Course Glossary | 1368.4x

Mini-Course 1

WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE

Part I: Schools in Trouble

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress): National exam started in the 1960s. Tracks the progress of 4th and 8th grade students, and recently, 12th grade. Also known as the “nation’s report card.” Provides data that can be looked at the national level, state level, and by student demographics (gender, race, age, etc…). NAEP is a low-stakes test.
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment): International exam administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Administered every three years to 15-year-olds worldwide. Tests science, math, and reading. Intended to allow for international comparisons in education. PISA is a low-stakes test.

Part II: Concerns for the Future

Human capital: The skills and expertise that an individual or group of people possess, in relation to their value to an organization or a country.

Part III: Identifying the Issues

Law of Averages: The belief that while averaging out a large sample size of something (in this case, standardized tests) erroneous or arbitrary results caused by unusual circumstances will cancel themselves out.
Merit Pay: A type of performance-related pay, which provides salary increase based upon goals or achievements set by an employer.
School Boards: Also known as a board of education. Elected or appointed group of individuals charged with managing a local area’s schools, including hiring personnel and managing financial resources. Modern school boards are only found in the United States.
Progressive Movement: Group of politicians, scholars, and influential thinkers in the United States at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. The Progressive Movement formed as a response to the rampant corruption in politics and industry.
Civil Rights Movement: A series of political movements peaking in the 1960s, which aimed to ensure equality and civil liberties for marginalized people and people of color in the United States.
Teacher Unions: A trade union representing workers in education institutions.
Collective Bargaining: Negotiations between employers and employees to regulate working conditions, with the employees often represented by trade unions.

WEEK 2: SCHOOL BOARDS

Part I: Local School Boards vs. Horace Mann

English System of Schools: Education system established in England and Scotland in the 17th century, which was transplanted to the U.S. during the colonial period. This school system emphasized the importance of reading so that individuals could read the Bible, and it was established by creating local school boards (see below) in order to manage schools.
School Boards: Also known as a board of education. Elected or appointed group of individuals charged with managing a local area’s schools, including hiring personnel and managing financial resources. Modern school boards are only found in the United States.
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805-1859): French author and political thinker who, in the mid-19th century, traveled to the U.S. and wrote Democracy in America. Wrote about what he considered to be the exceptional nature of American schools.
Prussian System of Schools: Model of education established in early 19th century Germany. Intended to help form national cohesion. Focuses on centralized control of education, including state-approved curriculum, teacher training, and textbooks.
Horace Mann (1796 – 1856): Education reformer from Franklin, Massachusetts who pushed legislation that required public schools for all children. He advocated for building more public schools, secular education, and state standardization of textbooks and teacher training. In turn, this began the weakening of the power of local school boards in education and increase in power for the state government.

Part II: School Boards at the Dawn of the 20th Century

1800s School Curriculum: 19th century schools focused on rote memorization of facts, including memorizing multiplication tables and pronunciation of letters. Also emphasized patriotism and morality.
1800s School Funding: 19th century schools had about 80% of their funding come from the local community, with the other 20% of funds coming from the state government.
1800s School Inclusiveness: While there was blatant discrimination against African-Americans and Chinese-Americans in certain areas of the country, 19th century schools were still relatively progressive with regards to inclusiveness because public primary school was free and open to all students.

Part III: Do We Still Need School Boards?

Modern Day Responsibilities of School Boards: School boards still are in charge of hiring teachers, principals, and the superintendent within their school district. They also are involved in determining how funds are allocated and setting curriculum.
Limitations on School Boards: The 20th century, and continuing onto the 21st century, has seen increasing limitations on local school boards. Local school districts and state governments spend nearly the same amount on education. The federal government also contributes some to the cost of education, when it did not at all in the 19th century. The legislative branch and teacher unions also place some restrictions on local school boards.
Critiques of Local School Boards: 21st century critiques of local school boards come from both sides. On the one hand, some argue that they are too strong and they impede the implementation of a national curriculum, contribute to inequalities in education, and foster extremism. On the other hand, others argue that the power of school boards have been too curtailed by the growing power of the state and federal governments.

WEEK 3: THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

Part I: John Dewey and the Progressives

Progressive Movement: Group of politicians, scholars, and influential thinkers in the United States at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. The Progressive Movement formed as a response to the rampant corruption in politics and industry.
Mugwumps: Politically active individuals at the end of the 19th century who did not side with either the Republican or Democratic Party.
John Dewey (1859-1952): Psychologist and philosopher who established the fundamental tenants of Progressive education, including the idea that children should be treated as individuals and given an opportunity to learn based on their preferences.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778): French philosopher who influenced John Dewey with his belief that children are best educated when they are allowed to explore the world on their own and choose their interests.

Part II: Removing Politics From Schools

Weakening Patronage: One of the primary political goals of the Progressive movement. School hiring decisions in the 19th century were often based on favoritism. Progressives wanted to establish a specific process through which teachers were hired and paid in order to prevent this.
Professional Autonomy: Another goal of the Progressive movement was to give professionals more power and they hoped to accomplish this by reducing the amount of influence that politics could have on education. They had several strategies for increasing professional autonomy, most of which centered on changing how school boards functioned.

Part III: Shifting Power to the Professionals

Sources of Funding for Education: Prior to the 20th century, local communities paid nearly 80% of the cost of education. As Progressives increased their influence in educational politics, they made a push for the states to fund education more.
Progressive Organizational Reforms: In addition to increasing funding, Progressives had other reforms that they tried to push through the state-level, with the intended goal of standardizing education.

