, and misbehavior measures. The organization divides these predictors into risk levels (see Table 1). Any student who falls in the Low, Medium, or High risk levels in two out of the three predictors qualifies for the program.
III. Study Design
I used data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC) for descriptive and logistic analyses of the graduation coach program’s eligibility criteria. I identified 10th grade students from the Durham Public Schools in the 2009-2010 academic year and determined if they had dropped out by the end of their senior year. Descriptive analysis: I divided the student sample into three groups: all 10th graders, students eligible for the program, and dropouts. For each group, I provided summary statistics on the percent of students in every risk level for the three CIS of Durham indicators. I also described each group’s ethnic and gender composition. Logistic analysis: I used logistic regression (logit) to determine if the CIS of Durham indicators are good predictors of dropping out. The logit estimates the probability that an event will occur. I controlled for gender, ethnicity, and whether or not a student received free/reduced price lunch.
I divided each CIS of Durham indicator into categories that correspond to the risk levels the organization uses to admit students into the program. This division allowed me to determine if the odds of dropping out are greater at higher risk levels.
IV. Findings & Recommendations
A. Descriptive statistics
I identified 1,845 10th graders from five traditional Durham schools in 2009-2010. A total of 110 students dropped out at least once by the end of their senior year. Under the CIS of Durham eligibility criteria, 276 students (15%) qualified for the program. Ethnicity: Eligible students and dropouts tended to be minorities. While 56% of 10th graders were black, 73.2% of eligible students belonged to this group. 62% of dropouts were black and 21% were Hispanic students. White students comprised only 7% of dropouts even though they made up 26% of the sample.
Gender: About 11% more males qualified for the program than females. Also, 6% more males dropped out than females.
Absences: 77% of all 10th graders had fewer than 15 absences (Outside risk) in 2010-2011. 73.2% of eligible students missed fewer than 18 days (Outside-Low risk), while 46% of dropouts were absent more than 25 days (Not Included risk).
Suspensions: 75.5% of 10th graders had no suspensions (Outside risk). By comparison, nearly 76.5% of eligible students had 1-4 suspensions (Low-High risk). For dropouts, as the risk levels increased, the percent of students in each level decreased, except for the Not Included level. The data showed a substantial jump in the number of dropouts with 5 or more suspensions.
GPA: 62% of 10th graders had a C average grade or better (Outside risk). 76% of eligible students had a GPA between 1.01 and 2.0 (Low-Medium risk). 44.5% of dropouts had a GPA below 1.0, indicating that these students tend to perform worse academically than their peers.
B. Logit results
The logistic analysis indicated that CIS of Durham could enhance the program’s admission criteria. I recommend eliminating the two-out-of-three rule by dropping suspensions since the data demonstrated that absences and suspensions had a redundant effect on dropping out. Gender, ethnicity, and free/reduced price lunch showed no significant effect.
The data showed that the GPA ranges of the risk levels are correctly denominated for this predictor. The odds of dropping out increase as GPA decreases. I propose no changes to this indicator. On the other hand, the ranges of the risk levels for absences could be improved. In particular, the Medium and High risk categories did not have a significant effect on the odds of dropping out compared to some of the other levels. I recommend changing the ranges as shown in Table 2. The suggested new ranges are better denominated since higher absences risk levels are associated with statistically significant higher odds of dropping out.
V. Further Considerations
The results of this project cannot be generalized beyond the design of the study and its assumptions. CIS of Durham should treat the study’s recommendations as a general rule of thumb. Graduation coaches should make every effort to assess the individual needs of students.
