Expanding policy options for educating teenagers

Future of Children

Volumn 19, Issue 1, 2009, Pages 211-239

  Stern, David ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CITIZENSHIP; CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT; ECONOMIC ASPECT; EDUCATION PROGRAM; FUNDING; HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE; HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT; MATHEMATICS; POLICY; READING; REVIEW; UNITED STATES;

ADOLESCENT; CURRICULUM; EDUCATIONAL MEASUREMENT; EDUCATIONAL STATUS; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MINORITY GROUPS; MODELS, EDUCATIONAL; NEEDS ASSESSMENT; ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES; POLICY MAKING; POVERTY; SCHOOLS; STUDENT DROPOUTS; TEACHING; UNITED STATES; VOCATIONAL EDUCATION;

EID: 66849143691     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: 15501558     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/foc.0.0027     Document Type: Review

References (111)

1. See the paper by John H. Tyler and Magnus Lofstrom in this volume.
2. Marianne Perie and Rebecca Moran, NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Three Decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics (Washington: Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2005).
3. The share of high school graduates who enroll in college in the following fall averaged about 50 percent from 1970 to 1979 and rose to about 64 percent from 2000 to 2004. The share of twenty-five- to twenty-nine-year-olds who had completed a bachelor's or higher degree rose more slowly, from 22 percent in 1975 to 29 percent in 2005. 2005 Digest of Education Statistics (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, tables 8 and 182).
4. This section does not discuss the many private purposes for which individuals may choose to be educated, including gaining a better understanding of themselves and the world.
5. Jill Tucker and Bob Egelko, "Governor Denounces Ruling on Education," San Francisco Chronicle, March 8, 2008, p. A9.
6. Lowell C. Rose and Alec M. Gallup, "The 32nd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools," Phi Delta Kappan, September 2000, p. 47.
7. Milton Friedman, "The Role of Government in Education," in Economics and the Public Interest, edited by Robert A. Solo (Rutgers University Press, 1955), p. 124.
8. Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 1776 (www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c1-article2-ss3.htm [September 7, 2005]).
9. Julie A. Reuben, "Patriotic Purposes: Public Schools and the Education of Citizens," in The Public Schools, edited by S. Fuhrman and M. Lazerson (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 1-24.
10. Rose and Gallup, "The 32nd Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll" (see note 6).
11. W. Grigg, P. Donahue, and G. Dion, The Nation's Report Card: 12th-Grade Reading and Mathematics 2005, prepared for the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2007), p. 13.
12. Mark Hugo Lopez and others, Electoral Engagement among Non-College Attending Youth (Medford, Mass.: Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Tufts University, July 2007).
13. Karlo Barrios Marcelo, Volunteering Among Non-College Youth (Medford, Mass.: The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Tufts University, July 2005).
14. U.S. Department of Education, Office of the Under Secretary, Policy and Program Studies Service, National Assessment of Vocational Education: Final Report to Congress (Washington: Department of Education, 2004), p. 25.
15. National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, High School Transcript Study 2000, table 5; published online only (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/hsts/tables/hsts005.asp [July 2, 2008]). Average credits in personal and other courses rose from 2.8 to 3.5 over this period.
16. Department of Education, National Assessment of Vocational Education (see note 14), p. 20.
17. For a comprehensive review of the research, see the 2003 report of the National Assessment of Vocational Education.
18. Ferran Mane, "Trends in the Payoff to Academic and Occupation-Specific Skills: The Short and Medium Run Returns to Academic and Vocational High School Courses for Non-College-Bound Students," Economics of Education Review 18, no. 4 (1999): 417-438
19. Author's computation from U.S. Department of Education, National Assessment of Vocational Education (see note 14), p. 104. Results are from the National Education Longitudinal Study.
20. Jeannie Oakes, Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality (Yale University Press, 1985, second edition 2005).
