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IDEA Publications
The Latest from IDEA
UCLA IDEA Publications 2003-2011
IDEA's publications have been featured in radio, print, and television outlets nationwide. Additionally, our publications are often cited by policy makers as they draft legislation, and community-based grassroots organizations as they work on important campaigns. IDEA's publications are organized into the following six categories:
Categories:
School Resources, Conditions, and Opportunities
Educational Opportunity Report
Title: Value Addded? Date: May 27, 2011 Author: John Rogers, Shirin Vossoughi, Sophie Fanelli Description: What makes an effective teacher? How might we systematically assess teacher “effectiveness”? Is it accurate or fair to evaluate teachers based on student test scores? These questions lie at the heart of recent debates surrounding teacher quality and evaluation. Most centrally, these debates have focused on the appropriate use of “value added measures” in judging teacher effectiveness and making decisions about teacher compensation, promotion, and dismissal. Here, we present a series of questions and answers (as well as resources for more in-depth analysis) aimed at disentangling this complex issue.
Title: Safe and Participatory Public Schools Date: June 08, 2010 Author: John Rogers Description: The California State Assembly is presently considering AB 2034 which would prohibit school districts, county offices of education (COEs), or charter schools that elect to fingerprint volunteers from allowing individuals who have been convicted of specific sex, drug or violent offenses to volunteer in schools. This policy brief aims to inform policymakers and the general public about research on two topics related to the proposed legislation: a) the racial mismatch between drug users and drug offenders; b) the importance of volunteering to school outcomes, including student safety.
Title: The Impact of High Schools on Student Achievement within the Los Angeles Unified School District: A Value-Added ApproachPolicy Brief: The Impact of High Schools on Student Achievement within the Los Angeles Unified School District: A Value-Added Approach
Date: November 18, 2008
Author: Marisa Saunders, David Silver, Estela Zarate
Description: This new Latino Scorecard Education Action Team report, prepared by UCLA
IDEA and UC ACCORD, reveals that students who enter high school with
similar prior education experiences have tremendously different rates of
success depending on the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)
high school they attend. Some LAUSD schools are more effective at
enabling students to graduate, and to graduate prepared for college.
Title: Removing the Roadblocks to College Report
Date: November 01 2006
Author: Jeannie Oakes, John Rogers, David Silver, Siomara Valladares, Veronica Terriquez, Patricia McDonough, Michelle Renee, Martin Lipton Description: A decade ago proponents seeking to put an end to affirmative action
argued that a vote for Proposition 209 was a vote for fairness. They
claimed their initiative was a way to correct social inequalities and
foster equal opportunity. However, the Removing the Roadblocks report
provides research that explains how and why ending affirmative action
has produced neither the “results” nor the opportunities that were
promised.
Title: Suspensions and Expulsion At-A-Glance Report
Date: August 04, 2006
Author: UCLA/IDEA Description: This fact sheet briefly reviews trends in suspension and expulsion, presents research findings about the ineffectiveness of these actions, and identifies promising alternatives. It also lists resources for parents and students who wish to learn more.
Title: Sharing the Burden? JROTC Enrollment in Los Angeles County Schools
Date: September 21, 2005
Author: UCLA/IDEA Description: High Schools serving large numbers of low-income students of color and English Learners are far more likely to offer JROTC (Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps) classes than other Los Angeles County High Schools. 63 of the 195 High Schools in Los Angeles County offer classes in “Military Science”—better know as JROTC. These JROTC classes enrolled 14,382 students in 2004-5. Almost 3⁄4 (73%) of LA County High Schools that offer JROTC classes DO NOT offer enough college preparatory courses for all students to take a college preparatory curriculum.