Item Open Access Differential Grading in North Carolina Public High Schools(2012-04-20) Rauschenberg, SamCollege admissions decisions often rest heavily on a student’s high school grades, but teachers have significant flexibility in how they assign grades. Differential grading occurs when students are held to different grading standards in courses with the same curriculum and content. It may be due to various factors, including differences in teacher grading standards, district grading policies, student characteristics, teacher quality, and curriculum adherence. If it occurs systematically between districts, schools, or student characteristics, then certain students may receive higher or lower grades relative to other students, despite having the same content mastery or ability. Statewide end-of-course (EOC) tests provide one way to measure differential grading patterns. Using three years of statewide data on five subjects in North Carolina public high schools, I find that districts with similar EOC test score averages have average course grades that vary by as much as a letter grade, or 0.6 standard deviations. In addition, student characteristics are stronger predictors of differential grading than teacher, school, or district characteristics. Female, Limited English Proficient (LEP), and 12th grade students earn statistically significant higher grades than other students in all five subjects, holding test scores and teacher, school, and district characteristics constant. Low-income students, conversely, earn lower grades than other students, all else constant. Due to this differential grading, North Carolina educators and policymakers should think carefully about removing EOC tests from the curriculum. In addition, they should consider how to reduce differential grading and its impact on college admissions.Item Open Access Dropouts from Durham Public Schools(2013-04-18) Todd, AmyLow high school graduation rates prove a major challenge for policymakers throughout the United States. Durham, North Carolina is no exception. Durham’s graduation rate is currently 77%, compared to the North Carolina average of 80%. This project seeks to answer the following policy questions: who is dropping out from Durham public high schools and what characteristics in ninth grade or before can predict dropout from Durham public high schools? The project is being completed for the Durham chapter of Communities In Schools, a nationwide network of affiliated non-profit organizations focused on “empowering students to stay in school and achieve in life” through integrated school-based services. This project has four main components, which are based on administrative data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center, and interviews with several staff members of Durham Public Schools. The first two components explore who dropouts are, by examining dropout definitions, and how dropout and graduation rates are measured using event and cohort dropout rates for Durham’s first-time ninth graders of 2006-2007. The second component describes where dropouts are in Durham through a series of maps showing student and dropouts’ home census block groups. The final component estimates a model for predicting graduation for this cohort. Defining, counting and mapping dropouts High school dropout is a key construct that needs a precise definition, uniformly applied, in order for one to fully understand the dropout problem in Durham and the nation as a whole. Though No Child Left Behind increased the collection of data on student performance, it did not enforce a uniform dropout or graduation measure until 2011. Dropout is defined as a student who leaves school before graduation without transferring to another school or verified homeschool. Students in community college or GED programs are counted as dropouts, whereas students in youth correction centers are not. Students who re-enroll within the same month, according to the state manual, or the following year, according to Durham high school social workers, are not counted as dropouts. I calculate Durham’s dropout count for 2011 at 379, whereas the state reports 371. Though the discrepancy is small, the difference suggests that defining or counting dropouts is not fully transparent or replicable. Two measures are used to capture dropout and graduation: the dropout event rate and the cohort graduation rate. The event rate is the number of dropouts in a given year divided by the enrollment of the school. I calculate the event rate for ninth through 12th grade in Durham in 2010, which is the expected graduation year for the cohort of this study. At 4.2%, the dropout event rate I calculate is slightly higher than the 3.8% rate the state reports for Durham. The cohort graduation rate is the preferred measure to understand dropout, as it captures the number of graduates for a single cohort as a percent of the number of students, factoring in expansion and contraction of the cohort over time. The cohort graduation rate measures the cohort’s full experience in high school. I calculate the four-year graduation rate for Durham’s first-time ninth graders from 2006-2007, at 56.9%, and the five-year rate at 61%. The state reports much higher rates, at 69.8% for the four-year rate and 76.4% for the five-year rate. The discrepancy is difficult to explain. I theorize that the difference lies in the way a student who originally dropped out but re-enrolls is counted, depending on when that student returns to school. Mapping where Durham dropouts live, compared to the student population at large, shows that the dropout population is concentrated in areas of higher poverty. Using ArcGIS, I produced several maps of the 2009 high school student population (the most recent address information was available). Visuals of where dropouts are concentrated in Durham may help direct neighborhood-based resources. Predicting graduation Using an ordinary least squares regression, I estimate a model that predicts the five-year graduation of the students in the cohort as a function of three main explanatory variables: failing one or more courses in ninth grade, absences in ninth grade, and number of reported offenses in ninth grade. The model also includes background characteristics (race, parent education, being overage for ninth grade, qualification for free or reduced-price lunch, gender) and a measure of previous achievement (third and sixth grade math and reading end-of-grade test results). Summary statistics are provided for the full cohort, as well as graduate and dropout subgroups. The cohort is 52% male, 59% black, 5% overage, 20% with parents with a high