21. For a discussion of the rationale and various examples, see W. Norton Grubb, Education through Occupations in American High Schools, vol.1, Approaches to Integrating Academic and Vocational Education, and vol. 2, The Challenges of Implementing Curriculum Integration (Teachers College Press, 1995).
22. For a more recent account, see Marisa Castellano, Sam Stringfield, and James R. Stone III, "Secondary Career and Technical Education and Comprehensive School Reform: Implications for Research and Practice," Review of Educational Research 73, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 231-272 (Pubitemid 37076541)
23. National Educational [sic] Association, Report of the Committee of Ten on Secondary School Studies (New York: American Book Company, 1894).
24. National Education Association, Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, Bulletin 35, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1918).
25. For detailed historical accounts of this controversy, see David L. Angus and Jeffrey E. Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School, 1890-1995 (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999);
26. Herbert Kliebard, The Struggle for the American Curriculum 1893-1958 (New York and London: Routledge Farmer, third edition 2004);
27. Marvin Lazerson and W. Norton Grubb, American Education and Vocationalism, A Documentary History (New York: Teachers College Press, 1974).
28. Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School (see note 24), p. 203.
29. National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics 2007 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2007), table 8.
30. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, The Race between Education and Technology: The Evolution of U.S. Educational Wage Differentials, 1890 to 2005 (Cambridge, Mass.: Department of Economics, Harvard University, March 2007). The earnings of college graduates relative to those of high school graduates declined from 1915 to 1950, but have increased since then, most rapidly since 1980. Goldin and Katz attribute these trends largely to changes in the supply of graduates.
31. Steven J. Ingels and others, A Profile of the American High School Sophomore in 2002: Initial Results from the Base Year of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, NCES 2005-2338 (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2005).
32. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, The Condition of Education 2006, NCES 2006-2071 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2006), Indicator 23.
33. National Academy of Sciences, Panel on Secondary School Education and the Changing Workplace, High Schools and the Changing Workplace, The Employers' View (Washington: National Academy Press, 1984).
34. David T. Kearns and Denis P. Doyle, Winning the Brain Race: A Bold Plan to Make Our Schools Competitive (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, ICS Press, 1988).
35. National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (Washington: National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983), www.ed.gov/pubs/NatAtRisk/index.html.
36. Except Hawaii, which is a one-district state.
37. Except Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, which in recent years have given each district the same total amount as in the previous year, with an adjustment for inflation. See Michael Griffith, "State Education Funding Formulas and Grade Weighting," policy brief (Denver: Education Commission of the States, May 2005).
38. Historically, school attendance became widespread for teenagers when industrialization and urbanization displaced them from the labor market. Schools provided supervision during the day because parents working outside the home could no longer do so. See Angus and Mirel, The Failed Promise of the American High School (see note 24),
39. and David Levine, "From Agriculture to Industry," in Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society, volume 1, edited by Paula S. Fass (New York and London: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), p. 297.
40. One classic study is John Goodlad, A Place Called School, Prospects for the Future (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1984).
41. Ethan Yazzie-Mintz, Voices of Students on Engagement: A Report on the 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement (Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, Indiana University, 2007), p. 4.
42. Ethan Yazzie-Mintz, Voices of Students on Engagement: A Report on the 2006 High School Survey of Student Engagement (2007), Ibid., p. 5.
43. David Shernoff, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Barbara Schneider, "Student Engagement in High School Classrooms from the Perspective of Flow Theory," School Psychology Quarterly 18, no. 2 (2003): 158-176 (Pubitemid 37001697)
44. Jennifer King Rice, "The Impact of Class Size on Instructional Strategies and the Use of Time in High School Mathematics and Science Courses," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 21, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 228.
45. Troy Adams, "The Status of School Discipline and Violence," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 567 (January 2000): 146.
46. Regina M. Foley and Lan-Sze Pang, "Alternative Education Programs: Program and Student Characteristics," High School Journal 89, no. 3 (February-March 2006): 10-21.
