Version 1.1 UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Department of Public Policy PP225: Education Policy and Educational Inequality, Fall 2014

Instructor: Prof. Meredith Phillips 6323 Public Policy Building 310-794-5475 [email protected]

Office Hours: Mondays, 12:00-3:00 p.m., Public Affairs 6323 (Sign up on office door.)

Class Meetings: Wednesdays, 2:00-4:50 p.m., Public Affairs 4357

Description: This class provides a broad survey of the literature on social class and ethnic disparities in academic success and the policies that might help reduce those disparities. Although we will focus on the U.S. educational system, you are welcome to write your final paper on a policy or policies that might improve educational outcomes for “disadvantaged” students abroad. Likewise, although we will focus on the pre-K through twelfth grade years (we simply do not have enough time to cover higher education, too), you are welcome to write your final paper on a policy or policies that might improve low-income students’ access to, or academic success in, college.

Format: Class periods consist of a mix of lecture, discussion, and student presentations.

Purpose: The course has three goals: 1. To introduce you to the major arguments for and against a number of education policies; 2. To help you learn how to evaluate the logic and evidence behind various policies; and 3. To help you learn to develop evidence-based, persuasive arguments.

Prerequisites: In order to understand and evaluate the evidence in some of the lectures and readings, you will need to have a conceptual understanding of regression analysis and be able to interpret regression tables. An understanding of research design and causal inference will also be very helpful for understanding the readings and producing a high quality final paper.

Expectations: This course requires a lot of reading, research, and careful writing. You should only take this course if you are certain that you can devote enough time to it.

Grades: Even though this is a graduate-level class, I only give “A’s” for excellent work. Generally, a “B+” indicates good understanding of all course material. A “B-” or below indicates that you have not mastered a considerable portion of the course material.

Materials: You will need to buy the following books:

Goodnough, Abby. 2006. Ms. Moffett’s First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America. New York: Public Affairs. Mathews, Jay. 2009. Work Hard. Be Nice. How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin.

1 Version 1.1 Tough, Paul. 2008. Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Requirements: Mini-papers: Because the quality of class discussion depends so heavily on all students’ preparation, I require three short papers about the main readings (I assign five and you can choose which two not to write, but you must write #5).

By 2 pm on the Tuesday before class you must e-mail me a pdf containing your response to the readings ([email protected]). In the subject line, write: EdPol—Mini-Paper #X--Your Last Name.

These papers should not exceed 3 pages double spaced (1 inch margins on all sides, 12 point Arial font, pages numbered). If you turn in a longer paper, I will not read it. I will not accept late papers. I expect clear, succinct, logically-organized, grammatically-correct, jargon-free, typo-free papers. If I correct your spelling, grammar, or sentence structure in one paper, I expect that future papers will not repeat the same errors. Taken together, the mini-papers will count for 21% of your grade. (The specific writing prompts for the mini-papers appear in the syllabus under the date they are due.)

Taskforce Recommendations: Students will participate in research-based group exercises that will culminate in in-class presentations. The taskforce projects have three purposes: 1) to allow you to focus on currently hot topics in the Los Angeles Unified School District; 2) to further develop your research and persuasive presentation skills; and 3) to give you experience responding to the type of quick-turn-around project you are likely to encounter in the education policy world. I will randomly assign you to groups and pass out instructions for the projects a week before they are due. The project counts for 15% of your grade.

Discussion Leadership: Each student is responsible for leading the discussion of one of the “discussion” papers. During the second class period, students will draw chits to determine the order of paper selection (lowest number chooses first). Once two papers are chosen for a given week, students may only select papers from other weeks (depending on class size, students may double or triple up on papers). All students are expected to read the selected discussion papers but discussion leaders are responsible for reading them deeply and critically. Aim for your description and critique of the paper to last about 10 minutes. Discussion leadership counts for 10% of your grade.