Title: Retention Report Series: A Longitudinal Study of Career Urban Educators
Date: September 22, 2004 Author: Multiple Authors Description: As
part of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access’s commitment
to making education research accessible to policy makers, educators, and
the community, we are releasing interim results from our longitudinal
study of urban educators. The papers in this series reflect the on-going
work of researchers studying the career pathways of educators who
received specialized urban teacher preparation through UCLA’s Center X
Teacher Education Program (TEP). This longitudinal study extends from
2000 to 2006, adding a new TEP cohort each year, to track more than a
thousand urban educators in their first through tenth year of the
profession. Together, papers in the Retention Report/Careers in Motion
series seek to inform teacher retention policy by addressing the unique
challenge of creating and supporting career pathways in education that
benefit high poverty schools and students. To learn more about the
research component of UCLA's Urban Teacher Education Collaborative click
here.
Title: Report on The Education Gap in Los Angeles County
Date: August 10, 2004 Author: UCLA/IDEA Description: This report provides the best available information on the educational opportunities and outcomes for K-12 students in your legislative district. It provides statistics about the public schools in your district, about schools statewide, and about schools in the state’s “basic aid” school districts. Each chart allows you to compare your district’s schools to those in the state as a whole and to those in school districts with the most resources. The appendices to this report provide detailed data about each of the public schools in the communities you represent.
Title: Report on the Status of Public School Education
in California 2004
Date: May 06, 2004
Author: Louis Harris with the Peter Harris Research Group
Description: Deeply concerned about both the quality of
California public schools and persisting questions of fairness and
equality of opportunity for some
groups of children, but nevertheless hopeful about efforts underway to
remedy these problems, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
commissioned Louis Harris to conduct a survey of a cross-section of
California’s public school teachers on the status of classroom
conditions essential to learning.
Title: Separate and Unequal 50 Years after Brown: California's
Racial "Opportunity Gap"
Date: May 06, 2004
Author: Jeannie Oakes, John Rogers, David Silver, Joanna Goode Description: UCLA’s
Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA) was asked by
the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to conduct additional analyses
of the Harris survey data and other state data. The goal of these
further analyses was to provide a better understanding of the
relationship among racial segregation, unequal conditions, and students’
educational chances in California’s schools.
Title: Separate and Unequal 50 Years after Brown: PowerPoint
Date: May 06, 2004
Author: John Rogers Description: A PowerPoint presentation that addresses California's Racial "Opportunity Gap".
Title: Brown vs. Board of Education Booklet
Date: April 29, 2004 Author: Jeannie Oakes and John Rogers Description: We are pleased to announce a new booklet for K-12 classrooms and community
groups examining the legacy of Brown v Board for California. The booklet chronicles
the national battle for equal schooling up to and since the Brown decision.
It also highlights the history of school segregation in California and the
ongoing struggle for equal schooling.
Title: Williams Watch Series: Investigating the Claims
of Williams v. State of California
Date: June 02, 2003 Author: Multiple Authors Description: The reports in this series reflect the work of researchers who have examined the current conditions in California schools and considered possible alternatives for insuring adequate and equal opportunities for learning for all students. The papers place the specific complaints of the current Williams v. State of California case into a larger context of evidence about California’s current educational conditions. They suggest alternative approaches to state governance and policy that could remedy inadequacies not only in California, but in states around the nation.
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High School Reform
Title: Pipelines, Pathways, and Payoffs: Economic Challenges and Returns to Changing Demographics in California
Date: September 22, 2009
Authors: Jon Stiles and Henry Brady
Description: For individuals, success and persistence in schooling has a huge economic impact on their lives. Educational attainment affects the kinds of employment job seekers can find, the amount of money they earn, the housing conditions and lifestyle they can afford, the level of savings they can accumulate for retirement, their risk for incarceration, and the likelihood that they will live in poverty or need to rely on transfer payment for basic needs. Perhaps less obviously, the state also has a strong stake in the educational attainment of its residents. One element of the state's economic stake is its financial balance, since the demand for incarceration and poverty-related state services declines with higher levels of educational attainment, while higher rates of per capita income permit the provision of a fixed set of state services at lower average rates of taxation.
Title: Restructuring and Reculturing Schools to Provide Students with Multiple Pathways to College and Career Date: September 22, 2009
Author: Hugh Mehan
Description: This paper focuses on one attempt to redefine and restructure the academic curriculum, pedagogy, and course structures of California schools into “multiple pathways” to college and career. The Preuss School at UCSD “detracks” its curriculum, i.e., establishes high instructional standards and presents rigorous curriculum to all students while varying the supports available to enable all students to meet high the school’s academic standards.