47. Cheryl M. Lange and Sandra J. Sletten, Alternative Education: A Brief History and Research Synthesis (Alexandria, Va.: National Association of State Directors of Special Education, 2002).
48. Nanette Asimov, "Spotlight on Shady Ranking of Schools," San Francisco Chronicle (October 16, 2007), p. D2.
49. Valerie E. Lee and Douglas D. Ready, Schools within Schools: Possibilities and Pitfalls of High School Reform (Teachers College Press, 2007).
50. Charles Dayton and others, Lessons from the Field: A Guide to Implementing Small Learning Communities and Career Academies (Berkeley, Calif.: Career Academy Support Network, Graduate School of Education, University of California, 2007), http://casn.berkeley.edu/resources/lessons-from-the-field. pdf.
51. Richard F. Elmore, "Teaching, Learning, and School Organization: Principles of Practice and the Regularities of Schooling," Educational Administration Quarterly 31, no. 3 (August 1995): 355-374
52. Theodore R. Sizer, Horace's Compromise (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1984).
53. Richard M. Ingersoll, Is There Really a Teacher Shortage? A Research Report (Seattle: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington, September 2003), p. 13.
54. Richard M. Ingersoll, Is There Really a Teacher Shortage? A Research Report (2003), Ibid., p. 16.
55. Richard J. Murnane and Jennifer L. Steele, "What Is the Problem? The Challenge of Providing Effective Teachers for All Children," Future of Children 17, no. 1 (Spring 2007).
56. Eric A. Hanushek and Steven G. Rivkin, "Pay, Working Conditions, and Teacher Quality," Future of Children 17, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 81.
57. Ron Haskins and Susanna Loeb, "A Plan to Improve the Quality of Teaching in American Schools," Future of Children (Policy Brief, Spring 2007).
58. Michael Podgursky and Matthew Springer, Teacher Performance Pay: A Review, Working Paper 2006-2101 (Nashville: National Center on Performance Incentives, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, November 2006).
59. Russell W. Rumberger, Student Mobility and Academic Achievement (ERIC Digest 2003-2004) (www.ericdigests.org/2003-2/mobility.html [March 14, 2008]).
60. National Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educational Progress, High School Transcript Study 2000, table 2; published online only (http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/hsts/tables/hsts002.asp [July 2, 2008]). Students are defined as vocational concentrators if they earned at least three credits in a single specific labor market preparation field but had fewer than twelve credits in the core academic course areas of English, social studies, mathematics, and science.
61. For more detail, and citations, see David Stern and Roman Stearns, "Combining Academic and Career-Technical Courses to Make College an Option for More Students: Evidence and Challenges," in Multiple Perspectives on Multiple Pathways, edited by Marisa Saunders and Jeannie Oakes (Harvard Education Press, 2009).
62. (www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/hstwindex.asp [June 19, 2007]). SREB now also sponsors related initiatives involving middle schools, urban schools, and comprehensive school reform.
63. (www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/background/keypractices.asp [June 19, 2007]).
64. (www.sreb.org/programs/hstw/Assessment/assessindex.asp [June 19, 2007]).
65. Geoffrey D. Borman and others, "Comprehensive School Reform and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis," Review of Educational Research 73, no. 2 (2003): 125-230. (Pubitemid 37076540)
66. Comprehensive School Reform Quality Center, CSRQ Center Report on Middle and High School Comprehensive School Reform Models (Washington: American Institutes for Research, 2006).
67. Robert L. Crain and others, The Effects of Career Magnet Education on High Schools and Their Graduates (Berkeley, Calif.: National Center for Research in Vocational Education, University of California, MDS-779, 1998).
68. For a description of career academy programs, their origins, and early evaluation results, see David Stern, Marilyn Raby, and Charles Dayton, Career Academies: Partnerships for Reconstructing American High Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/New York: John Wiley, 1992).