When it’s your turn to discuss a paper, please bring in a short FAQ, with enough copies for all, that responds to the following questions: 1. What’s the main question/issue/hypothesis that the author(s) wanted to address? 2. Why is that question interesting or important? 3. What data does the author use? Please describe the source of the data (i.e., what state, school district do the data come from?), the level of the data (i.e., are the data from individual students, schools, school districts?), how the data were gathered (random sampling, convenience sampling?), the time frame covered by the data (what years do the data cover?), whether the data are longitudinal or cross-sectional, and the concepts measured by the data. 4. What type of analysis does the author use? (Explain the analysis as intuitively and clearly as possible.) 2 Version 1.1 5. What does the author find? 6. What does the author conclude? Then offer a critique of the paper (your answers to these needn’t be included in your FAQ): 1. Are you convinced by the author’s findings/arguments? Why or why not? (Keep in mind that you may be convinced by some of the results but not others.) 2. In what ways, if at all, should these results influence policy discussions? 3. What crucial unanswered questions did the research raise?

Class participation: Class attendance is required. During class, we will discuss the arguments and evidence presented in the readings. I expect you to come to class having done the readings, even if you chose not to write the mini-paper about those readings that week. Try to listen well to others, offer persuasive arguments, provide evidence from the readings, and set insightful directions for discussion. Do not make comments that are vague, repetitive, or irrelevant. Class attendance and quality participation count for 10% of your grade.

Policy Presentation: You will present a first draft of your policy proposal (see below) to your classmates for discussion and critique. You will have X minutes to present, followed by Y minutes for questions/critiques, with X and Y determined once the class size is known. Your presentation will be judged based on persuasiveness, clarity, and organization, and will count for 10% of your grade.

Policy Proposal: Your final assignment will consist of a 15-25 page policy discussion paper (1” margins on all sides; body must be double-spaced, 12 point Arial font; footnotes may be single- spaced, 10 point Arial font) advocating for a program, intervention, or policy that will improve academic success or narrow the gap in academic success.

Your paper must contain: 1. An accurate and accessible description of the problem you are trying to solve; 2. Detailed and well-footnoted references to high-quality research that supports your idea; 3. A detailed description of how much your proposed policy would improve the academic outcome you aim to improve (or how much it would narrow disparities in that outcome); 4. A realistic estimate of how much your proposed policy would cost per child; 5. A description of how you would implement your policy; and 6. An assessment of the barriers to your policy’s adoption, implementation, and scaling.

I expect clear, succinct, logically-organized, grammatically-correct, jargon-free, typo-free papers. Other things equal, shorter papers will receive higher grades than longer papers. The policy proposal counts for 34% of your grade. For a model of such a paper, see the Ludwig/Sawhill reading assigned for week 7.

Academic Dishonesty: I assume students will hold themselves to high standards of academic honesty in this class (and always). When you use other people’s ideas, data, or words in your papers or projects, I expect you to cite them appropriately. If you have any questions about whether your citations are sufficiently detailed, please do not hesitate to ask. I expect you to turn in original work for this class. If you would like to turn in a final paper that bears any resemblance to one you have written (or plan to write) for another class, you must clear it with me first. Please familiarize yourself with UCLA’s rules on academic conduct (http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/integrity.html) because I will not hesitate to enforce those rules. 3 Version 1.1

COURSE SCHEDULE: Note: * means that the article will be available electronically on the course website; ** means that you will have to obtain the article from the library or another source; # denotes a “discussion” article (analyze it carefully if it’s your turn to lead discussion).

Week 1—Wednesday, October 8, 2014: Course Description; Introductions

Week 2— Wednesday, October 15, 2014: What Will Close the Gap? More Equality in Children’s Schools? More Equality in Children’s Out-of-School Environments? & an Introduction to causal evidence in education

Agenda: Lecture; Discussion; Discussion Paper Assignments

Read for today: *Thernstrom. Spring 2004. “No Excuses: Closing America’s Racial Gap in Learning.” American Experiment Quarterly.

*Thernstrom. November 13, 2003. “Education’s Division Problem: Schools are Responsible for the Main Source of Racial Inequality Today.” Los Angeles Times, Commentary.