Title: Sharing the Burden? The Impact of Proposed Teacher Layoffs Across LAUSD Date: April 13, 2009
Author: UCLA/IDEA
Description: This paper focuses on
one attempt to redefine and restructure the academic curriculum,
pedagogy, and course structures of California schools into “multiple
pathways” to college and career. The Preuss School at UCSD “detracks”
its curriculum, i.e., establishes high instructional standards and
presents rigorous curriculum to all students while varying the supports
available to enable all students to meet high the school’s academic
standards.
Date: May 2000
Authors: Kevin G. Welner and Jeannie Oakes
Description: Although the Jermoe School District doesn’t
exist, the following story is very real. Tracking, or the practice
of assigning students to high- and low-level classes according to their
perceived abilities, remains widespread throughout the nation. And it
usually consigns children substantially to unequal educational
opportunities. We have studied school districts around America that,
like the fictional Jermoe, recognized this inequality and tried to
detrack. We have also witnessed the obstacles to such efforts. In this
booklet, we offer an explanation for the potential staying power of
tracking and suggest a series of strategies designed to contribute to
future efforts to detrack schools.
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Exit Exam
Date: April 25, 2005
Authors: John Rogers, Jennifer Jellison Holme, David Silver
Description: California has required students to take the High School Exit Exam
since 2001. This exam assesses core academic skills in two areas:
Mathematics and English Language Arts. To date, the results of the Exit
Exam have been used as part of California’s accountability system.
Current law calls for the state to withhold diplomas from students in
the class of 2006 who do not pass either section of the Exit Exam. The
law also states that it is the responsibility of school districts to
“prepare pupils to succeed.”
Author: Jennifer Jellison Holme and John Rogers
Description: In 1999, the California Department of Education contracted with the Human Resources Research Organization (HumRRO), an independent evaluation firm based in Alexandria, Virginia, to perform annual evaluations of the quality and impact of the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE). HumRRO’s Fall 2004 Report asserts that California’s high schools have made a great deal of progress in preparing students for the CAHSEE. It recommends that California deny diplomas to students in the Class of 2006 who do not pass the High School Exit Exam.
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Organizing
Title: IDEA researchers co-author new research brief for UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
Date: October 29, 2009
Authors: Veronica Terriquez, John Rogers, Gary Blasi, Janna Shadduck Hernandez, Lauren D. Appelbaum
Description: The third brief in the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment's (IRLE) series of Research and Policy Briefs highlights the work of the Service Employees International Union Local 1877, the UCLA Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access, UCLA School of Law’s Program in Public Interest Law and Policy, and the UCLA Labor Center in understanding and addressing the educational issues facing union members’ children. SEIU Local 1877 has sponsored “Parent University” workshops which teach members about topics that will help them to support their own children’s academic success and advocate for school improvements. SEIU Local 1877 is also working with a collaborative of unions and community groups to expand upon the Parent University work and stay involved in children’s education.
Title: "More Justice" - The Role of Organized Labor in Educational Reform by John Rogers and Veronica Terriquez, in Educational Policy
Date: May 09, 2009
Authors: John Rogers and Veronica Terriquez
Description: IDEA’s John Rogers and Veronica Terriquez published an article in Educational Policy entitled "More Justice" - The Role of Organized Labor in Educational Reform. The article explores the potential role of low-wage service sector unions in engaging in equity-minded school reform.
Title: 2005 AERA Readers Theater Presentation: Research and Community Organizing for School Reform
Date: April 12, 2005 Authors: Julie Flapan, Joanna Goode, Mary Johnson, Julie Mendoza, Jeannie Oakes, Yvonne Paul, Michelle Renee, John Rogers, Luis Sanchez Description:
A PowerPoint presentation on that explains the use of research and
community organizing to change the landscape of educational politics.