69. For a review of this research, see David Stern and others, "Learning by Doing Career Academies," in Improving School to Work Transitions, edited by David Neumark (New York: Russell Sage, 2007), pp. 134-168
70. From among the pool of applicants, MDRC randomly assigned some students to participate in the academy, and the others became the control group. As is often the case in field experiments, some who were assigned to the program did not actually participate. Twelve percent of the students assigned to academies never enrolled in one; another 22 percent left the academies while staying in high school. See James J. Kemple and Jason Snipes, Career Academies: Impacts on Students' Engagement and Performance in High School (New York: MDRC, 2000), p. 34. Adhering to strict experimental protocol, MDRC's analysis included all students assigned to academies in the treatment group, whether or not they actually started or stayed in an academy.
71. James J. Kemple, Career Academies: Communities of Support for Students and Teachers: Emerging Findings from a 10-Site Evaluation (New York: MDRC, 2007).
72. James J. Kemple, Career Academies: Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes and Educational Attainment (New York: MDRC, 2004). Amounts are in 2006 dollars.
73. James J. Kemple, Career Academies: Long-Term Impacts on Labor Market Outcomes, Educational Attainment, and Transitions to Adulthood (New York: MDRC, 2008). Amounts are in 2006 dollars.
74. In explaining the absence of impact on high school completion or postsecondary education, the MDRC researchers point out that both the academy students and the control group went farther in school than students from comparable high schools, according to NELS data. Students who applied to the academies had relatively high educational attainment whether MDRC assigned them to academies or to the control group. This supports the conjecture that students who apply to some career academies, including those studied by MDRC, have unobserved characteristics that make them more likely to succeed whether or not they enroll in a career academy. An evaluation might try to avoid this issue by assigning students to the program without asking them to apply first. But this would change the nature of the program itself, because participation in a career academy is usually voluntary on the part of students.
75. Robert H. Meyer, "Value-Added Indicators of School Performance: A Primer," Economics of Education Review 16, no. 3 (1997): 283-301. (Pubitemid 127420873)
76. Daniel F. McCaffrey and others, Evaluating Value-Added Models for Teacher Accountability (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2003).
77. David J. Hoff, " 'Growth' Pilot Now Open to All States," Education Week 27, no. 15 (December 12, 2007), p. 1.
78. Victor Lavy, "Using Performance-Based Pay to Improve the Quality of Teachers," Future of Children 17, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 87-110.
79. Podgursky and Springer, Teacher Performance Pay: A Review (see note 52).
80. Cognitive test scores account for only a small part of the variation in subsequent economic success, according to Samuel Bowles, Herbert Gintis, and Melissa Osborne, "The Determinants of Earnings: A Behavioral Approach," Journal of Economic Literature 39, no. 4 (December 2001): 1137-1176 (Pubitemid 33600204)
81. See also Richard J. Murnane and others, "How Important Are the Cognitive Skills of Teenagers in Predicting Subsequent Earnings?" Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 19, no. 4 (2000): 547-568
82. Years of schooling matter more than test scores, according to Henry M. Levin, "High-Stakes Testing and Economic Productivity," in Raising Standards or Raising Barriers, edited by Gary Orfield and Christopher Edley (New York: Century Foundation, 2000).
83. Victor Lavy reports positive results from a high school incentive scheme in Israel tied to performance measures that included school completion. See Lavy, "Using Performance-Based Pay to Improve the Quality of Teachers" (see note 71), pp. 95-97.
84. (www.studentclearinghouse.org).
85. For a description of "co-op" and other forms of school-supervised work experience, see David Stern and others, "Work Experience for Students in High School and College," Youth and Society 21, no. 3 (1990): 355-389
86. David Stern and others, "What Difference Does It Make if School and Work Are Connected? Evidence on Co-operative Education in the United States," Economics of Education Review 16, no. 3 (1997): 213-226
87. (www.metcenter.org/Site/Real-World.html).
