The Education Exchange

Many Teach for America corps members remain in the classroom long-term, but a large number move on to careers involving advocacy. A new study looks at how Teacher for America impacts state-level education policy. Leslie Finger of Harvard University joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss her study, “National Youth Service and Policy Feedback: How TFA Shapes Education Policy Working Papers through the Development of Young Advocates,” which was co-written with Carlos Lastra-Anadon.

Many parents choose to wait an extra year before enrolling a child in elementary school, a practice known as redshirting. Does this practice benefit the children who are held back? This week, Paul E. Peterson talks with Phillip Cook of Duke University, the co-author of a new study on the impact of delayed entry on student achievement. The paper, "The School-Entry-Age Rule Affects Redshirting Patterns and Resulting Disparities in Achievement," is co-written with Songman Kang. https://www.nber.org/papers/w24492.pdf

A study based on data from North Carolina finds that grade inflation increased over the last decade and that grade inflation was more severe in schools attended by affluent students than in those attended by lower-income pupils. Seth Gershenson, the author of “Grade Inflation in High Schools (2005-2016),” joined Paul E. Peterson this summer to discuss the study. https://edexcellence.net/publications/grade-inflation-in-high-schools

How do teachers feel about the changes taking place in American education? In this replay episode, Evan Stone, the co-founder and CEO of Educators for Excellence, joined Paul E. Peterson to discuss his organization's survey, “Voices from the Classroom: A Survey of America’s Educators.” https://e4e.org/sites/default/files/2018_voices_from_the_classroom_teacher_survey.pdf

The Florida Legislature created the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship Program in 2001. Last year, scholarships from the program were awarded to a total of 108,098 students to attend private schools in the state. Jason Bedrick, director of policy for EdChoice, joins Paul E. Peterson to explain how the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship program works and to discuss the results of a new survey of participating families. Bedrick and Lindsey Burke co-authored a report on the survey, "Surveying Florida Scholarship Families," and also a blog entry about it for EdNext. https://www.edchoice.org/research/surveying-florida-scholarship-families/ https://www.educationnext.org/survey-says-parents-want-school-choice/

Researchers and policymakers are often puzzled when a policy like high quality preschool or class size reduction is found to have no impact on student test scores but a positive impact on longer-term outcomes like college graduation or future earnings. A new paper by Eric Nielsen can help explain these different findings. It turns out that the way we calculate test scores may be disguising the true impact of these policies. Eric Nielsen joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss his paper, “Test Items, Outcomes, and Achievement Gaps.” http://papers.nber.org/conf_papers/f115410/f115410.pdf

Erica Suares, Senior Policy Advisor to the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell, sits down with Paul E. Peterson to discuss some of the inner workings of legislation in the Senate, including how the tax reform bill came together and what's on the horizon for higher education and school choice.

Clint Bolick, an Associate Justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, talks with Paul E. Peterson about how the results of gubernatorial elections will affect the school choice climate in various states. They also discuss the proposed expansion of an education savings account program which was on the ballot in Arizona.

Are parents move likely to want to send their kids to college if they are given accurate information about the costs and benefits of attending college? A new study looks at what happens when parents are given customized information about the cost of going to college and the wage premium for earning a college degree. Albert Cheng, Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss their paper, "Experimental Impacts of Customized Information on College Aspirations," available at: https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper27508.html

Richard Barth, CEO of the KIPP Foundation, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss how the KIPP network is adapting to changes in the charter sector.