Suchergebnisse

AbstractMany states are redesigning their college remediation policies to increase postsecondary degree completion. In 2012, Tennessee began waiving college math remediation for high school students who completed a computer‐based remedial math course (SAILS) during their senior year. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find that the high school remedial course did not improve students' math achievement any more than the typical senior year math course (although it
did allow students to avoid the cost and delay of remedial math in college). Using a difference‐in‐difference design, we find that completing SAILS boosted enrollment in college‐level math among first‐year community college students by nearly 30 percentage points, with nearly half of new enrollees passing the college‐level course. Such students had, however, only completed 1.5 additional college courses after two years. In 2015, Tennessee community colleges implemented "co‐requisite" remediation, allowing students to complete remediation alongside college‐level math. Under the co‐requisite policy, completing SAILS no longer produced any boost in college credits. Although both alternatives to pre‐requisite remediation produced modest gains for students and taxpayers, remediation requirements are not a primary driver of low degree completion rates.

AbstractCan a school or district improve student achievement simply by switching to a higher‐quality textbook or curriculum? We conducted the first multi‐textbook, multi‐state effort to estimate textbook efficacy following widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and associated changes in the textbook market. Pooling textbook adoption and student test score data across six geographically and demographically diverse U.S. states, we found little evidence of differences in average achievement gains for schools using different math textbooks. We found some evidence of greater variation in achievement gains among schools using pre‐CCSS editions, which may have been more varied in their content than post‐CCSS editions because they were written for a broader set of standards. We also found greater variation among schools that had more exposure to a given text. However, these differences were small. Despite considerable interest and attention to textbooks as a low‐cost, "silver bullet" intervention for improving student outcomes, we conclude that the adoption of a new textbook or set of curriculum materials, on its own, is unlikely to achieve this goal.