school education or less and 66% who have qualified for free or reduced-price lunch. Prior academic achievement, captured by reading and math end-of-grade test scores in third and sixth grade, is significantly higher for graduates than dropouts. The separation between graduates and dropouts widens between third grade scores and sixth grade scores. Students who graduate differ from the full cohort in many expected ways: 71% of graduates never failed a class in ninth grade compared to 49% of the full cohort; 89% of graduates have no reportable offenses in ninth grade compared to 80% of the full cohort; and 58% of graduates have under eight absences in ninth grade compared to 45% of the full cohort. With or without controlling for other characteristics, the results show that course failure, absences and reportable offenses are all significant predictors of graduation. The effect of the predictors does not sharply decrease when background characteristics such as race, which is generally thought to be strongly correlated with high school graduation, are included in the model. Course failure and over 36 absences in ninth grade have the largest effect size as predictors of not graduating from high school. Having failed a course in ninth grade decreases the probability of graduation by 24 percentage points, and being absent 36 days or more in ninth grade decreases the probability of graduation by 25 percentage points, when controlling for background characteristics and previous achievement. Discussion and conclusion The results have multiple implications. First, the results demonstrate that the predicative factors generally used for dropout and early warning system indicators—course failure, absences and behavior—hold as significant predictive factors for this Durham cohort. Second, while much attention is paid to race as an important correlate with high school dropout, this study shows that the indicators with the biggest effect sizes are course failure and absences. Third, the discrepancies between the counts and rates that I produce and those published are cause for concern over transparency on dropout counts. For Communities In Schools, I make the following three recommendations: 1) Focus prevention efforts on students who have failed one or more classes in ninth grade, are absent more than 19 times and especially more than 36 times in ninth grade, or have reportable offenses on their record. 2) Position efforts based on ninth grade characteristics, rather than other background characteristics. 3) Consider the discretionary nature of counting dropouts when targeting students for interventions.Item Open Access Long-term effects of early childhood programs through eighth grade: Do the effects fade out or grow?(Children and Youth Services Review, 2020-05-01) Bai, Yu; Ladd, Helen F; Muschkin, Clara G; Dodge, Kenneth A© 2020 Support for policies to improve early childhood educational development and reduce disparities grew rapidly this century but recently has wavered because of findings that program effects might fade out prematurely. Two programs implemented at scale in North Carolina (Smart Start and More at Four) have been associated with academic success early in elementary school, but it is not known whether these effects fade out or are sustained in middle school. Smart Start provides state funding to support high-quality early childcare in local communities, and More at Four provides state-funded slots for a year of credentialed pre-kindergarten. Funds were allocated for each program at varying rates across counties and years. We used this variation to estimate the long-term impact of each program through eighth grade, by measuring the association between state funding allocations to each program, in each of 100 counties over each of 13 consecutive years, and later student performance. Students were matched to funding levels provided to their home county in their early childhood years and then followed through eighth grade. Analyses using county- and year-fixed-effects regression models with individual- and school-level covariates conducted on nearly 900,000 middle school students indicate significant positive impacts of funding for each program on reading and math test scores and reductions in special education placement and grade retention. These impacts do not fade out and seem instead to grow (for More at Four) as students progress through middle school. Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds experience particularly large benefits from the More at Four Program.Item Open Access Making Good Citizens: Policy Approaches to Increasing Civic Participation(2016) Holbein, John B.In this dissertation, I explore the impact of several public policies on civic participation. Using a unique combination of school administrative and public–use voter files and methods for causal inference, I evaluate the impact of three new, as of yet unexplored, policies: one informational, one institutional, and one skill–based. Chapter 2 examines the causal effect of No Child Left Behind’s performance-based accountability school failure signals on turnout in school board elections and on individuals’ use of exit. I find that failure signals mobilize citizens both at the ballot box and by encouraging them to vote with their feet. However, these increases in voice and exit come primarily from citizens who already active—thus exacerbating inequalities in both forms of participation. Chapter 3 examines the causal effect of preregistration—an electoral reform that allows young citizens to enroll in the electoral system before turning 18, while also providing them with various in-school supports. Using data from the Current Population Survey and Florida Voter Files and multiple methods for causal inference, I (with my coauthor listed below) show that preregistration mobilizes and does so for a diverse set of citizens. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the impact of psychosocial or so called non-cognitive skills on voter turnout. Using information from the Fast Track intervention, I show that early– childhood investments in psychosocial skills have large, long-run spillovers on civic participation. These gains are widely distributed, being especially large for those least likely to participate. These chapters provide clear insights that reach across disciplinary boundaries and speak to current policy debates. In placing specific attention not only on whether these programs mobilize, but also on who they mobilize, I provide scholars and practitioners with new ways of thinking about how to address stubbornly low and unequal rates of citizen engagement.
