Consortium for Policy Research in Education
The Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) is a community of researchers from renowned research institutions and organizations committed to advancing educational policy and practice through evidence-based research.
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Publication Keeping College Affordable: A Proposal From Two Economists(1992-05-01) University of PennsylvaniaIn order to broaden discussion about higher education finance, this policy brief outlines a proposal for a major change in federal financial aid, state tuition, and state financial aid policies. The proposal is drawn from the book Keeping College Affordable: Government and Educational Opportunity by Michael S. McPherson and Morton Owen Schapiro.
Publication The Bumpy Road to Education Reform(1996-06-01) Goertz, Margaret E; Floden, Robert E.; O'Day, JenniferThis issue of CPRE Policy Briefs Identifies five challenges that confront educators and policymakers as they develop higher standards and other policies and structures to support improved student and teacher learning. It also describes strategies used by a few states and localities to address some of these challenges. The brief draws on findings of a three-year study of standards-based reform conducted by CPRE researchers in California, Michigan and Vermont. In each state, researchers conducted case studies of four schools in two districts reputed to be active in reform and capable of supporting education reform. Although the sample is small, the similarity of reform issues across such widely varying fiscal, demographic, and political contexts suggests that lessons learned may be applicable to sites other than those studied here. Overall, we conclude that while states and local school districts have taken major steps to reform the ways they teach and assess their students, the road to reform is arduous, full of bumps and still under construction.Publication Persistence and Change: Standards-Based Reform in Nine States(1997-04-01) Massell, Diane; Kirst, Michael W; Hoppe, MargaretAlthough public education is a constitutional responsibility of state government, state policymakers historically delegated this authority to local school districts, particularly in matters of curriculum and instruction. District policymakers, in turn, usually entrusted the curriculum to teachers or textbook publishers, and hired few district staff to develop or provide instructional guidance (Walker, 1990; Rowan, 1983; Crowson and Morris, 1985). Typically, when state or district policymakers did provide direction, they limited it to bare listings of course requirements or behavioral objectives. Few systems prescribed topics within courses or curricula; guidelines about teaching pedagogy were even rarer (Cohen and Spillane, 1993). In marked contrast to this long historical pattern, states and districts have made unprecedented forays into curriculum and instruction during the last twenty years. Even within this short period, however, their policy approaches have changed rapidly, shifting both in terms of student learning objectives and the kinds of strategies they used to encourage local instructional innovation. Whereas in the late 1970s, state policymakers instituted minimum competency tests to ensure that students learned a modicum of basic skills, by the early 1980s they began to expand both the subjects and grade levels tested. They also pushed through increases in credit requirements for core academic subjects as prerequisites for graduation. In the late-1980s, state and district policymakers (along with many professional subjectmatter associations and private foundations) turned their attention from the number of academic courses to the quality of the core academic content being taught in public schools. They undertook this effort primarily in response to international test results and domestic studies, which indicated that even our academic courses were relatively weak and offered students little opportunity to apply knowledge (Porter et al., 1993; Elley, 1992; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1992; Kirst, 1993; National Center for Education Statistics, 1992).Publication Instruction, Capacity, and Improvement(1999-06-01) Cohen, David K; Ball, Deborah LoewenberbSince World War II, efforts to improve schools have numbered in the thousands. Most efforts have concentrated on improving the curriculum materials used in schools or on "training" teachers in new instructional methods. Many of these efforts have gone under the banner of "building instructional capacity," a term that for decades has been featured prominently in conversations about educational reform. Unfortunately, three decades of research has found that only a few interventions have had detectable effects on instruction and that, when such effects are detected, they rarely are sustained over time. A review of research and professional experience with school improvement suggests several explanations for these disheartening findings. One is that schools are complex social organizations situated within, and vitally affected by, other complex social systems including families, communities, and professional and regulatory agencies. The larger social environment of schools constrains and shapes the actions of teachers, students, and administrators, often in ways that greatly complicate the work of school improvement. Challenges to school improvement are particularly acute in highpoverty settings where recruiting wellqualified teachers is difficult and where the emotional and health problems of students often deflects attention to educational issues or impedes work on them. As a result, many researchers now believe that school improvement involves much more than efforts to change interactions occurring within schools. To succeed, school improvement interventions also must attend to the complex relationships that exist among intervention agents, schools, and their social environments.Publication Teaching for High Standards: What Policymakers Need to Know and Be Able to Do(1998-11-01) Darling-Hammond, Linda; Ball, Deborah LoewenbergIn this report, Ball and Darling-Hammond discuss the relationship between teacher knowledge and student performance; they summarize what the research suggest about what kinds of teacher education and professional development teachers need in order to learn how ot teach to high standards; and they describe what states are doing to provide these opportunities for teacher learning, and with what effects.Publication Including School Finance in Systemic Reform Strategies: A Commentary(1994-05-01) Odden, AllanThis 1994 CPRE Finance Brief takes a look at the school finance issue and proposes that education funding be tied more closely to systemic reform initiatives. It next describes past trends in school finance and current challenges to traditional education funding sources. Policy implications of these changes are presented, followed by a discussion of possible components of a finance system based on systemic reform.Publication Children Achieving: Philadelphia's Education Reform, Year Two Report(1998) Consortium for Policy Research in Education; Research for Action; OMG Center for Collaborative LearningChildren Achieving Progress Report Series 1996-1997.
