July 2012 | Volume 54 | Number 7
Quality Feedback
Mining the Research
Matthew Swift
- The Principal Perspective: Full Report. The Center for Public Education. (April 2012). This study examines the roles of principals and focuses on how they have drastically changed over the years. In addition to managerial duties, principals now take a more hands-on approach to student achievement. The study shows that the more effective a principal is, the more likely students will be to perform to high standards. The report also shows that high-poverty schools tend to have principals who have more influence on daily classroom duties.
- "Recess and Reading Achievement of Early Childhood Students in Public Schools."
Education Policy Analysis Archives. (April 2012). This research looked at whether recess length played a role in reading achievement, concluding that it had little or no effect on end-of-the-year reading test scores. The study found that higher-income schools and white students tended to have longer recesses than Hispanic and black students in lower-income districts. The researcher did suggest that having one or more recesses a day totaling 45 minutes is the ideal amount of time for students and the balancing of classroom instruction.
- Moving High-Performing Teachers: Implementation of Transfer Incentives in Seven Districts (PDF). Institute of Education Sciences. (April 2012). This study looked at the first findings of the U.S. Department of Education's Talent Transfer Initiative. Teachers with high value-added scores were offered bonuses of up to $20,000 to transfer to low-performing schools. Seven school districts offered the incentives, and teachers began applying for the program. However, of the only 24 percent of eligible teachers who applied, only 6 percent ended up transferring.