Item Open Access School District Student Assignment and Reassignment Policies(2013) Weiss, Sara Tova PilzerThis dissertation examines the interplay between school district assignment and reassignment policies and the elementary public school parents select for their children. The sample in all chapters includes the third and fourth grade students in a subset of growing North Carolina school districts from 2003/04 to 2010/11. The data are derived from historical, longitudinal secondary data sources containing student, school, and district records. All chapters employ quantitative longitudinal data analysis methods. Chapter 1 identifies the groups of students who do not comply with their school assignments. Chapter 2 identifies the groups of students who are reassigned to different schools, and to schools of varying quality, when school districts enact reassignment plans. Chapter 3 identifies the groups of students who do not comply with school reassignments. Together, the chapters demonstrate the interplay between residential decisions, school choices, and the resulting educational opportunities of observably different students. Consistent with existing bodies of literature, the findings demonstrate unexplored processes through which advantaged families maintain the most desirable educational opportunities for their children. Policy implications of these findings are also discussed.
Item Open Access Supporting Dropout Prevention in North Carolina's Rural Schools(2011-04-25) Preston, JenniferExecutive Summary North Carolina’s Race to the Top proposal outlines plans to increase the state’s graduation rate to 86 percent by the 2016 – 2017 school year. In order to reach that goal, graduation rates will need to rise in counties throughout the state, including in the state’s many rural communities. Race to the Top has the potential to bring increased attention and funding to the issues of high school graduation and dropout prevention. Even before the federal Department of Education selected North Carolina as a Race to the Top recipient state, North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue had underscored the importance of high school graduation in her “Career & College: Ready, Set, Go! Every Child a Graduate” education agenda. In light of this focus on high school graduation, the policy question for this report is: how should the State of North Carolina prevent students in rural areas from dropping out of high school? I make recommendations for how the General Assembly, the State Board of Education, and the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) can take action to increase graduation rates in rural communities. The Dropout Challenge in North Carolina and Resulting Problems for the State: Only 74.2 percent of the students who entered high school in 2006 – 2007 in North Carolina graduated four years later. About 65 percent of black students, 60 percent of Hispanic students, and 80 percent of white students graduate from high school in North Carolina each year. While much discussion in education policy centers on the achievement gap between the performance of white students and their African American and Latino peers, a “graduation gap” persists as well. A gap also exists between the graduation rate for males (70 percent) and females (79 percent). The dropout challenge poses a series of problems for the state. North Carolina loses billions in future income and personal wealth when students leave high school. Additionally, the state bears additional expenses for healthcare and crime costs that result when students drop out of high school. Legal problems exist as well. The North Carolina State Constitution guarantees a “sound basic education” to all children in the state. In 1997, the State Supreme Court held in Leandro v. North Carolina State Supreme Court that low-income students in the state were not receiving the education that they were promised. One piece of evidence used to make this ruling was the low graduation rates in many of the state’s schools. There is also a public sentiment that providing an education for young people is simply “the right thing to do.” High school dropouts have negative life outcomes in a number of areas; particularly troubling is the fact that dropouts are more likely to be low-income and members of ethnic minorities. The state’s rural areas tend to face more of a struggle to keep their students in high school. Rural schools often have less funding than their urban counterparts, usually because of lower property values in rural areas. Rural school districts must spend more of their limited funds to transport students spread over a large geographic area to and from school. It is more difficult for rural schools to find highly qualified and effective teachers to support students and teach the elective and advanced courses that interest and challenge students. Rural areas are less likely than urban areas to be home to community organizations that work to keep students in school, especially during out-of-school hours and the summer. North Carolina’s Policies on Dropout Prevention and Rural Schools: North Carolina currently provides specialized support to its rural schools and districts. Rural school districts are eligible for the Small County Supplemental Funding stream. The NCDPI’s District and School Transformation Division provides support for school improvement in the state’s lowest-performing rural school districts. With respect to dropout prevention, in 2007, the North Carolina General Assembly