School Effects Revisited: The Size, Stability, and Persistence of Middle Schools’ Effects on Academic Outcomes

Abstract

Since the early 2000s, educational evaluation research has primarily centered on teachers’, rather than schools’, contributions to students’ academic outcomes due to concerns that estimates of the latter were smaller, less stable, and more prone to measurement error. We argue that this disparity should be reduced. Using administrative data from three cohorts of Massachusetts public school students ( N = 123,261) and two-level models, we estimate middle schools’ value-added effects on eighth-grade and 10th-grade math scores and, importantly, a non–test score outcome: 4-year college enrollment. Comparing our results to teacher-centered studies, we find that school effects (encompassing both teaching- and nonteaching-related factors) are initially smaller but nearly as stable and perhaps more persistent than are individual teacher effects. Our study motivates future research estimating the long-term effects of both teachers and schools on a wide range of outcomes.

Behavioral Factors Affecting the Acclimatization of Newly-Appointed Teachers in Primary Schools: An Empirical Investigation

“…On the contrary, they are more inclined to give priority and rely on teachers who have worked in their school for a longer period of time. It should be further noted that this finding highlights the importance of the administrative principle of team spirit and unity in schools (Fayol, 1949) -a lack of which has provoked criticism (Lloyd & Schachner, 2020) as it can lead to many problems in school education (Elfers et al, 2006;Feng et al, 2018;Podgursky et al, 2016;Scafidi et al, 2007).…”

Parental Depression and Contextual Selection: The Case of School Choice

“…However, in many American cities, a large and growing portion of children attend nonneighborhood schools. Moreover, recent studies suggest that schools meaningfully stratify children’s short- and long-term outcomes, even among those residing within the same district (Deming 2014; Lloyd and Schachner 2020). Future sociological studies of contextual sorting should reduce the neighborhood-school imbalance by probing school sorting as a distinct social process and by supplementing race- and class-based explanations with examinations of how cognitive, socioemotional, and physical health matter.…”

Putting ourselves together: School belonging, parental socialization, and teacher support of Latinx youth.

“…Despite efforts to reduce disparities in education, Latinx students continue to work within a system of education that mitigates their efforts toward academic success (Boser et al, 2014). It is critical to understand the factors that contribute to academic disparities in early adolescence, as academic achievement in early adolescence is linked to later outcomes such as high school dropout, grades, and achievement on standardized tests (Franklin & Trouard, 2016;Lloyd & Schachner, 2021;Montague et al, 2011). On average, Latinx students score lower than their non-Latinx White peers on reading and mathematics in eighth grade (National Center for Education Statistics, 2020aStatistics, , 2020b, and these disparities in middle school may contribute to the 10% school dropout rate among Latinx students (Pew Research Center, 2018).…”