WEEK 4: DESEGREGATION

Part I: Deciding to Desegregate

Equal Protection Clause: Clause of the 14th amendment which states that no state shall deny any individual within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. In other words, laws must apply equally to all individuals.
Plessy v. Ferguson: 1896 Supreme Court case that ruled segregation is constitutional as long as it is “separate but equal.” One sole dissenter, Justice John Harlan, voted against the decision under the logic that “our Constitution is color blind.” This decision was over turned in 1954 by the Brown v. Board of Education case.
Stare decisis: From the Latin phrase stare decisis et non quieta movere, which translates “to stand by decisions and not disturb the undisturbed.” Principal of precedent by which the Supreme Court actively tries to stand by its previously ruled decisions, though this is not a legal requirement.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP): African-American civil rights organization formed in 1909. Campaigned for civil rights and voting right for African-Americans, eventually culminating in legislation that ended desegregation and guaranteed legal equalities for African-Americans.
Harry S. Truman (1884-1972): 33rd president of the U.S., in office 1945 to 1953. First president to openly support civil rights for African-Americans. In 1948, Truman issued an executive order that desegregated the armed forces.
Henry Wallace (1888 – 1965): Vice President from 1941 to 1945. In 1948, Wallace left the Democratic Party and ran for president as a Progressive Party candidate. Strong advocate for civil rights and equality for African-Americans.
Strom Thurmond (1902 – 2003): South Carolina Senator from 1956 to 2003. In 1948, he left the Democratic Party and joined the States Right Democratic Party (also known as the Dixiecrats), a political party that opposed desegregation and pushed for the continuation of laws that prevented African Americans from voting.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969): 34th president of the U.S., in office 1953 to 1961. Followed Truman’s desegregation of the military with an executive order that desegregated the federal government as a whole. Appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court. In 1957, when Arkansas refused to desegregate its schools after Brown v. Board of Education, Eisenhower sent the National Guard in to escort students to school.

Earl Warren (1891 – 1974): Chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. Appointed by Dwight D. Eisenhower. Worked with his fellow justices to get a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education.
Brown v. Board of Education: 1954 Supreme Court decision that determined school segregation is unconstitutional, thus effectively overturning Plessy v. Ferguson. Argument against segeregating schools was based on the psychological damage that segregation does to students by forcing them to attend separate schools.
“deliberate speed”: Mandate from Brown v. Board of Education II (1955), a decision that was supposed to dictate how schools were supposed to desegregate. However, the vagueness of “deliberate speed” allowed schools to avoid the requirements of desegregation, until nearly a decade later, by which time inter-district segregation had replaced within-district segregation.

Part II: Desegregation But Not Integration

De facto segregation: Segregation that occurs because of demographic differences between districts. De facto comes for the Latin meaning “as a matter of fact,” and implies that it is not written into the law. The Supreme Court ruled in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) that schools can be de facto segregated.
De jure segregation: Legally enforced segregation. De jure comes for the Latin meaning “from law.” De jure school segregation was ruled unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968): Influential leader of the Civil Rights movement. Organized bus boycotts to protest segregation in the South throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In 1963, organized the march on Washington D.C. where he gave his famous “I Have a Dream Speech.” Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965. Assassinated by James Earl Ray in 1968.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 – 1973): 36th president of the U.S., in office from 1963 to 1969. Became president when John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November, 1963. Pushed legislation for “The Great Society,” which included increased protections for African-Americans in the form of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Watts Riots: August, 1965 riots that took place in the predominantly African-American neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles. Caused, in part, by hold over resentment over the de facto housing segregation that existed in Los Angeles which prevented African-Americans from moving to the suburubs.
Richard Nixon (1913 - 1994): 37th president of the U.S., in office from 1969 to 1974. Elected in part due to a general conservative backlash against race riots that had been occurring during the second half of the 1960s. Nixon supported slow, continual implementation of desegregation, which may have in part lead to the lack of integration of schools after de jure segregation ended.
George Wallace (1919 – 1998): 3-time governor of Alabama (1963-1967, 1971-1979, and 1983-1987) and independent candidate for president in 1968. Openly defied desegregation, including, in 1963, standing in front of the University of Alabama schoolhouse door as a symbolic gesture protesting integration.
Milliken v. Bradley: 1974 Supreme Court case which upheld the constitutionality of de facto segregation caused by inter-district demographics. School districts are only legally required to have integrated schools within districts.
Warren Burger (1907 – 1995): Supreme Court Chief Justice from 1969 to 1986. Wrote the majority opinion in Milliken v. Bradley which upheld that de facto segregation is legal as long as there was no racist intent behind the drawing of arbitrary lines which create school districts.
Thurgood Marshall (1908 – 1993): Head lawyer who argued for school desegregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Later was appointed as a justice to the Supreme Court (1967 – 1991). Wrote the minority opinion in Milliken v. Bradley (1974), in which he argued that upholding de facto segregation would eventually lead to fully segregated schools in the Detroit area.

Civil Rights Act: 1964 legislation that outlawed discrimination specific to race, religion, sex, or nationality. Passed by Congress and signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson as the culmination of the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Voting Rights Act: 1965 legislation that prohibited voting discrimination. Passed by Congress and signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in order to outlaw the discriminatory laws in the South that had prevented African-Americans from being involved in politics.

Part III: Integration and Student Achievement

Coleman Report: Influential 1966 education report conducted by sociologist James Coleman. One of the first studies that attempted to quantify “school effects.” Found that African-American students benefitted from integrated schools, though the results have been called into question because the study was done less than 15 years after the Brown decision and long-term effects could not be fully studied.

Moving to Opportunity: Experiment conducted by Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1990s that randomly gave some families the opportunity to move from areas of relatively high segregation to more integrated areas. Follow up studies have generally shown small to no gains for students who moved from segregated schools to integrated schools. However, these studies do not give conclusive evidence about the effects of desegregation on school effects, in part because the results cannot be generalized to the whole population.