established the Joint Legislative Commission on Dropout Prevention and High School Graduation to review dropout prevention in the state, including a review of programs in place and research on best practices. The legislature also created the Committee on Dropout Prevention and appropriated funding for the Committee to support dropout prevention programs run by school districts, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. While the NCDPI was the administrative home and pass-through for the funds, the General Assembly required that the agency remain detached from the grant process. The Committee, with certain guidance from the General Assembly, was solely responsible for the selection of grant recipients. Research Methodology: I first conduct a literature review of best practices in dropout prevention programs. This knowledge provides a critical base of information for my examination of the strategies and characteristics of successful dropout prevention programs in rural North Carolina. I determine the effectiveness of dropout programs operating in rural areas by analyzing program goals and outcome data as reported by the programs and EDSTAR, the research group selected by the state to evaluate the dropout prevention grants. I gauge effectiveness by assessing the quality of each goal through a consideration of its rigor, the percentage of students it strives to affect, and whether the goal is ambitious enough to place at-risk students on a trajectory to graduation. I next calculate the percentage of students that met each of the programs’ targets. Next, I compare the programs I consider effective and contrast them with the ineffective programs. Using evaluation reports, I assemble descriptive information (including the type of agency administering the program and services provided), goals and progress (including data used to target students for services and evaluate success), and implementation details (including activities to encourage high school graduation among non-targeted students and coordination with existing programs or services) for each program. I also use economic research on rural counties in North Carolina to examine how their economic health affects high school graduation rates. Findings: The literature on dropout prevention programs highlights some key dropout prevention strategies that have shown to be effective through rigorous program evaluations. These strategies include strong support relationships between adults and at-risk students, intervention during the ninth grade (including ninth grade academies), increased rigor of coursework, meaningful remediation, the use of sophisticated data systems, an emphasis on early childhood education, and public awareness of the link between early childhood education and dropout prevention, and school wide-reform. My review dropout prevention programs in rural areas in North Carolina indicates that effective programs that specifically target at-risk students, provide them with structured activities when they are not in school, and mandate the creation of individualized graduation plans for students. In addition, programs run by schools or school districts, especially those also undertaking school-wide reform, tend to be more effective than programs run by community organizations or other government agencies. Recommendations: My recommendations for the State of North Carolina fall into three categories: recommendations that require funding (either through new funds or the reallocation of funding from other areas of the budget), recommendations that are cost-neutral, and recommendations that focus on changes to the rubric for the selection of dropout prevention grant recipients. Recommendations that Require Funding: (1) The General Assembly should allocate funding to Communities in Schools of North Carolina to provide graduation coaches throughout North Carolina. (2) The General Assembly should create a competitive funding stream for high schools that wish to implement a school-wide reform model. Cost-Neutral Recommendations: (1) The State Board of Education should require school districts to use the Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) to identify students at-risk of dropping out and require the creation of personalized graduation plans for these students. (2) The NCDPI’s Division of School and District Transformation should specifically include increasing graduation rates as a part of the system of support that it provides for all schools in partner districts. (3) The NCDPI should take the lead on the creation of a P-20 Council for the State of North Carolina. Once the Council has been created, a subset of members should serve on a Committee on Dropout Prevention to identify areas for cross-agency collaboration to keep students in school. (4) The NCDPI should publish a best practices guide similar to South Carolina’s At-Risk Student Implementation Guide. Recommendations for Changes to the Dropout Prevention Grants Selection Rubric: (1) Include a row under “Part C: Description of the Program/Initiative” to evaluate the extent to which the program uses resources to recruit staff or volunteers who develop strong relationships with students and train those staff members or volunteers how to fully support students. (2) Include a row under “Part C: Description of the Program/Initiative” to evaluate the extent to which the program is a part of a school-wide reform initiative designed to improve student outcomes. (3) Under Part B: Description of Target Students, rewrite descriptors