We use data from six Washington State teacher education programs to investigate the relationship between teacher candidates' student teaching experiences and their later teaching effectiveness and probability of attrition. We find that teachers who student taught in schools with lower teacher turnover are less likely to leave the state's teaching…

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the number of charter schools in New Orleans has rapidly expanded. During the 2012/13 school year--the period covered by this study--of the 85 public schools in New Orleans, 75 were chartered, enrolling more than 84 percent of all public school students in the city in 92 different school campuses. This study…

A new design-based theory has recently been developed to estimate impacts for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and basic quasi-experimental designs (QEDs) for a wide range of designs used in social policy research (Imbens & Rubin, 2015; Schochet, 2016). These methods use the potential outcomes framework and known features of study designs…

Facilitating student transfer from two-year to four-year institutions has been a focus of research and policy in recent years. Much less attention has been given to the phenomenon of four-year to two-year (4-2) college transfer. About 16 percent of students who begin in a four-year college transfer to a two-year college within six years. Using…

Across the Regional Educational Laboratory Southeast Region there is growing interest in strengthening the presence of online learning in all public schools to help equalize education opportunities for all students and prepare students for a digital future. For instance, the North Carolina General Assembly has required that the state transition to…

Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by endogeneity and measurement error. In this paper, we use two simulated instrumental variables strategies to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our identification derives from the large, non-linear changes…

KIPP Ujima Village Academy is a member of the KIPP (Knowledge is Power) National Network of schools. The Baltimore KIPP serves approximately 300 students in Northwest Baltimore in grades 5-8; the school opened in Fall 2002 and converted to a charter school in 2005. This study analyzes four cohorts of 5th grade students in the Baltimore City Public…

College alumni giving is correlated with institutional characteristics (quality and development efforts) and student characteristics (quality and wealth). This paper uses a two-step least-squares approach with data and quality/wealth variables to explore the "rich-student, quality-school" alumni generosity phenomenon. Alumni giving is…

Three techniques for determining a straight line fit to data are compared. The methods are applied to a range of datasets containing one or more outliers, and to a specific example from the field of chemistry. For the method which is the most resistant to the presence of outliers, a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, as well as two Matlab routines, are…

Ordinary least-squares regression treats the variables asymmetrically, designating a dependent variable and one or more independent variables. When it is not obvious how to make this distinction, a researcher may prefer to use orthogonal regression, which treats the variables symmetrically. However, the usual procedure for orthogonal regression is…

Utilizes a large institutional-level data set of four-year U.S. colleges and two-stage least-square estimation to affirm the relationship of college student migration to human capital theory. Small class size, college selectivity, successful academic programs, the availability of diverse cultural alternatives, and highly qualified and productive…

Two techniques for determining a straight line fit to data are compared. This article reviews two simple techniques for fitting a straight line to a set of data, namely the method of averages and the method of least squares. These methods are compared by showing the results of a simple analysis, together with a number of tests based on randomized…

Examines the relative contributions of human and physical resources in the production of private undergraduate higher education. The parameters in the output equation suggest a traditional recipe: a relatively high ratio of quality faculty to good students in a facilitating environment reflected by academic expenditure. Better students are drawn…

Performance was examined for five cohorts of 1998-2002 Texas public high school graduates through their first year and 1998-2001 cohorts through their fourth year of Texas public higher education. Student performance on college outcomes included (a) first- and fourth-year grade point averages (GPAs), (b) first- and fourth-year credit hours earned,…

Estimates a model allowing researchers to determine how much achievement on a 10th-grade standardized test can be explained by observable schooling resources and unobservable school, teacher, and class effects. Although few observable variables are significant test-score determinants, unobservable effects seem important in explaining student…