This study uses Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data to investigate the importance of three general aspects of teacher effects-teacher background qualifications, attitudes, and instructional practices-to reading and math achievement gains in first grade. The results indicate that compared with instructional practices, background qualifications have less robust associations with achievement gains. These findings suggest that the No Child Left Behind Act's "highly qualified teacher" provision, which screens teachers on the basis of their background qualifications, is insufficient for ensur-ing that classrooms are led by teachers who are effective in raising student achievement. To meet that objective, educational policy needs to be directed toward improving aspects of teaching, such as instructional practices and teacher attitudes.

This study investigated the relationships among several different indicators of high school performance: test scores, dropout rates, transfer rates, and attrition rates. Hierarchical linear models were used to analyze panel data from a sample of 14,199 students who took part in the National Education Longitudinal Survey of 1988. The results generally support the notion of an alternative as opposed to a common view of school effectiveness: Schools that are effective in promoting student learning (growth in achievement) are not necessarily effective in reducing dropout or transfer rates. In fact, after control for student inputs, high schools exhibit relatively little variability in dropout rates but considerable variation in transfer rates. In addition, characteristics of schools that contributed to performance in one area often did not contribute to performance in another. Given these findings, the authors suggest that, along with test scores, dropout and transfer rates should be used to judge school performance.

Using data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, this study examines the association between high school socioeconomic segregation and student attainment outcomes and the mechanisms that mediate those relationships. The results show that socioeconomic segregation has a strong association with high school graduation and college enrollment. Controlling for an array of student and school factors, students who attend high socioeconomic composition (SEC) schools are 68% more likely to enroll at a 4-year college than students who attend low SEC schools. Two mediating mechanisms were examined, including socioeconomic-based peer influences and school effects. The results indicate the association between SEC and attainment is due more to peer influences, which tend to be negative in the low SEC setting. However, school practices that emphasize academics also play a major role, particularly in mediating the relationship between SEC and 4-year college enrollment. These findings suggest that integrating schools is likely necessary to fully addressing the negative consequences of attending a low SEC school.

No abstract

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles “social capital” from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental social capital create educational advantages for socioeconomically privileged students vis-à-vis their less economically fortunate peers. By drawing a distinction between the availability of social capital and its convertibility, the authors find that whereas larger stocks of parental social capital accompany higher rungs on the social class ladder, its educational utility is less clearly associated with class status. A possible exception to this pattern pertains to the educational utility of middle-class parents’ ideas about the collective efficacy of influencing school policies and practices. At issue is whether a more inclusive understanding of the material and sociological reasons for educational inequality can spur educationally useful social exchange among parents across social class boundaries.