so that a program that receives five points on the second row must use EVAAS to identify students to be served. (4) Under Part F: Community Input and Collaboration, require non-school or local education agency applicants to include a letter of support from the applicable school or district in order to receive four or five points for this section. (5) Under Part D: Description of Best Practices, rewrite descriptors so that a program that receives four or five points for this section must include evidence of best practice research.Item Open Access Teaching English Language Learners: A Comparison of Dual Immersion and English as a Second Language Programs(2011-12) Harless, ErinThis paper compares two different programs designed to teach Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs). The first, English as a Second Language (ESL), utilizes English-only instruction to facilitate English acquisition, while the second, Dual Immersion, provides instruction in both Spanish and English in order to promote comprehension of curriculum. Based on conceptual arguments in the literature regarding ELLs, I hypothesize that Dual Immersion programs are at least as effective, and likely more effective, than ESL programs in promoting the academic and social success of ELLs. To examine this hypothesis, I conduct a formal literature review of the existing research on Dual Immersion programs, as well as a case study of an elementary school with both programs in Siler City, North Carolina. Although the methodology contains limitations, the evidence is consistent with my original hypothesis.Item Open Access The Challenges in Implementing School Improvement Grant Models in Rural High Schools(2011-04-29) Rosenberg, SarahEXECUTIVE SUMMARY Policy Question Should the federal government modify the human resources requirement in the School Improvement Grant models to address the specific challenges facing rural high schools? Background The Obama Administration is pressuring Congress to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), legislation that significantly increased federal funding and accountability requirements for elementary and secondary education. As part of the effort to help schools meet accountability standards, Congress authorized School Improvement Grants (SIG) that provide funds to improve low-performing Title I schools. In order to be eligible to receive funds, schools must implement one of four school intervention models that are designed to induce radical and transformative change in the school. This report focuses on two models: the Turnaround and Transformation models. As part of these models, the Department of Education requires the mandatory replacement of the principal and, in the Turnaround model, 50% of the current staff as well. President Obama outlined a new goal for his proposal on ESEA reauthorization: every student should graduate from high school ready for college and career. This goal is ambitious considering high school students have made no progress on the National Assessment for Educational Progress over the last few decades while elementary and middle school students have made modest improvements. These results align with a common perception that high schools have historically been the most difficult schools to improve and are the most “impervious to change.” Rural high schools face additional challenges recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers and administrators due to relatively lower pay, geographic and social isolation, and subject area certification requirements. This report analyzes the feasibility of implementing the Turnaround and Transformation models in rural high schools. Nationwide Comparison of Staffing in Rural and Urban High Schools Using the 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey, I analyze teacher qualifications and recruitment data. While teachers in urban high schools have more years of experience, teachers in rural high schools remain in their current schools longer. Consequently, teacher turnover rates appear to be lower in rural high schools than urban ones. If low teacher turnover and the resulting stability has a positive effect on student achievement in rural high schools, SIG models would undercut that advantage. Much of the data, however, is too aggregated to be definitive. Qualitative data can offer suggestive evidence about their effect. North Carolina Case Study of Staffing in Rural and Urban High Schools To evaluate the feasibility of the Turnaround and Transformation models in rural high schools, I survey 13 principals in rural and urban districts across North Carolina. The sample includes a varied group of schools in terms of district and school size, student poverty, and student performance. While the sample is small and non-random, many of the findings correspond with current research in a number of areas including: the district’s recruiting capacity, the geography of teacher labor markets, and the role of the school system in a rural community. In developing the survey questions, I concentrated on the process for filling teaching vacancies with the intention of learning if and how hiring differs between rural and urban high schools. The surveys generated the following conclusions. A district’s student population determines the size, specialization, and involvement of the district office. In urban districts, the human resources department has the capacity to provide a variety of resources and recruitment methods which research suggests results in hiring more