NAEP Scores for African American Students, Post-Desegregation: From 1970 to about 1990, African-American students in high school should steady progress in math and reading scores. However, beginning in the 1990s, there was a sharp decline followed by a plateau in scores. NAEP test results do not tell us anything about causation, and thus we cannot make a judgment claim that desegregation has failed to produce desirable educational outcomes simply based on this data.

WEEK 5: LEGALIZATION

Part I: Compulsory Education

Compulsory education: Education that is required by law. Massachusetts was the first state in the U.S. to require compulsory education. All 50 states now have their own compulsory education laws that differ on the required age for compulsory education, with the age starting between 5 and 7 and ending between 16 and 18.

Meyer v. Nebraska: 1923 Supreme Court case that ruled it was unconstitutional for states to pass laws that require schools to only teach in English.

Pierce v. The Society of Sisters of Holy Names of Jesus and Mary: 1925 Supreme Court case that ruled it was unconstitutional for states to pass laws banning private schools. While compulsory education laws are constitutional, the Supreme Court ruled that parents are not required to send their children to public schools.

Wisconsin v. Yoder: 1972 Supreme Court case that ruled it was unconstitutional to force parents to send children to school past 8th grade if students aren't being sent to school because of religious reasons. Many proponents of home school use this case as evidence of legal support for homeschooling, though the Supreme Court has never directly ruled on the constitutionality of home schooling.

Part II: Freedom of Speech Rights for Students

In loco parentis: Latin expression meaning “in the place of a parent.” In loco parentis refers to an entity or individual who has equivalent rights towards a minor as parents have towards their children. Prior to Supreme Court rulings in the 20th century, schools existed in loco parentis, which gave them near complete freedom to do what they wish to children.

Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District: 1969 Supreme Court case that ruled students still have their First Amendment freedom of speech rights in school, and thus cannot be punished for expressing an opinion contrary to what the school believes or supports.

Morse v. Frederick: 2007 Supreme Court case that clarified students’ First Amendment freedom of speech rights do not extend to advocating illegal activities, and that schools may punish students appropriately for doing so.

Part III: Due Process Rights for Students

Equal Protection Clause: Clause of the 14th amendment which states that no state shall deny any individual within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. Effectively, laws must apply equally to all individuals.

Due Process Clause: Clause of the 14th amendment which states that no state shall deny any individual of life, liberty, or property without due process of the law. Effectively, an individual cannot be punished by the state without being given the “due process” of the law (including a fair trial).

Goss v. Lopez: 1975 Supreme Court case that ruled it violates a student’s Due Process rights for schools to suspend them without first having a hearing.

New Jersey v. TLO: 1985 Supreme Court case that ruled that the 4th Amendment’s “reasonable search” clause allows schools to search the possession of students suspected of illegal activity.

WEEK 6: COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

Part I: Public Sector Bargaining

Collective Bargaining: Process in which labor negotiation between management and employees are conducted just between the employer and one organization representing employees (typically a union). Any agreements reached during collective bargaining are legally binding.

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933): Governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921. During his tenure as governor, Coolidge responded to a police strike in Boston by firing the entire police force. This response to public sector bargaining contributed to his rise to national prominence, eventually leading to Coolidge becoming the 30th president of the United States (1923-1929).

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945): 32nd president of the United States (1933-1945). Strong advocate of labor, including passing the National Labor Act. However, he did not support the right for public sector employees to unionize or strike.

National Labor Relations Act: Also known as The Wagner Act. 1935 legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Guarantees the rights of private sector workers to unionize and engage in collective bargaining, but does not extend those rights to public sector workers.

Part II: Al Shanker, Teacher Union Leader

Al Shanker (1928-1997): Labor leader and president of the United Federation Teachers, a teachers' union. In 1960, Shanker organized a teachers' strike in New York City that led to the local government agreeing to collectively bargain with teacher unions. This eventually spread across the United States and now it is legal in 45 states for teachers to collectively bargain.

Robert Wagner, Jr. (1910-1991): Mayor of New York City from 1954 to 1965. Son of New York senator Robert Wagner, who was instrumental in passing the National Labor Relations Act. In 1960, Robert Wagner, Jr. agreed to collectively bargain with Al Shanker and the teachers after they went on strike.

Labor-Electoral Complex: Concept that public sector workers have too much influence on local politics because they disproportionately vote in local elections. As a result, the interests of public sector workers, including issues that come up in collective bargaining, may be taken into account by local politicians at the expense of the general public.

Part III: Collective Bargaining Today

Union Shop: Agreement between a union and employer that all employees must be a member of the union. While union shops are often technically illegal, unions can still get agreements from employers during collective bargaining that include mandatory deduction of union fees from an employee’s pay.

Right to Work: State law that prohibit unions and employers from making an agreement during collective bargaining that automatically deducts union fees from an employee’s pay.

Scott Walker (born 1967): Governor of Wisconsin since 2011. In 2011, Walker attempted to pass legislation that would reduce teachers’ pensions and also restrict teacher unions' collective bargaining rights. Resulted in mass protests by teachers, but the legislation eventually passed through Wisconsin’s Republican controlled legislature.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: METHODOLOGY

Part I: What Are Tests and Can We Believe Them?

NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress): National exam started in the 1960s. Tracks the progress of 4th and 8th grade students, and recently, 12th grade. Also known as the “nation’s report card.” Provides data that can be looked at the national level, state level, and by student demographics (gender, race, age, etc…). NAEP is a low-stakes test

PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment): International exam administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Administered every three year to 15-year-olds worldwide. Tests science, math, and reading. Intended to allow for international comparisons in education. PISA is a low-stakes test.