*Rothstein. 2013. “Why Children from Lower Socioeconomic Classes, on Average, Have Lower Academic Achievement Than Middle-Class Children.” In Carter and Welner (Eds.), Closing the Opportunity Gap: What America Must Do to Give Every Child an Even Chance.

*“Poor Schools or Poor Kids? Winter 2010. To Some, Fixing Education Means Taking on Poverty and Health Care.” Education Next.

*Education Equality Project Principles (Education Equality Project has been subsumed into Stand for Children - http://standleadershipcenter.org/what-we-stand)

*Bold_approach_full_statement (www.boldapproach.org)

*What Works Clearinghouse Procedures and Standards Handbook (3.0)

Due Tuesday before today: Mini-paper #1 Prompt for mini-paper #1: Based on today’s readings, make a strong case for a realistic policy/set of policies that would substantially reduce achievement disparities or improve poor children’s academic performance.

Additional assignment: Brainstorm a list of possible topics for your policy paper

Week 3— Wednesday, October 22, 2014: Will Market Solutions Improve Our Schools?

Agenda: Lecture; Discussion

Read for today:

4 Version 1.1 Mathews, Jay. 2009. Work Hard. Be Nice. How Two Inspired Teachers Created the Most Promising Schools in America. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin. *Angrist, Joshua, Susan Dynarski, Thomas Kane, Parag Pathak, Christopher Walters. 2012. Who Benefits from Kipp? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 31(4): 837-60.

*CREDO. 2009. Multiple Choice: Charter School Performance in 16 States. Center for Research on Education Outcomes, Stanford University. http://credo.stanford.edu.

*Rouse, Cecilia Elena and Lisa Barrow. 2009. School Vouchers and Student Achievement: Recent Evidence, Remaining Questions. Annual Review of Economics.

*Feldman, Jill, Juanita Lucas-McLean, Babette Gutmann, Mark Dynarski, and Julian Betts. 2014. Evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program: An Early Look at Applicants and Participating Schools under the SOAR Act (NCEE2015-4000). Washington, D.C.: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

*Deming, David, Justine Hastings, Thomas Kane, and Douglas Staiger. 2014. School Choice, School Quality, and Postsecondary Attainment. American Economic Review, 104(3), 991-1013.

For discussion leaders:

*#Angrist, Joshua, Sarah Cohodes, Susan Dynarski, Parag Pathak, and Christopher Walters. 2013. Stand and Deliver: Effects of Boston’s Charter High Schools on College Preparation, Entry, and Choice. NBER Working Paper 19275.

*#Dobbie, Will and Roland Fryer. 2011. Are High-Quality Schools Enough to Increase Achievement Among the Poor? Evidence from the Harlem Children’s Zone. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 3(3): 158-187.

*#Lauen, Douglas Lee. 2009. To Choose or not to Choose: High School Choice and Graduation in Chicago. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 31:179-99.

Due Tuesday before today: Mini-paper #2 Prompt for mini-paper #2: Given what you read for today, do you think we should expand schooling options? If so, why and what form should they take? If not, why not?

Week 4— Wednesday, October 29, 2014: Will Greater Accountability or School Reform Improve Achievement?

Agenda: Lecture; Discussion

Read for today:

* Aviv, Rachel. July 21, 2014. Wrong Answer. The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/wrong-answer

5 Version 1.1 *Rouse, Cecilia Elena, Jane Hannaway, Dan Goldhaber, and David Figlio. 2013. “Feeling the Florida Heat: How Low-Performing Schools Respond to Voucher and Accountability Pressure.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 5: 251-81.

*Deming, David, Sarah Cohodes, Jennifer Jennings, Christopher Jencks. 2013. “School Accountability, Postsecondary Attainment and Earnings.” NBER Working Paper 19444.

*Reardon, Sean, et al. 2013. Left Behind? The Effect of No Child Left Behind on Academic Achievement Gaps. Working Paper.

*Fryer, Roland. 2014. Injecting Charter School Best Practices into Traditional Public Schools: Evidence from Field Experiments. Quarterly Journal of Economics.