qualified teachers. Rural district offices, however, typically handle only an applicant’s processing and paperwork. Rural and urban principals identify similar patterns with respect to teacher shortages in science, mathematics, and special education. Nonetheless, urban principals can almost always fill a core subject vacancy due to the number of applicants in the centralized district recruiting system. In the current economy, even rural principals in low-income areas can typically fill their vacancies. Rural principals often rely on the community for recruiting, both to vet applicants and to ensure local connection. While teacher labor markets are usually localized, many newly hired teachers are from out-of-state as a result of the economy. To implement a SIG model, urban principals foresaw obstacles such as the school’s stigma of low-performance or considerable paperwork. Most rural principals indicated that replacing 50% of their staff would be “extremely difficult” or impossible. Their challenges included attracting new teachers and their families with a depressed local economy, implementing seniority-based hiring policies which result in losing effective teachers, and devastating a close-knit rural community. In many rural communities where the school system is the largest employer, losing 50% of high-school teachers would damage the local economy as well. Conclusions and Recommendations The federal government should modify the human resources requirement in the School Improvement Grant models to address the specific challenges facing rural high schools. Rural high schools are unlikely to have enough applicants to replace 50% of their staff because the applicant pool is not sufficient. For those few rural schools who could find the number of applicants, the quality would not be adequate, especially in hard-to-fill subject areas. Instead of requiring rural high schools to replace their administrators and teachers, the federal government should implement policies that support long-term human capital sustainability in rural areas. The federal government—potentially through state-administered grants— can help lower the costs of recruitment practices for rural districts. Some states have already implemented initiatives to help rural districts recruit high-quality teachers through statewide rural recruitment clearinghouses and “grow-your-own” teacher and administrator initiatives.Item Open Access The Effects of Natural Disasters on Birth and School Outcomes of Children in North Carolina(2013) Fuller, Sarah CrittendenThis dissertation consists of three studies exploring the effects of natural disasters in North Carolina on the longer term outcomes of children. The first study looks at the effect of prenatal natural disaster exposure on maternal health behaviors and birth outcomes for twenty cohorts of children born in North Carolina. Combining North Carolina administrative and survey data on births with disaster declarations from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allows me to identify children who were exposed to disasters in each trimester of prenatal development. Using a county fixed effect strategy, I compare these children to other children born in the same county who were not exposed to disasters while in utero. Results indicate that prenatal natural disaster exposure, especially exposure to hurricanes, has a significant effect on some maternal health behaviors, but this study provides only limited support for the theory that natural disaster exposure negatively affects birth outcomes, as measured by birth weight and gestational age.
The second study looks at the impact of exposure to natural disasters during pregnancy on the educational outcomes of North Carolina children at third grade. A broad literature relates negative birth outcomes to poor educational performance, and a number of recent studies examine the effect of prenatal exposure to natural disasters on birth outcomes. This study takes the next step by considering how prenatal exposure affects later outcomes. The children identified in the first study as exposed to disasters prenatally are compared to other children born in the same county who were not exposed to disasters while in utero. Results suggest that children exposed to hurricanes prenatally have lower scores on third grade standardized tests in math and reading. Those exposed to flooding or tornadoes also have somewhat lower math scores. Additionally, results suggest that these negative effects are more concentrated among children in disadvantaged subgroups, especially children born to Black mothers.
The third study addresses the question of whether the disruption caused by a natural disaster has an impact on student academic outcomes in the school year during which the natural disaster occurs. The effects of disasters on school performance are important because natural disasters often constitute a major community disruption with widespread impacts on the lives of children. The educational data in this study comes from administrative records for all school districts in North Carolina. Results suggest that hurricanes have a negative overall impact on reading test scores, with the effect concentrated among middle schools. However, winter storms have a positive effect on both math and reading scores in middle school. This difference in effect and additional analysis of mechanisms suggests that mobility is more important than missed days of schools in mediating negative effects of hurricanes on school performance.