Population: In education statistics, the population is all individuals who fit the parameters of what you wish to study. For example, with NAEP, the population is all students in 4th grade, 8th grade, and 12th grade. With PISA, the population is all 15-year-old students in the countries who are selected to take PISA.

Sample: A selected subsection of a population. All individuals in a sample come from the same population. For example, in NAEP and PISA, the entire population of students of interest do not take the test, but, instead, only a sample is selected.

Randomization: In education statistics, randomization is the process of selecting a sample without any sort of preference towards one characteristic or another. With randomization, all members of a population have an equal opportunity to be chosen for the sample.

Reliability: In educational testing, reliability refers to how consistent a test is. If a test has high reliability, it means that slight variants on the test (e.g. different questions on the same subject) should result in a student still scoring approximately the same.

Validity: In educational testing, a test has validity if its results have correspondence with the real world. For example, a math test having high validity would mean that students who score well on that test would be able do well on math problems in situations outside the test. Note that having high reliability does not mean a test has high validity – students may consistently get the same score (reliability) without the test actually saying anything about the real world (validity).

Low-Stakes Testing: Low-stakes tests are meant to collect data and aggregate it to a higher level in order to monitor educational progress. Individual students, teachers, and schools are not identified with low-stakes tests. The NAEP and PISA are both low-stakes tests.

High-Stakes Testing: High-stakes tests collect data about individual students, teachers, and schools. High-stakes testing is often used as a bench mark to determine a variety of things, including if a student progresses to the next grade, teacher bonuses, and whether or not a school is classified as failing under No Child Left Behind.

Part II: Standard Deviation

Variable: Any characteristic that is not uniform within the entire population that is being studied. Common variables include height, weight, and age. In education testing, a student’s test score is often a variable of interest.

Standard Deviation: A measure of how much variance there is in a variable. Standard deviations effectively show how far away from the average a score is. One advantage of standard deviations is that they are unit-less. Thus, in educational testing, standard deviations allow for comparisons between tests that are not scored on the same scale.

Normal Distribution: The standard deviations of many variables take on the property of a normal distribution. If a variable is normally distributed, then approximately 68% of data points are within 1 standard deviation of the average, 95% of data points are within 2 standard deviations of the average, and over 99% of data points are within 3 standard deviations of the average.

Part III: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies

Observable Variables: A variable that a researcher is able to clearly identify, such as gender, height, or test scores.

Unobservable Variables: A variable that a researcher may not be able to identify either because they do not know to look for the variable or they do not know how to measure it. For example, how much support a parent gives a child on homework might be difficult to quantify. Unobservable variables are sometimes known as confounding variables.

Randomized Experiment: A randomized experiment involves taking a random sample from the population of interesting and assigning half of the population to the test group (see below) and the control group (see below). Randomized experiments are often considered the “gold standard” in research because they have high internal validity (see below). The reason for this is that the test group and control group are expected to be statistically identical in all variables, both observed and unobserved.

Treatment: The treatment is the unique thing that is given to the control group (see below) that is not given to the control group (see below). In experiments, researchers are often interested in what the effect of the treatment is on the sample. For example, educational research, a potential treatment that can be tested in an experiment is the effects of smaller class size.

Control Group: In a randomized experiment, the control group is the group that does not receive the treatment. They are also sometimes known as the counterfactual, since they represent what happens in the absence of treatment.

Test Group: In a randomized experiment, the test group is the group that receives the treatment. The results of the test group are then compared to the control group in order to determine what effect, if any, the treatment had.

Internal Validity: A research study has internal validity if the results can make a claim about cause-and-effect. For example, if we do an experiment with a test group and control group and find that students who were paid money got better grades, we can make the case that paying students cause better grades. Experimental studies are normally the only studies that have internal validity because non-experimental studies have the problem of unobservable possibly being the actual cause of the observed effects.

External Validity: A research study has external validity if its results can be generalized to a whole population. Experimental studies often struggle with external validity because they often only have a small sample.

Quasi-Experiment: Type of experimental study that uses real world datasets to make cause-and-effect statements. Quasi-experiments look for examples of arbitrary cut-off points that differentiate whether or not an individual receives a treatment. For example, if scoring a 90 or better on a certain test awards a student a scholarship, it can be argued that the student who scores an 89 is not statistically different from a student who scores a 90. However, because the student who scored the 90 got the scholarship and the student who scored an 89 did not, we can compare these students in order to determine the effects of the scholarship.

Part IV: Observational Studies

Observational Study: An observational study is a study that looks at real-world events and attempts to determine the effect of a treatment. For example, if a state passes a law that requires smaller class sizes, an observational study might be done to see what effect this law has on educational outcomes. Observational studies lack the internal validity of experimental studies because unobserved characteristics might be the real cause of the observed effects. However, observational studies do have better external validity than experimental studies because they are based on real-world circumstances.

Propensity Score Matching: A propensity score matching study is a type of observational study that tries to “match” an individual who received a real-world treatment with an individual who did not. This is done by figuring out as many observable variables as possible in the treated individuals (such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc…) and then finding an untreated individual with those same variables. However, propensity score matching still has the same problem as other observational studies, namely that unobserved variables might be playing an important factor in the observed effect.

Mini-Course 2

TEACHER RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION

Part I: Recruiting Quality Teachers

Teacher certification: The process of earning credentials to become a teacher. Typically acquired through an official source, such as the government, higher educational institution, or other private sources.

Teaching license: A document that validates the right of an individual to teach students by the authentication of an official certification source. It usually requires 30 credit hours worth of courses in a college or a teacher education program to get a teaching license.