In February 1995, The Annenberg Foundation designated Philadelphia as one of a small number of American cities to receive a five-year $50 million Annenberg Challenge grant to improve public education. CPRE and its partners, Research for Action and OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, conducted a four-year evaluation of Philadelphia's Children Achieveing initiative, funded by the Annenberg Challenge grant. This summary describes finding from Year 2.
Publication Instruction, Capacity, and Improvement(1999-06-01) Cohen, David K; Ball, Deborah LoewenbergSince World War II, efforts to improve schools have numbered in the thousands. Most efforts have concentrated on improving the curriculum materials used in schools or on "training" teachers in new instructional methods. Many of these efforts have gone under the banner of "building instructional capacity," a term that for decades has been featured prominently in conversations about educational reform. Unfortunately, three decades of research has found that only a few interventions have had detectable effects on instruction and that, when such effects are detected, they rarely are sustained over time. A review of research and professional experience with school improvement suggests several explanations for these disheartening findings. One is that schools are complex social organizations situated within, and vitally affected by, other complex social systems including families, communities, and professional and regulatory agencies. The larger social environment of schools constrains and shapes the actions of teachers, students, and administrators, often in ways that greatly complicate the work of school improvement. Challenges to school improvement are particularly acute in high-poverty settings where recruiting well-qualified teachers is difficult and where the emotional and health problems of students often deflects attention to educational issues or impedes work on them. As a result, many researchers now believe that school improvement involves much more than efforts to change interactions occurring within schools. To succeed, school improvement interventions also must attend to the complex relationships that exist among intervention agents, schools, and their social environments.Publication Persistence and Change: Standards-Based Reform in Nine States(1997-04-01) Massell, Diane; Kirst, Michael W; Hoppe, MargaretAlthough public education is a constitutional responsibility of state government, state policymakers historically delegated this authority to local school districts, particularly in matters of curriculum and instruction. District policymakers, in turn, usually entrusted the curriculum to teachers or textbook publishers, and hired few district staff to develop or provide instructional guidance (Walker, 1990; Rowan, 1983; Crowson and Morris, 1985). Typically, when state or district policymakers did provide direction, they limited it to bare listings of course requirements or behavioral objectives. Few systems prescribed topics within courses or curricula; guidelines about teaching pedagogy were even rarer (Cohen and Spillane, 1993). In marked contrast to this long historical pattern, states and districts have made unprecedented forays into curriculum and instruction during the last twenty years. Even within this short period, however, their policy approaches have changed rapidly, shifting both in terms of student learning objectives and the kinds of strategies they used to encourage local instructional innovation. Whereas in the late 1970s, state policymakers instituted minimum competency tests to ensure that students learned a modicum of basic skills, by the early 1980s they began to expand both the subjects and grade levels tested. They also pushed through increases in credit requirements for core academic subjects as prerequisites for graduation. In the late-1980s, state and district policymakers (along with many professional subjectmatter associations and private foundations) turned their attention from the number of academic courses to the quality of the core academic content being taught in public schools. They undertook this effort primarily in response to international test results and domestic studies, which indicated that even our academic courses were relatively weak and offered students little opportunity to apply knowledge (Porter et al., 1993; Elley, 1992; Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1992; Kirst, 1993; National Center for Education Statistics, 1992).Publication State and Districts and Comprehensive School Reform(1998-05-01) Consortium for Policy Research in EducationIn this policy brief, we discuss implications of the use of school-level reform designs for state and local policymakers. The more schools choose such reforms, the more is being learned about the importance of the state and local roles in facilitating appropriate matches between designs and schools and in supporting design-based improvement over time.
In the Fall of 1997, Congress authorized competitive grants to provide up to $50,000 per year per school for the use of comprehensive reform models. Beginning in July, 1998, Title I schools will be eligible for $120 million of the funds provided; non-Title I schools may compete for $25 million. The Comprehensive School Reform Development Program (CSRD), also known as the â Obey-Porterâ program for its Congressional sponsors, provides funds for states to use in competitive grants to local school districts that submit applications specifying which schools will participate and the reform programs they will implement. States and localities must demonstrate their ability to select â only high quality, welldefined, and well-documented comprehensive school reform programs,â provide technical assistance and support, and evaluate the effects (U.S. Department of Education, 1998).
In discussing implications for the state and local role, we draw on lessons from the experience of designers and educators working with New American Schools (e.g., Odden, 1997a; Odden, 1997b) and on emerging findings from current CPRE studies of capacity-building interventions and their scale up. We also draw on findings about successful school-based reform that are relevant whether or not schools are working with a national reform network. Home-grown reform models also need state and local support, and they would be eligible for assistance under the CSRD program as long as they employed research-based components that have been replicated successfully; were comprehensive and supported by stakeholders; used technical assistance from an entity, such as a university, with experience in providing support to comprehensive school reforms; and were carefully evaluated against measurable goals.