Item Open Access The Money Myth: School Resources, Outcomes, and Equity(2010) Ladd, Helen FItem Open Access Virtual Success: Examining the Effectiveness of the North Carolina Virtual Public School(2012-04-19) Heissel, Jennifer AnnEXECUTIVE SUMMARY Although virtual education options have rapidly expanded in recent years, little academic research has examined the effectiveness of these courses. My analysis examines the North Carolina Virtual Public School (NCVPS) and specifically uses the state Algebra I and English I end-of-course (EOC) tests to compare the academic outcomes of students in a statewide, entirely virtual classroom to those in a traditional brick-and-mortar setting. I also use a survey of NCVPS students to examine how students experience the virtual system and why they selected that option. I find that students use NCVPS for two distinct reasons. On one hand, certain students use the course as an opportunity to take an overload of courses or to pursue a course not offered in their local school. These students typically live in rural areas, but they are typically not poor and have a history of academic success. A majority of Algebra I NCVPS students fall into this category, because many rural middle schools use NCVPS to offer a high school course they would otherwise be unable to provide. Such students are likely to do well no matter which system they use. On the other hand, certain students use NCVPS as an accommodation, often to keep them on track for graduation. These students often live in urban area and are typically economically disadvantaged with a history of low academic performance. Such students are likely to struggle either virtually or in a traditional classroom. Not surprisingly, my survey results indicate that these students are often very worried about the lack of guidance and support in NCVPS. A complicated picture emerges as I examine NCVPS student survey responses. What certain students see as a benefit, others see as a drawback. Some students love the freedom of the virtual environment while others want more structure. The particular opinions depend on students’ past experience, familiarity with the system, and comfort level with self-directed work. Policymakers need to balance student preferences with the benefits of the virtual classroom. Determining the effectiveness of NCVPS is not as easy as comparing the average results of students using each system. For example, students using NCVPS for Algebra I in ninth grade have substantially lower scores on the Algebra I EOC test than their traditional peers. However, these NCVPS students’ math scores had been on a downward trajectory in the years before they began their virtual Algebra I course, while traditional students’ scores were fairly stable over time. Such differences are interesting as a descriptive exercise in that they illuminate that certain NCVPS students would need more academic support in either the virtual or traditional system. One cannot draw causal conclusions from such differences, however. They probably have more to do with the characteristics of students who choose the virtual option than with the effectiveness of NCVPS. It’s not clear that NCVPS caused the difference in scores. To draw any conclusions, I need a counterfactual: a comparison of what did happen (say, in NCVPS) to what would have happened if the student had been placed in a traditional classroom. Thus, I focus my main analysis on middle schools, several of which only offer NCVPS Algebra I and several of which only offer traditional Algebra I. Removing an element of choice allows a more causal conclusion. I find that eighth grade students perform about as well in Algebra I NCVPS as they do in the traditional classroom. Sixth and seventh grade students, however, struggle in the virtual system relative to comparable peers. These results are consistent across a variety of models, including simple OLS regression, propensity score matching, and a panel approach. My research supports several implications for NCVPS managers, school and district administrators, and state policymakers. 1. Rural middle schools without the capacity to offer a traditional Algebra I course should allow advanced eighth grade students to take the course through NCVPS. My research consistently demonstrates that virtual eighth grades students perform about the same on the EOC test as similar traditional students. Although more research is needed, this finding may also extend to advanced students in other subject areas. On a related note, schools should also allow advanced students to use the virtual option to take an overload of courses if they are deemed capable of handling the additional work. 2. NCVPS does not work for all students, and certain students need special support. My research consistently finds that young students using NCVPS as an opportunity in sixth or seventh grade fare poorly in Algebra I NCVPS relative to similar traditional students. Some students may not be ready academically or developmentally to use a self-directed virtual program. In these cases, young students may benefit from waiting until eighth grade before pursuing NCVPS. Additionally, many students that pursue NCVPS as an accommodation have a history of academic struggles, meaning they likely need an entirely different support system than advanced, high-achieving eighth graders. NCVPS should consider this balance as they assign students to classrooms, and more research should focus on what particular methods and means of support work best for at-risk students in the virtual environment. 3. School and state policymakers need to stay up-to-date with technology needs and advances. Schools should employ better screening to ensure that students have access to the technology they need to succeed in NCVPS. Over 10% of NCVPS students reported having no computer at home. This limitation likely affects less affluent students disproportionately, and these students are not set up for success if they cannot access course content at home. Additionally, student survey responses indicate that many students prefer the support, guidance and physical presence of a traditional classroom. NCVPS could do more to support students’ learning needs. As technology moves forward, NCVPS should learn from best practices of other systems. For instance, perhaps NCVPS could supplement its PowerPoint slides with standardized video lectures that can be used by all teachers year-after-year. A video of a teacher manually working through a problem or topic may be more beneficial than a series of slides. Overall, North Carolina has developed one of the leading virtual systems in the country. It seems unlikely that virtual education will go away any time soon, and the rapidly expanding interest in virtual options mean that other states will look to other programs as models. North Carolina’s program works well for advanced eighth grade Algebra I students, although it does not work for all students. By focusing on targeted growth and meeting student needs, NCVPS can offer North Carolina students an exceptional program that other states could model.