Alternative certification routes: The process of earning credentials to become a teacher outside of traditional teacher certification. Typically acquired at the same time as teaching or during the summer months.

National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE): Founded in 1954, the NCATE was created to accredit teacher certificate programs at U.S. colleges and universities.

Teach for America: A non-profit organization that enlists high-achieving recent college graduates to teach in low-income communities in the U.S. for at least two years. Teach for America grants its teachers an alternative certification.

Part II: Retaining Quality Teachers

Teacher Tenure: A contractual right given to teachers after a certain period of time. This contract instills a teacher with a certain amount of job security, as it typically means that their position cannot be terminated without just cause and/or without following the procedures of dismissal outlined in the tenure agreement. Usually teachers in elementary, middle, and secondary schools are given tenure within three or four years.

Seniority Rights: A product of collective bargaining agreements, similar to the ones that ensure the rights of teacher tenure. Seniority rights means that if a new teaching position becomes available within a school district, the most senior teacher has the first right to claim it. Additionally, in the situations in which a teacher must be dismissed due to budget cuts, seniority rights ensure "last hired, first fired," meaning that senior teachers are the last to be let go.

Rubber Room: A former reassignment center used by the New York City Department of Education. It was allegedly intended to serve as a temporary holding facility for teachers that were accused of misconduct while they were waiting for their official hearings. Instead, it became a method administrators in New York City used to get rid of teachers, while circumventing the process of firing tenured teachers. Oftentimes, teachers were held for long periods of times – some up to three years – without evidence of misconduct, and sometimes, without knowledge of what their misconduct was.

Dance of the Lemons: A term that refers to the administrative practice of reassigning bad teachers to new schools or districts, instead of firing them. Principals often engage in this practice when dealing with teachers who have tenure because they cannot easily dismiss those teachers.

TEACHER COMPENSATION

Part I: Are Teachers Paid Too Little?

Historical trends in teacher salaries: During the course of the 20th century, teacher salaries have gone up. However, the increase in teacher salaries has not kept pace with the increases found in the salaries of other college graduates.

Part II: Are Teachers Paid Too Much?

Relative comparison of teacher salaries: When comparing teacher salaries on a weekly basis (as opposed to an annual basis), teacher salaries compare much better with the professions of other college graduates. This is because teaching is general a 9 or 10 months job, but most other professions are year-round.

Teacher pensions: A pension is a set sum of money paid by a former employer to a retire employee. A teacher's pension is considered one of the benefits of teaching. In many school districts, a teacher's pension is determined by how long they have been teaching in that state, with there being a sharp increase in pension benefits in the latter years of teaching.

Part III: Are Teachers Paid the Wrong Way?

Determinants of teacher salaries: In most school districts, the two factors that determine a teacher's pay are their years of experience and whether or not they have a master's degree. Most research evidence has shown that neither of these factors are associated with better student outcomes.

REFORMING TEACHER PAY

Part I: Alternative Ways to Pay Teachers

Market Pay: Type of pay that sets a salary partially based on the supply and demand function of an employee's skills. Some experts think that using the theories of market pay might be helpful in recruiting teachers to certain hard to fill positions, including certain high school subjects (like math and science) where potential candidates have the opportunity to make more money in non-teaching professions.
Battle Pay: Type of pay that sets a salary partially based on the perceived difficulty of the position. For teachers, battle pay means paying teachers who work in certain circumstances more than other teachers (e.g. paying more for teachers in high poverty schools or special education teachers).
Merit Pay: Type of pay that sets a salary partially based on the effectiveness of the employee. For teachers, merit pay is often associated with setting teacher pay based on a combination of student performance and other evaluations.

Part II: Performance Pay

Arguments against merit pay: There are six key arguments against merit pay, each of which is discussed alongside their counterarguments in the video. They are:

Cheating
Teaching to the test
Many subjects and grades are not evaluated with standardized tests
Reliance on principal evaluations might result in undue favoritism towards certain teachers
There are other factors involved in student outcomes besides a teacher's ability
School cooperation will be undermined by teacher competition

Part III: Performance Pay: Research Evidence

New York City merit pay plan: Implemented between 2007 and 2010, the New York City merit plan provided incentives to all teachers are randomly selected schools. However, in part because of the state's decision to change proficiency levels in the middle of the study, no positive impact on student outcomes was found to be associated with the implementation of the merit pay plan.
Washington D.C. merit pay plan: Implemented between 2010 and 2012, the Washington D.C. merit plan evaluated teachers as either "ineffective," "minimally effective," "effective," or "highly effective" and offered bonuses to "highly effective" teachers while threatening to dismiss "ineffective" and "minimally effective" teachers. Subsequent studies found that teachers who barely missed being classified as "highly effective" and "ineffective" had substantial improvements in the subsequent year.
Illinois merit pay plan: Small-scale experiment performed in Illinois in 2010-2011. Under the theory of "stop loss prevention," a group of teachers were given a bonus up-front, under the condition that it would be taken away if their students did not reach a certain level of performance. This study found that teachers given bonuses this way performed better than teachers who were offered an opportunity to get a traditional bonus or teachers not offered a bonus at all.

CLASS SIZE REDUCTION

Part I: Popular, But Expensive

Class size: The number of students enrolled in any given class.
Student-teacher ratio: The approximate number of students for every 1 teacher. This number is generally lower than the actual class size number because of teachers not being assigned to teach the whole school day and because some classes are significantly smaller than other classes.

Part II: Tennessee Class Size Experiment

Tennessee STAR Study: Four year experiment conducted in Tennessee from 1985 to 1989. Class sizes across Tennessee for randomly selected teachers and students were reduced down to 13-17 students. Later studies showed that there was a big increase in student outcomes between kindergarten and third-grade, but that those outcomes did not persist in later grades or for other life-outcomes (with the exception of African-American students, who were more likely to go to college if they were in smaller classes).
Hawthorne Effect: Theory in psychology which states that individuals perform better when they know they are being observed and then they reduce back down to normal performance levels when they are no longer being observed.