*Dynarksi, Susan et al. 2013. “Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Childhood Investments on Postsecondary Attainment and Degree Completion.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 32: 692-717.

*Whitehurst, Grover J. and Matthew M. Chingos. 2011. Class Size: What Research Says and What it Means for State Policy. Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings.

*Kahne, Joseph E., Susan E. Sporte, Marisa de la Torre, and John Q. Easton. 2008. “Small High Schools on a Larger Scale: The Impact of School Conversions in Chicago.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 30: 281-315.

*Bloom, Howard S. and Rebecca Unterman. 2013. Sustained Progress: New Findings about the Effectiveness and Operation of Small Public High Schools of Choice in New York City. New York: MDRC and Bloom, Howard S., Saskia Levy Thompson, and Rebecca Unterman. 2010. Transforming the High School Experience: How New York City’s New Small Schools Are Boosting Student Achievement and Graduation Rates. New York: MDRC.

For discussion leaders:

*# Papay, Murnane, Willett. 2010. The Consequences of High School Exit Examinations for Low-Performing Urban Students: Evidence from Massachusetts. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

*#Lauen, Douglas Lee and Michael Gaddis. 2012. Shining a Light or Fumbling in the Dark? The Effects of NCLB’s Subgroup-Specific Accountability on Student Achievement. Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 185-208.

*#Carlson, Deven, Geoffrey D. Borman, and Michelle Robinson. 2011. “A Multistate District- Level Cluster Randomized Trial of the Impact of Data-Driven Reform on Reading and Mathematics Achievement.” Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 33: 378-398.

*#Borman, Geoffrey D., Robert E. Slavin, Alan C.K. Cheung, Anne M. Chamberlain, Nancy A. Madden, Bette Chambers. 2007. “Final Reading Outcomes of the National Randomized Field Trial of Success for All.” American Educational Research Journal 44: 701-731.

6 Version 1.1 *#Machin, Stephen and Sandra McNally. 2008. “The Literacy Hour.” Journal of Public Economics 92: 1441-1462.

*#Kraft, Matthew and Shaun M. Dougherty. 2013. The Effect of Teacher-Family Communication on Student Engagement: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 6(3): 199-222.

*#*Fryer, Roland. 2011. “Financial Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from Randomized Trials.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4): 1755-1798.

Due Tuesday before today: Mini-paper #3 Prompt for mini-paper #3: Whom should we hold accountable for student learning? How should we do it?

Due today: Paragraph-length proposal for final paper topic.

Week 5— Wednesday, November 5, 2014: How Can We Improve Instructional Quality?

Agenda: Lecture; Discussion; Taskforce Assignments

Read for today:

Goodnough, Abby. 2006. Ms. Moffett’s First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America. New York: Public Affairs. *Green, Elizabeth. 2010. Building a Better Teacher, New York Times. *Familiarize yourself with the research reports (and pdf book) on the Measuring Effective Teaching (MET) Project website: http://www.metproject.org/resources.php *Harris, Douglas and Heather Hill. 2009. “Point/Counterpoint on Value Added.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Volume 28, Issue 4. Great additional resource on value added: http://www.carnegieknowledgenetwork.org/knowledge-briefs/

*Chetty, Raj, John Friedman, and Jonah Rockhoff. 2014. “Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood.” American Economic Review, 104(9): 2633-79.

*Clark, Melissa et al. 2013. NCEE Evaluation Brief: Addressing Teacher Shortages in Disadvantaged Schools: Lessons from Two Institute of Education Sciences Studies. Institute of Education Sciences. (For full report, see “The Effectiveness of Secondary Math Teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows Programs.”)

*Dee, Thomas and James Wyckoff. 2013. Incentives, Selective, and Teacher Performance: Evidence from Impact. NBER Working Paper 19529.

7 Version 1.1 For discussion leaders:

*#Johnson, Susan, Matthew A. Kraft, and John P. Papay.2012. How Context Matters in High- Need Schools: The Effects of Teachers’ Working Conditions on Their Professional Satisfaction and Their Students’ Achievement. Teachers College Record, 114: 1-39

*#Donaldson, Morgaen and Susan Moore Johnson. 2010. “The Price of Misassignment: The Role of Teaching Assignments in Teach for America Teachers’ Exit From Low-Income Schools and the Teaching Profession. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 299-323.

