Taking math remediation at the same time as statistics helps community college students succeed

By Claire Shin, Johns Hopkins University

Although an Associate’s degree has been shown to increase graduates’ earnings and job security, many community college students struggle to graduate. About 66% of community college students are mandated to take remedial classes, and 60% of the remedial courses required are for math. Remedial courses usually do not earn college credit, meaning students take longer to complete their education. A longer pathway increases the chances that students will not finish their degree, leading to lower earning potential for those who dropped out than for those who finished their degree.

A recent study described the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT), testing the benefits of a new program assigning students at risk of math challenges to additional support at the same time that they were taking statistics in their first year of community college. Several programs experimenting with this kind of corequisite support have provided students with background knowledge and instruction while students are also taking credit-bearing college courses. The RCT included 907 community college freshmen who were diagnosed as needing math remediation in 2013. Participation increased the likelihood of students earning an associate’s degree within 3 years by 50% (p = .02), and a bachelor’s degree within 5 years by 100%. Students who participated in this new program were also earning about $3,000 to $4,500 more 5-7 years after the program than those who did not participate in the program.

Still, even with these increases in graduation rates, only 25.9% of students participating in this corequisite math support program earned an associate’s degree within 3 years and 13.5% earned a bachelor’s degree within 5 years. More research should build on this finding to uncover additional supports that can help more community college students earn degrees within fewer years.

The effects of early college opportunities on English learners

By Siyu Long, Johns Hopkins University

A recent study in the American Educational Research Journal examined a developing program started in 2017 that offers Early College (EC) opportunities in high schools serving large English learner (EL) populations in California. This study aimed to evaluate the effects of an EC program on high school graduation and subsequent college enrollment for EL students.

Data for this study were collected from seven cohorts of high school students (N = 15,090) in a large, urban school district in California. As EC was rolled out in the district in three of the high schools first, the researchers compared the post-EC outcomes of treated and control groups (i.e., the three high schools that started EC first vs. other high schools in the district who had not yet started EC). This study expands current knowledge of EC effects on historically underserved student populations such as ELs.

Findings from this study showed that although the EC program succeeded in inducing students to start college coursework, it had no significant effect (0.7 percentage points) on the probability of enrolling in college immediately after high school. The results also corroborate existing case study research suggesting that improving access to to more rigorous coursework may be necessary but insufficient for Els to increase their college-going.

Short-term and long-term effects of the School Improvement Grants initiative

Marta Pellegrini, University of Cagliari, Italy

School Improvement Grants (SIGs) were grants for state education agencies to address underperformance in public schools in the US. The SIG program required schools to adopt a reform model by choosing among four alternatives: the transformation model required reforms in the school instructional and evaluation system and changing the leadership; the turnaround model required the same transformations plus replacing 50% of the staff; the restart model required closing the school and opening it under the leadership of an education management organization; and the closure model required closing the school. Among these models, most of the SIG schools chose the transformation model, some schools the turnaround model, and a few schools the restart model.

A recent study evaluated the effects of SIGs on student academic achievement and graduation rates, focusing on schools that adopted the transformation and turnaround models. A total of 99 schools and 35,200 students in grades 3 and 8 were included in the sample. State administrative data on standardized tests in mathematics, ELA, and graduation rates were collected from three years prior to the SIG funding and 3-4 years after its end. Sixty-six SIG schools were compared to similar schools in the same district.

Results showed significant positive effects (ES = +0.12) in mathematics after the first year of SIG implementation, that increased by the third year to an effect size of +0.23. The study found also statistically significant long-term effects 3-4 years after the end of the program (ES = +0.12). Results were smaller for ELA, with a non-significant effect size of +0.04 after the first year, a positive and significant effect in the third year (ES = +0.12) and a significant long-term effect of +0.11. Between the two SIG models, the effects were larger for the turnaround model (ES for math, year 3: +0.30; ES for ELA year 3: +0.13) than for the transformation one (ES for math, year 3: +0.19; ES for ELA year 3: +0.12). Long-term effects after 3-4 years were positive and significant for the turnaround model in math (ES = +0.18).

This study assessed to what extent government investments in school reforms can have short-term and long-term impacts on student academic achievement. Although the SIG funding ended with the ESSA law, this study and its findings may be relevant at state and district levels to continue reforming low-performing schools.

Do school turnaround reforms improve student outcomes?

By Nathan Storey, Johns Hopkins University

Recent controversy has surrounded the effectiveness of school turnaround efforts–programs designed to significantly reform schools or districts through changes to organization, staffing, and governance–to address student outcomes.

A recent meta-analysis by Redding & Nguyen seeks to shed light on the issue by examining the association between different forms of school turnaround and attendance, standardized test scores, and graduation rates. They highlight four school turnaround mechanisms—transformation and turnaround (including comprehensive instructional reform or teacher and principal effectiveness reforms), changes in human capital (through replacing the principal or teachers), changes in governance or management of low-performing schools (such as through state takeover of schools or school districts, closures of schools, or transitioning schools to charter status), and high-stakes accountability policies.

Thirty-five of 13,800 studies screened were eligible for the analysis, showing evidence of positive association between school turnaround, transformation, and school restart and improvements in student attendance, math and ELA test scores, and graduation. Though transformation and restart models appeared to have the largest standard deviation unit increases on math test scores (0.177 and 0.214 SDUs, respectively), the authors could not find significant evidence that one method was more successful than the others. However, accountability-driven school closures and state turnaround efforts (based on No Child Left Behind waivers and student test scores) did not appear to have any effect, positive or negative. An important qualification to these results is that these programs take time to show effects—few programs showed much success in the first year of implementation, while stronger positive impacts were seen in years 2-4 (increasing 0.127 SDUs in math and 0.084 in ELA). In addition, the authors note that schools and districts engaged in school turnaround efforts may revert to pre-reform performance levels after some improvement, though the extent of this was not possible to be examined in this study.