Part III: Large-Scale Class Size Reduction

Connecticut Class Size Reduction Study: Quasi-experimental study done by Caroline Hoxby which looked at smaller classes in Connecticut during the 1970s and 1980s. Found no effect of class-size reduction on student outcomes.
Florida Class Size Reduction Study: Observational study done by Matthew Chingos which looked at smaller classes in Florida after the passing of the passage of a 2002 amendment to the Florida constitution which required classes to be no larger than 24 students. Found that class-size reduction was no more effective at increasing student outcomes than other ways that the money could have been spent.
International Class Size Reduction Study: Observational study done by Martin West and Ludger Woessmann. Found that smaller classes only seemed to be correlated with better student outcomes in situations where teachers were believed to be of lower quality.

EQUITY AND ADEQUACY

Part I: Equity Law Suits

Equity cases: Lawsuit brought when the plaintiff believes that there is unequal spending on education between school districts within a state. The basis for these lawsuits is typically the Equal Protection Clause (14th Amendment) that is found in the U.S. Constitution and also most states' constitutions.
Serrano v. Priest I: 1971 California Supreme Court case that ruled unequal spending between districts violated both the California and the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez: 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled that states were not required to have equal spending between school districts. While this was effectively the opposite of the Serrano decision, the California Supreme Court continued to uphold Serrano because they claimed that the California Constitution's Equal Protection Clause was different from the U.S. Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

Part II: Adequacy Law Suits

Adequacy case: Lawsuit brought against a district or state if the plaintiff believes spending on education is not sufficient. Unlike an equity case, an adequacy case is not arguing that spending is unequal between districts, but that spending within a district or state is not enough. The constitutional basis for adequacy lawsuits are less clear than equity lawsuits; generally, the plaintiffs attempt to interpret a relatively vague clause of a state constitution as requiring adequate spending.

Part III: Baumol's Theory of Rising Costs

Baumol's Theory: Also known as "The Iron Law of Increasing Costs" or "Baumol's Cost Disease." Developed by the economist William Baumol (born 1922). When applied to education, it says that the cost of education will keep rising, but that there will not be an increase in productivity (e.g. student outcomes). The reason for this is because other professions can see gains in productivity, but education is a field which traditionally has not seen gains in productivity over time. Thus, the salaries of those professions that are becoming more productive will cause the salaries of teachers to go up, even though education itself has not become more productive.

Mini-Course 3

FEDERAL ROLE

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF): Non-profit organization founded in San Antonio in 1968. Focused on an agenda of getting bilingual education supported in public school classrooms. Brought several suits to federal courts, with their arguments in favor of bilingual education based on the 1965 Civil Rights Acts.
Lau v. Nichols: 1974 Supreme Court case. The plaintiffs was a Chinese-American student who argued that she was not receiving a sufficient education because English was not her native language and all her classes were taught only in English, without any additional consideration being given to her language. The Supreme Court ruled on the side of the plaintiffs, but the Court did not go as far as to mandate bilingual education.
Proposition 227: 1998 ballot proposition that banned bilingual education in California; passed with over 60% of the vote. This was supported by the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2001, which mandated that all testing be only done in English. Neither Proposition 227 nor NCLB is considered in violation of Lau v. Nichols because non-native English speaking students are expected to receive additional help beyond standard instruction in the classroom.

SCHOOL ACCOUNTABILITY

Part I: A Nation At Risk

U.S. Department of Education: Cabinet-level department signed into law by President Jimmy Carter (born 1924, in office 1977 to 1981) in 1979. Replaced the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (which also was absorbed into the Department of Health and Human Services). Meant to expand the role of the federal government in education.
A Nation at Risk: 1983 report from the National Commission on Excellence in Education, led by the Secretary of Education Terrel Bell (1921-1996, in office 1981-1985). The Commission was originally formed by Bell because President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004, in office 1981-1989) wanted to de-emphasize the Deparment of Education and the role of the Secretary of Education. A Nation at Risk outlined the "rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people."
William Bennett (born 1943): U.S. Secetrary of Education from 1985 to 1988; previously had served as the chariman of the National Humanities Center from 1981 to 1985. Pushed an emphasis on the "three C's" of education: content, character, and choice. Established the initial framework for school accountability.

Part II: No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

No Child Left Behind (NCLB): 2002 re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Proposed and signed into law by President George W. Bush (born 1946, in office 2001-2009) and passed with bi-partisan support (and compromise) in Congress. Required all schools that wanted to receive federal funding to administer standardized tests, annually, to all students and it also required schools that repeatedly scored poorly to improve or face consequences.
Effects of No Child Left Behind (NCLB): Student outcomes -- as measured on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) -- appeared to modestly go up after the passage of NCLB (about 8% of a standard deviation 8 years after the passing of NCLB). The biggest gains were in elementary school, low-income schools, and for minority students.

Part III: Implementation of NCLB

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP): Benchmark of student performance set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The expectation was that all schools would eventually reach 100% proficiency by 2014. The main problems with AYP is that it only measured absolute progress, as opposed to relative progress (and thus was inherently more difficult for schools that were starting from a lower-level of performance) and proficency-levels were sets by each individual state, and thus the states were incentivized to set their definition of proficiency at a low-level.
Penalties and Punishments for Failing Schools: As part of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools were punished for failing to meet adequate yearly progress (AYP). In theory, the punishments ranged from students being allowed to another school in the district (if the school the student had been attending had failed two years in a row) to the school being reconstituted as a charter school (if the school failed five years in a row). In reality, the primary action was replacing principal or no acton at all was taken.

