Recent Research
Kieffer, Michael and William Marinell, 2012
Navigating the Middle Grades
Educators have long asserted that the middle grade years (typically, grades six through eight) are a time of both great importance and vulnerability in students' K-12 schooling. Anecdotal and empirical evidence suggest that students encounter new social and emotional challenges, increased academic demands, and major developmental transitions during the middle grade years. In this study, we investigate whether and how students' achievement and attendance change between grade four and eight and identified moments during this period when students' achievement and attendance suggest that they will struggle to graduate from high school within four years.
Villavicencio, Adriana and Justina K. Grayman 2012
Learning from “Turnaround” Middle Schools: Strategies for Success
In New York City and around the nation, there is intense interest in the question of what it takes to turn around a low-performing school. This study focused on two sets of initially low-performing NYC middle schools. The first group (the “turnaround schools”) exhibited significant growth in academic performance between 2006 and 2010, while the other group saw minimal growth or remained stagnant during the same period. To gain an understanding of how the turnaround schools improved, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with principals and focus groups with teachers in both sets of schools.
This report presents a rich picture of the conditions and strategies that enabled the turnaround schools to boost student achievement. Specifically, it identifies three interrelated “essential conditions” that were largely principal driven: aligning needs with goals, creating a positive work environment, and addressing student discipline and safety. These essential conditions, in turn, set the stage for implementing specific strategies to improve teaching and learning: developing teachers internally, creating small learning communities, targeting student sub-populations, and using data to inform instruction. The report also describes several ongoing challenges faced by all the schools. Finally, it draws on the study’s findings to make recommendations for improving the effectiveness of middle schools here in New York City and around the country. The study is part of an ongoing focus on the middle grades for the Research Alliance. Click here for more information.
Kieffer, Michael, William Marinell and Nickisha Stephenson 2011
Navigating the Middle Grades and Preparing Students for High School Graduation
This brief presents preliminary findings from an exploratory study of New York City students’ transitions into, through, and out of the middle grades. Our analysis reveals that students’ attendance and achievement in their early schooling (fourth grade) predict whether students are likely to graduate from high school many years later. Further, we find that many students begin the middle grades on-track to graduate high school but fall off this trajectory before the end of eighth grade. These findings suggest that teachers and administrators should pay close attention to students whose attendance and math achievement fall during the middle grades, as these students are particularly at risk for not graduating from high school on time.
Marinell, William 2011
The Middle School Teacher Turnover Project - A Descriptive Analysis of Teacher Turnover in New York City’s Middle Schools
This report presents findings from the first of three components of a mixed-methods study of middle school teacher turnover in New York City. The project is a collaboration between researchers at The Research Alliance for New York City Schools, New York University, Teachers College, and Baruch College. This study reveals that 55% of the teachers who entered middle schools between 2002 and 2009 left these schools within three years. Further, nearly 60% of departing middle school teachers left the New York City public school system altogether and another 23% either moved to schools that did not include the middle grades (Grades 6-8) or took on non-teaching positions. These findings suggest an exodus of newly-arrived teachers from middle schools, and they raise questions for future research about the causes, consequences, and implications of teacher turnover. The remaining two components of the Research Alliance’s larger study – a survey and a case study analysis – will investigate these and other questions.
Research Colloquium—Learning from New York City’s Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice Can Inform Research
On November 18, 2010, the Research Alliance, in partnership with the Future of Children Journal, hosted a research colloquium entitled Learning from New York City’s Portfolio Strategy: How Policy and Practice can Inform Research. We invite you to read more about the research colloquium and the research questions that were proposed to inform high school improvement initiatives in New York City.
Kemple, James 2010
Children First and Student Outcomes: 2003-2010
The chapter addresses the ultimate goals of the reforms instituted under the banner of Children First: improved student performance and higher graduation rates. To date, the field has lacked a rigorous and independent analysis of the extent to which the city’s improved test scores and graduation rates reflect Children First effects per se or are artifacts of prior reform efforts or of other external influences occurring during the Children First era (2003-2010). This chapter seeks to fill that gap and provides compelling evidence of positive effects on student test scores and graduation rates.
Inaugural Paper Series
Schwartz, Amy Ellen., Rubenstein, Ross., and Stiefel, Leanna.(2007).
Why Do Some Schools Get More and Others Less?
An Examination of School-Level Funding in New York City.
Boyd, Donald., Grossman, Pamela., Lankford, Hamilton., Loeb, Susanna., and Wyckoff, James H. (2007).
Who Leaves?
Teacher Attrition and Student Achievement.
Easton, John Q., and Roderick Melissa. (2007).
Developing New Roles for Research in New Policy Environments .
The Consortium on Chicago School Research.
Pallas, Aaron M., and Carolyn J. Riehl. (2007).
The demand for high school programs in New York City .
*Inaugural papers werepresented at the inaugural conference of the Research Alliance for NYC Schools, New York, October 2007.