*#Atteberry, Allison, Susanna Loeb, and James Wyckoff. 2013. “Do First Impressions Matter? Improvement in Early Career Teacher Effectiveness.” NBER Working Paper 19096.

*#Rockhoff, Jonah, Brian Jacob, Thomas Kane, Douglas Staiger. 2011. “Can You Recognize An Effective Teacher When You Recruit One?” Education Finance and Policy.

*#Boyd, Don, Hamp Lankford, Susanna Loeb, Matthew Ronfeldt, and Jim Wyckoff. 2010. “The Role of Teacher Quality in Retention and Hiring: Using Applications to Transfer to Uncover Preferences of Teachers and Schools.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 88-110.

*#Chetty, Raj et al. 2011. How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126: 1593-1660. AND Chetty et al. 2010. 320,000 Kindergarten Teachers, Kappan, 92 (3): 22-25.

Due Tuesday before today: Mini-paper #4. Prompt for mini-paper #4: What did you learn from Ms. Moffett and the other readings that policy makers need to know?

Week 6— Wednesday, November 12, 2014: Taskforce Recommendations

Week 7— Wednesday, November 19, 2014: Will Parenting Programs, Pre-School Reforms, Supplemental Programs, or Neighborhood Reforms Narrow the Gap?

Agenda: Lecture; Discussion

Read for today: Tough, Paul. 2008. Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

*Whitehurst and Croft. 2010. “The Harlem Children’s Zone, Promise Neighborhoods, and the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. “ Brown Center of Education Policy, Brookings. (See, also, the follow up blog: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2010/07/28-hcz- whitehurst)

*Hart, Betty and Todd R. Risley. 2003. “The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3.” American Educator.

*Ludwig, Jens and Isabel Sawhill. 2007. “Success by Ten: Intervening Early, Often, and Effectively in the Education of Young Children.” Hamilton Project Discussion Paper, Brookings. 8 Version 1.1

*Waldfogel, Jane. 2012. The Role of Out-of-School Factors in the Literacy Problem. The Future of Children, 22(2): 39-54.

*U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (January 2010). Head Start Impact Study. Final Report. Washington, DC.

*Wong, Vivian C., Thomas D. Cook, W. Steven Barnett, and Kwanghee Jung. 2008. “An Effectiveness-Based Evaluation of Five State Pre-Kindergarten Programs.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 27: 122–154.

*Kim, James S and David M Quinn. 2013. “The Effects of Summer Reading on Low-Income Children’s Literacy Achievement From Kindergarten to Grade 8: A Meta-Analysis of Classroom and Home Interventions.” Review of Educational Research, 83: 386-431.

Due Tuesday before today: Mini-paper #5. Prompt for mini-paper #5: Critique the Ludwig/Sawhill proposal.

For discussion leaders:

*#Cook, Philip et al. 2014. The (Surprising) Efficacy of Academic and Behavioral Intervention with Disadvantaged Youth: Results from a Randomized Experiment in Chicago. NBER Working Paper 19862.

*#Deming, David. 2009. “Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 1: 111-34.

*#Weiland, Christine and Hirokazu Yoshikawa. 2013. Impacts of a Prekindergarten Program on Children’s Mathematics, Language, Literacy, Executive Function, and Emotional Skills. Child Development, 84(6): 2112-2130.

Week 8— Wednesday, November 26, 2014: Class cancelled because of Thanksgiving Agenda: Work on your policy proposal

Week 9-- Wednesday, December 3, 2014: Policy Proposal Presentation and Critique Agenda: First set of presentations, with assigned critique and class discussion

Week 10— Wednesday, December 10, 2014: Policy Proposal Presentation and Critique Agenda: Second set of presentations, with assigned critique and class discussion

Tuesday, December 16, 2014: Final Policy proposal due at 3pm (Word and pdf copy emailed to [email protected]).

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