Background: Cluster randomized experiments that assign intact groups such as schools or school districts to treatment conditions are increasingly common in educational research. Such experiments are inherently multilevel designs whose sensitivity (statistical power and precision of estimates) depends on the variance decomposition across levels.…

The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools' consistently positive impacts on student achievement (detailed in Volume I of this report) have prompted efforts to scale up the KIPP model to serve more students. According to the KIPP model, highly qualified and autonomous principals, supported by national and regional staff, drive the…

Applies neural network methods for forecasting 1991-95 per-pupil expenditures in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools. Forecasting models included the National Center for Education Statistics' multivariate regression model and three neural architectures. Regarding prediction accuracy, neural network results were comparable or superior to…

There has been concern in the private school research community that private school diversity is not captured by the three divisions of Catholic, other religious, and non-sectarian. Data from the 1987-88 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) are used in this analysis to operationalize a typology that further subdivides each group into the following…

The Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) is a periodic, integrated system of sample surveys on elementary and secondary schools in the United States that collects information on school and district administrators and teachers in public and private schools. This technical report is one in a series of methodological studies relating to the SASS of the…

About 30,000 students in Grades 1 through 12 in Jackson, Mississippi, were studied to determine the effectiveness of instruction for all major social groups represented by the student population during the 1986-87 school year. The California Achievement Test and course grades were used to obtain core data. Demographic data were obtained for…

This report examines variations in school and classroom attributes that were associated with improved student achievement outcomes. Of particular interest were those attributes of Chapter 1 and regular school programs that contributed to improved outcomes for educationally at-risk students. A secondary focus was to measure the relationships…

This report contains accounts of studies, about scales to be used in the "A Study of Schooling" research project, undertaken to derive indices for constructs presumed to be measureable by composites of items. The report is introduced by a discussion on the rationale for selecting the research methodology used and an explanation of the…

Public school expenditure differentials are especially of interest as they relate to children in particular categories of historical concern, such as minority status, poverty, and other at-risk factors. This report addresses school finance policy through the analysis of school district revenue and expenditure data from the 1990 Survey of Local…