WEEK 3: NATIONAL STANDARDS AND COMMON CORE

Part I: From NCLB to Common Core

Curricular Standards: A set of materials that is a student is expected to learn by the time they finish a grade.
Proficiency Standards: Level of a student with regards to curricular standards. There can be different levels of "proficiency" based on one set of curricular standards.
Common Core State Standards Initiative: Established in 2009, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, several states, and teacher unions. Common Core is a set of both curricular standards and proficiency standards that is meant to serve as a set of single national standards. As of 2014, 46 states and Washington D.C. have decided to use Common Core standards, though there is still much debate about the Common Core, with many states considering legislation that would repeal Common Core.
Race for the Top (RttT): An approximately $5 billion fund provided by the Obama administration as part of a competition between the states to improve education. In an attempt to win some of the RttT money, many states adopted Common Core standards.
Waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB): As a way to incentivize states to adopt Common Core standards, the Obama administration offered states a waiver from the requirement to comply with No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

WEEK 4: STUDENT ACCOUNTABILITY

Part I: Coleman's High School Theory

James Coleman (1926-1995): Sociologist based at the University of Chicago for most of his career. His Coleman Report (1966) provided one of the first comprehensive overviews of U.S. education. He had many influential theories about student behavior that continue to important in the field of educational research.
Manifest Function: Theory developed by James Coleman, alongside the latent function. The manifest function refers to an organization's explicit function. In the case of schools, the manifest function is to educate students.
Latent Function: Theory developed by James Coleman, alongside the manifest function. The latent function, in contrast to the manifest function, is the implicit purpose function of an organization. In the case of schools, the latent function is for students to learn to socialize with one another. Often (as is the case with schools), an organization's manifest function is in conflict with its latent function.

Part II: Political Bargains and the "Acting White" Debate

Political bargain in the classroom: Theory adopted from the work of James Coleman. In essence, the political bargain in the classroom is that teachers implicitly agree with students to not challenge students too much as long as the students implicitly agree not to act difficulty in the classroom.
"Acting White": Theory of minority student behavior, adopted from the work of James Coleman. The "acting white" theory is that students from minority communities feel an especially high amount of pressure from their peers to not get high grades in school.

Part III: Centralized End-of-Course Exams

Centralized End-of-Course Exam: Test given at the end of a semester of year's worth of content that a student must pass to move on to the next grade or graduate. While most states in the U.S. do not have centralized end-of-course exams, most countries in Europe and Asia do have these exams as a way to shift accountability away from the teachers and schools and directly onto the students themselves.

Mini-Course 4

Week 1: School Choice Theory

Part I: Three Theories of School Choice

Milton Friedman (1912-2006): University of Chicago economist and winner of the Nobel Prize (1976) in Economics. Ideologically opposed to the Keynesian School of Economics; Friedman believed that government intervention in free markets should be as limited as possible. Friedman created the Market Theory of school choice (see below) and he and his wife, Rose, established the Freidman Foundation for Educational Choice.
Market Theory of School Choice: Theory that school choice is beneficial because it will create a system of competition between private schools and public schools. This competition will improve both types of schools, while also giving parents a variety of viable choices of where to send their children to school.
Political Theory of School Choice: Theory that school choice is beneficial because public schools are limited by bureaucratic regulations. Thus, increasing school choice would increase the number of private schools that are not constrained by government rules and regulations.
Social Capital Theory of School Choice: Theory that school choice is beneficial because private schools foster a stronger sense of community (both amongst parents and students) than public schools. James Coleman was a strong proponent of the Social Capital Theory of school choice.

Part II: Constitutional Questions

Committee For Public Education v. Nyquist: 1972 Supreme Court case. The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for state governments to give money to parents for the purpose of sending their children to private, religious schools.
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris: 2002 Supreme Court case. The Court ruled that a voucher program in Cleveland which gave money to parents for the purpose of sending students to private, religious school was constitutional. While ths decision did not specifically overturn the Nyquist decision, it was effectively a contrary decision.
Baby Blaine Amendments: State constitutional amendments modeled after a failed U.S. Constitution amendment proposed by Senator James Blaine (1830-1893). Baby Blaine amendments forbid the states with those amendments from giving money to religious institutions, including in the form of vouchers for private, religious schools. The motivation behind Baby Blaine amendments was anti-Catholic sentiment that was prevalent in U.S. politics in the 19th century.
Unified School Provision: Clauses found in many state constitutions that established a uniformed system of public schools within those states. These provisions have been interpreted by many judges as basis by which to declare vouchers unconstitutional.

Part III: Choice Critiques

Three Major Criticisms of School Choice: The three major criticisms of school choice are that choice promotes intolerance, choice promotes school segregation, and that parents do not necessarily choose schools based on academic quality.
Residential School Choice: School choice that is based on where a family lives; if the family wants their children to attend a different school, then they need to move. In the U.S., residential school choice is the primary form of school choice available to parents.

Week 2: Vouchers

Part I: School Voucher Programs

Direct Voucher Program: Money that is given directly to a family, which then can use that money to attend a private school.
Tax Credit Voucher Program: Organization that individuals can donate money, and, in turn, those individuals receive a tax credit. The organization than distributes the money in the form of private school scholarships.
Milwaukee Voucher Program: Also known as the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program. Established in 1997 with joint support from then-Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson and African-American community organizers. The program gives vouchers to low-income families to send their children to private schools. As of 2014, approximately 25,000 students are enrolled in the Milwaukee Voucher Program.