88. Daniel Princiotta and Stacey Bielick, Homeschooling in the United States: 2003, NCES 2006-2042 (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2005).
89. Patrick Basham, John Merrifield, and Claudia R. Hepburn, Home Schooling: From the Extreme to the Mainstream, 2nd edition (Vancouver, British Columbia: The Fraser Institute, Oct. 2007), p. 5.
90. Examples and research evidence are available from The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, at www.civicyouth.org.
91. See also What Kids Can Do, at www.whatkidscando.org,
92. and the National Service-Learning Partnership at www.service- learningpartnership.org.
93. An introduction to the literature on service-learning is Shelley H. Billig and Andrew Furco, eds., Service-Learning through a Multidisciplinary Lens (Greenwich, Conn.: Information Age Publishing, 2002).
94. (http://ici.umn.edu/checkandconnect [March 16, 2008]).
95. Mary F. Sinclair and others, "Dropout Prevention for Youth with Disabilities: Effificacy of a Sustained School Engagement Procedure," Exceptional Children 65, no. 1 (1998): 7-21. (Pubitemid 128455553)
96. Mary F. Sinclair, Sandra L. Christenson, and Martha L. Thurlow, "Promoting School Completion of Urban Secondary Youth with Emotional or Behavioral Disabilities," Exceptional Children 71, no. 4 (2005): 465-482 (Pubitemid 40901607)
97. Andrew Hahn, "Extending the Time of Learning," in America's Disconnected Youth: Toward a Preventative Strategy, edited by D. J. Besharov (Washington: Child Welfare League of America Press, 1999), p. 247.
98. Allen Schirm and others, The Quantum Opportunity Program Demonstration: Short-Term Impacts, MPR Reference No. 8279-093 (Washington: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., August 2003), tables V.1, V.3.
99. Allen Schirm, Elizabeth Stuart, and Allison McKie, The Quantum Opportunity Program: Final Impacts. MPR Reference No.: 8279-8932 (Washington: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., July 2006).
100. Sam Dillon, "Online Schooling Grows, Setting Off a Debate," New York Times, February 1, 2008.
101. (www.flvs.net/educators/fact-sheet.php. [March 16, 2008]).
102. (http://ce.byu.edu/is/site/courses/select.cfm?type=hs), (www.apexlearning.com), (www.plato.com/Secondary-Solutions.aspx), (www.cyberhigh.org).
103. Andrew Trotter, "Online Options for 'Credit Recovery' Widen," Education Week 27, no.38 (May 21, 2008): 1, 12, 13.
104. J. Carl Setzer and Laurie Lewis, Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary School Students: 2002-2003, NCES 2005-010 (Washington: National Center for Education Statistics, 2005), pp. 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 18.
105. John F. Watson, Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning: A Review of State-Level Policy and Practices (Naperville, Ill.: Learning Point Associates, October 2005).
106. See Rosina Smith, Tom Clark, and Robert L. Blomeyer, A Synthesis of New Research on K-12 Online Learning (Naperville, Ill.: Learning Point Associates, 2005).
107. For example, see Marcia C. Linn and others, "Teaching and Assessing Knowledge Integration in Science," Science 313 (August 2006): 1049-1050 (Pubitemid 44300215)
108. A rough estimate is that 20 or 30 percent of teenagers are now participating in such settings. For homeschooling, see Princiotta and Bielick, Homeschooling in the United States (see note 78).
109. For public alternative schools, see Brian Kleiner, Rebecca Porch, and Elizabeth Farris, Public Alternative Schools and Programs for Students at Risk of Educational Failure: 2000-2001, NCES 2002-2004 (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2002).
110. For charter schools, see Alison Consoletti and Jeanne Allen, Annual Survey of America's Charter Schools (Washington: Center for Education Reform, April 2007).
111. For a description of how dividing large high schools into smaller units alters instructional formats, see Lee and Ready, Schools within Schools (see note 44).