Many states are redesigning their college remediation policies to increase postsecondary degree completion. In 2012, Tennessee began waiving college math remediation for high school students who completed a computer-based remedial math course (SAILS) during their senior year. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the high school remedial course did not improve students' math achievement any more than the typical senior year math course (although it did allow students to avoid the cost and delay of remedial math in college). Using a difference-in-difference design, we find that completing SAILS boosted enrollment in college-level math among first-year community college students by nearly 30 percentage points, with nearly half of new enrollees passing the college-level course. Such students had, however, only completed 1.5 additional college courses after two years. In 2015, Tennessee community colleges implemented "co-requisite" remediation, allowing students to complete remediation alongside college-level math. Under the co-requisite policy, completing SAILS no longer produced any boost in college credits. Although both alternatives to pre-requisite remediation produced modest gains for students and taxpayers, remediation requirements are not a primary driver of low degree completion rates.
On average, a $1,000 reduction in per-pupil spending reduces average test scores in math and reading by 3 9 percent of a standard deviation and increases the score gap between black and white students by roughly 6 percent Advocates for poor students have used this argument to overturn school-funding formulas that relied on local dollars in favor of state-based funding mechanisms, based on the assumption that state funding would direct more dollars to low-income communities and bring per-pupil spending up to equitable levels School finance data come from the U S Census Bureau’s Annual Survey of School System Finances, which contains financial data for all 13,500 public school districts in the United States Test score data come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” a test given every two years to a representative sample of students across the country
by DANIELLE DREILINGER THE NAME OF THE STUDY said it all: “Sleepmore in Seattle: Later School Start times Are Associated with More Sleep and Better Performance in High School Students.” In 2016–17, Seattle Public Schools pushed back high-school start times by 55 minutes, from 7:50 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. And just like that, students slept an average of 34 more minutes per night and their grades went up 4.5 percent, researchers found. It was yet another entry in a long bibliography of studies showing the benefits of a later start time for teenagers (including “Rise and Shine” by Jennifer Heissel and Samuel Norris, in this issue). This growing body of evidence is in line with broad expert consensus that early school days are in conflict with adolescents’ biological sleep patterns and need for 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night. In 2017, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine officially recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. The American Academy of Pediatrics has been pushing for that same start-time threshold since 2014. And a HOW TO MAKE SCHOOL START LATER
Taking upper-level career and technical education (CTE) classes in high school can pay off with higher wages for students who do not attend college. This article highlights research that examines the relationship between taking CTE coursework and high school graduates' success in college or the workforce. The authors' study, making use of a nationally representative sample of early-career Americans, shows that students tend to enroll in vocational classes based on whether such options are available to them, suggesting that the commonly held belief that marginal students are funneled into such classes is untrue. Further, they find that not all vocational classes are equal: students earn about 2 per cent more annually for each advanced or upper-level vocational class they take but enjoy no wage premium for having completed lower-level or introductory vocational study. In terms of college enrollment, while lower-level vocational courses may deter marginal students from college, they have no impact on net graduation rates; advanced courses at worst do no harm.
