GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) is a federal program designed to promote college access and success for students from low-income backgrounds. Although some literature has examined K-12 outcomes, little research has explored the extent to which GEAR UP achieves its intended postsecondary objectives. The…

The effectiveness of educator incentive programs rests on the assumption that the potential rewards for participants will motivate them to behave in certain ways (e.g., choose certain jobs, expend greater effort, engage in capacity-building professional development). Some researchers have examined the impact of financial incentives on teacher…

Since 1964, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program has provided funds to subsidize the wages of student employees, but it has never been studied directly. I use an instrumental variables difference-in-difference framework with administrative data from West Virginia to identify causal effects, comparing eligible and ineligible students across…

Between the late 1980s and early 2000s, schools, districts, states, and the federal government devoted enormous resources to the implementation of Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) models. With more than 1.6 billion federal dollars distributed through the Comprehensive School Reform Demonstration (CSRD) project and its successor, the CSR project,…

This article examines the power analyses for the first wave of group-randomized trials funded by the Institute of Education Sciences. Specifically, it assesses the precision and technical accuracy of the studies. The authors identified the appropriate experimental design and estimated the minimum detectable standardized effect size (MDES) for each…

Frederick Wirt's article, "Neoconservatism and National School Policy," is examined, particularly his interpretation and selection of the data cited in his article. (Author/GK)

Conducted a cost-benefit analysis of a federally financed comprehensive early childhood program, the Title I Chicago Child-Parent Centers. Used data for 1,539 program and comparison group children. Findings show that an established public program can provide benefits that far exceed costs. Outlines key elements of program effectiveness. (SLD)

The impact of Student Support Services (SSS), a large federal program to help disadvantaged students complete college, on retention in college was studied with approximately 2,800 SSS participants and similar nonparticipants. SSS had a positive impact for the three measures of retention used, but the impact varied with services used and student…

An intergovernment program implementation framework is shown to be strongly affected by the way federal expectations and administrative actions interact with the state and local education agency programs. They can influence the components of categories of implementation factors, process variables, and the agency role orientations. (CM)

This paper focuses on the National Sex Equity Demonstration Project, a joint effort of the University of Miami and the Broward County School Board funded by the Women's Educational Equity Act Program. The author concludes that the project made a modest, but important, contribution to the definition of educational equity. (Author/DWH)

The history of the federal government's involvement in elementary and secondary school curriculum development is traced. An attempt is made to place this involvement within a social and political perspective. Effects of policies and programs are outlined, and questions concerning the federal role in curriculum development are explored. (Author/GK)

Citing the signaling and charged use distinction, examines federal expectations and need for evaluation data and extent of local capabilities to meet those expectations when secondary/transition model demonstration projects, funded by the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, were obligated to improve amount, quality, and use of…

The 1988 Hawkins Stafford amendments to the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act required that the national evaluation and reporting system for Chapter 1 identify individual school projects in need of improvement. It is argued that the system is unsuited for this purpose, and suggestions for better indicators are provided. (SLD)

This article summarizes the findings of the National Research Council (NRC) report "On Evaluating Curricular Effectiveness" and examines the reviews in middle grades mathematics undertaken by the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). The NRC report reviewed and assessed 147 key evaluations of 13 National Science Foundation-supported K-12 mathematics…

Seven priorities in bilingual education research are suggested: effectiveness of bilingual education programs; second language acquisition; acquisition and use of minority languages in the United States; cultural and other differences between students and school; readiness for instruction in the second language; student assessment and diagnosis;…