Part II: Effect of Vouchers on Students

Washington D.C. Voucher Study: Study of a 2004 voucher program that gave 2,000 students scholarships to attend private schools. Because the program had more applicants than positions, a lottery was used to determine which students would get a voucher. The study found that lottery winners did slightly better in reading, there was no difference in math, and the strongest finding is that they were 20% more likely to graduate from high school.
Milwaukee Voucher Study: Observational study of the on-going voucher program in Milwaukee. Results seem to indicate that students who attend private school with a voucher do slightly better in math, that there is no difference in reading, and the strongest finding is that voucher users are much more likely to go to college.
New York City Voucher Study: Long-term study of a 1998 privately-funded voucher program in New York City. Results show stronger long-term benefits (including high school and college graduation rates) than short-term benefits, especially for minority students.

Part III: Consequences for Public Schools

Discouragement Theory: Theory that postulates that an increase in school choice would "discourage" public schools by taking the best students and resources from public schools. This stands in contrast to Milton Friedman's Market Theory of school choice, which postulates that public schools will increase in quality when faced with increased competition from private schools.

Week 3: Charters

Part I: Charter School Theory

Charter School: A publicly-funded, privately-managed school that has been authorized by a governmental-approved organization. Charter schools generally must allow for all students within a certain area to have an equal chance of entrance (and they subsequently use a lottery to admit students if they have more applicants than spaces). Charter schools cannot teach religion.
Experimentation Theory of Charter Schools: Theory that the inherent freedom and flexibility of charter schools would allow them to experiment with new innovations in education, which can then spread to other schools. This stands alongside Milton Friedman's Market Theory (or Competition Theory), which justifies charter schools as being important because they provide needed competition to incentivize all schools to improve.
Authorization of Charter Schools: Authorization for charter schools varies on a state-by-state basis. Some states have a state-level authorizes, some states are at a local/city-level (such as having the mayor's office be an authorizer), and some states have universities serve as authorizers.

Part II: Charter School Practice

Moms and Pops Charter School: Charter school that is independently ran by a single individual or group. Moms and pops charter schools come in a large variety, with there being a huge difference in their educational philosophies and approaches. Moms and pops charter schools embody the "experimentation theory" of charter schools.
Educational Management Organization (EMO): For-profit company that manages several different charter schools.
Charter Management Organization (CMO): Non-profit organization that manages several different charter schools. CMOs that use the "No Excuses" model -- including the Knowledge is People Program (KIPP) schools -- have generally been the most successful in spreading and raising charitable donations.

Part III: Are Charters Effective?

Center for Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO): Organization based out of Stanford that publishes an annual charter school effectiveness report. CREDO studies have found that charter schools generally perform at the same level as public schools, but that they are improving on a year-to-year basis, as well as there being a large variation in charter schools.
New York City Study: 2008 study that looked at charter schools in New York City which used lotteries to admit students, and thus could be looked at using an experimental design. The study found, overall, that charter schools performed better than traditional public schools.
Massachusetts Charter School Study: 2013 study that compared charter schools in urban areas (Boston) to charter schools in non-urban areas of Massachusetts. Found that charter schools in Boston were associated with strong, positive gains in students while charter schools in non-urban areas showed generally negative student outcomes.

Week 4: Digital Learning

Part I: The Promise

Co-production: The process of replacing paid labor with unpaid labor. Examples in industry include banks using ATMs and grocery stores using self-checkout lines. Co-production in education is extensive, as can be seen with parents helping their children and even students helping themselves (which digital learning is meant to optimize).
Florida Virtual School: Statewide, public provider of online classes. Established in 1997, the motto of Florida Virtual School is "any time, any place, any path, any pace." Florida Virtual School offers students the opportunity to take any or all of their traditional classes online, at a cost to tax payers that is less than the cost of the traditional classroom (on a per class basis).
Disruptive Innovation: An innovation or change that completely changes an already existing market. For example, the development of the transistor radically changed the radio industry. Many think that the development of digital learning might fundamentally change how education is offered.
Blended Classroom: Any classroom that incorporates technology to some degree, while still retaining some aspect of the traditional classroom. This may include splitting classtime between students working on a computer and a traditional lecture, students rotating between different settings, and a flipped classroom (see below).
Flipped Classroom: Classroom set up in which a student watches video lectures or other content before coming to class and then class time is used for working on assignments, group work, or other activities besides the teacher lecturing.
Price Point: Concept from industry that involves trying to determine the ideal product at the ideal price for a customer. When applied to education, there is the expectation that digital learning will allow students to "learn at the price point" by customizing and fitting their educational experience specific to an individual student's needs.
Three-Dimensional Learning: Opportunity provided by digital learning that allows for students to participate in activities that would otherwise be too costly or inefficient to do in real life. This includes low-cost, simulated dissections of humans and animals.
Partially Interactive Learning: Aspect of digital learning that goes beyond students individually working on material. This includes students interacting with one another on discussion boards or collaborating together on projects.

Part II: The Pitfalls

Obstacles for Digital Learning: The six main obstacles to widespread adoption of digital learning are seat time requirements (see below), fiscal rules, regulation of competition, the unclear role of local, state, and federal government, school district and teacher union opposition, and the digital divide (see below).
Seat Time Requirements: Requirement that students complete a certain amount of time in a class (typically a semester or academic year) before moving on to the next level. This presents a challenge to the widescale adoption of digital learning because one of the advantages of digital learning is that it would allow students to learn at their own pace.
Digital Divide: Theory that the first adopters of digital learning will be students from advantaged backgrounds, which will further increase the learning gap between students from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds. The counterpoint to this is that most technology in the past (such as cars, airplanes, and cellphone) were first used by the advantaged, but their benefits eventually reached the mainstream.

HarvardX: 1368.4x Saving Schools Mini-Course 4: School Choice