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Accountability
Title: FINDING COMMON GROUND IN EDUCATIONAL VALUES: Influential Californians Speak on the Purpose of Public Education Date: January 2012 Authors: John Rogers, Melanie Bertrand, Wendy Perez Description: UCLA IDEA researchers interviewed 50 influential Californians about their thoughts on the purpose of public education. This white paper reveals important common ground about the knowledge and skills students should acquire from the state’s public schools. The points of agreement between stakeholders who span the political and ideological spectrum differ from the lofty rhetoric that characterizes much of today’s education debate, and offer hope for improving California’s public schools.
Title: Constructing Success?: Accountability, Public Reporting, and the California High School Exit Exam Date: November 02, 2009
Author: John Rogers
Description: This article assesses the CDE's claims of success, explores how California constructed its success story, and considers what this story tells us about high-stakes testing generally. Drawing on evidence from recently released and previously unreleased state data, the article argues that state and local officials have created over optimistic accounts of CAHSEE pass rates.
Date: September 08, 2008 Author: John Rogers
Description: Parental involvement is mentioned more than one hundred times in the No
Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In this article, John Rogers argues that
President Bush and former U.S. secretary of education Rod Paige have
promoted policy narratives of test accountability, choice, and parental
involvement that describe how poor parents can spur educators to have
higher expectations and to work harder. What is missing from these
policy narratives, Rogers argues, is a fundamental understanding of the
problems facing poor communities: a lack of both resources and tools for
collective action. Through the case study of a grassroots nonprofit
organization, Parent-U-Turn, Rogers demonstrates how parents can create
what he calls public power by responding to structural and systemic
educational problems through shared inquiry and collective action.
Rogers holds up this case as an example of how parents might become true
forces for accountability in public education and outlines ways in
which the lessons of this example might be incorporated into the
reauthorization of NCLB.
Title: Principles for Equitable and Democratic School Choice
Date: August 2009
Author: John Rogers
Description: A two page document that highlights six principles for equitable and democratic school choice.
Author: John Rogers
Description: Over the last three years, UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access has produced yearly Educational Opportunity Reports (online at www.edopp.org). These reports inform policymakers, educators, and parents about how well California’s public schools are meeting their mission of providing all students with a quality education. Working on these reports has forced us to grapple with a number of questions. What is the purpose of
educational data? What sort of data is needed to advance this purpose? How should data be presented? What support is needed for educators and members of the public to use data in powerful ways? And finally, what level of public investment is needed to create such a quality data system?
Title: A Report on the Readability of the School Accountability Report Card (SARC)
Date: September 15, 2005
Authors: Neil Peretz, Andrea Luquetta, Gabriel Baca and Gary Blasi
Description: The School Accountability Report Card is intended to be an important part of the educational accountability system in California. A School Accountability Report Card (SARC) is prepared for each school in California to inform parents and community members about how well a school is doing. Each school district is required by state and federal law to produce a SARC for all the schools in the district. The State provides a template for what the SARC should contain.
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Title: Becoming Critical Public Historians: Students Study Diversity
and Access in Post "Brown v. Board" Los Angeles
Date: November 02, 2009
Authors: Ernest Morrell and John Rogers
Description: Anniversaries of major historical events, such as the 50th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, provide social studies teachers with the opportunity to connect their classroom study to broader public conversations about the event and its significance. This article reports on the one such effort - an intensive five week summer seminar in which urban high school students produced original historical research on the legacy of Brown in greater Los Angeles.
Title: Studying the Struggle:
Contexts for Learning and Identity Development for Urban Youth, by John
Rogers, Ernest Morrell and Noel Enyedy, in American Behavior Scientist (Links directly to Sage Publications)
Date: September 30, 2009
Authors: John Rogers, Ernest Morrell, and Noel Enyedy Description: Activism and organizing can be a fertile subject matter for young people to study. This article presents a case study of a summer seminar in which urban high school students examined the historical struggle for educational justice in their communities. Adopting a “communities of practice” approach to learning, the article documents the changing participation of seminar participants and the changing identities and skills that this entailed. During the seminar, students took on identities as “critical researchers”— skilled investigators who produce and share knowledge relevant to social change. In the process, seminar participants developed and deployed high-level academic skills in language arts, social studies, and mathematics.
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