September 15, 2008
Beginning in January, NCSC Director and Vanderbilt Professor Mark Berends will move to the University of Notre Dame. Continuing in his role as director of the center, Professor Berends will take up his new position as professor of sociology and director of the Center of Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO). At the Vanderbilt location, Ellen Goldring will become the principal investigator of record, and Marisa Cannata will take on responsibilities as associate director alongside Dale Ballou.

September 1, 2008
With the help of a new survey, one NCSC project is digging more deeply into America’s classrooms this year to learn what makes schools work. The center is partnering with the UW-Madison’s prestigious Wisconsin Center on Education Research to bring its Survey of Enacted Curriculum (SEC) to teachers across the nation.

The project is a study of policies and practices that promote success in schools, classrooms, and student performance. The SEC are confidential, online teacher questionnaires that collect information about what and how teachers teach, and then generate reports so they can “see” how their teaching patterns compare with state standards and assessment results. In effect, this unique research tool accomplishes what most do not, providing meaningful data to participant and researcher alike. “It’s a win-win,” says the project’s principal investigator, Mark Berends. “As we learn more about what teachers are doing and how they’re doing it, teachers get reports that help them do it better.” The What Makes Schools Work project is beginning its third and final year of data collection. Click here to learn more about it.

August 1, 2008
The Handbook of Research on School Choice, the NCSC’s second in a series of edited volumes, went to press this summer. Following Charter School Outcomes, the Handbook broadens the school choice discussion with chapters on magnet schools, school vouchers, private schools, and other schooling choices such as virtual and homeschools. As such, it offers both national and international perspectives from a distinguished group of renowned education scholars. The book is due for publication by LEA/Taylor & Francis Group in early 2009.

August 18, 2008
President George W. Bush announced his intention last month to nominate NCSC scholars Caroline Hoxby and Paul E. Peterson to be Members of the Board of Directors of the National Board for Education Sciences. Two of Eight nominees, the professors are from Stanford University and Harvard University, respectively. Professor Hoxby’s term is due to expire in 2112, while Professor Peterson’s term will end in 2111. Read More.

July 1, 2008
The new book Leading With Data: Pathways to Improve Your School by NCSC scholars Ellen Goldring and Mark Berends hit bookstores just in time for back-to-school shopping. The hands-on guidebook helps principals collect, analyze, and use data to make meaningful instructional decisions with confidence. Part of the Leadership for Learning series, this resource examines the link between data-based decision making and continuous and sustainable school improvement, accountability issues, and shared mission and goals. It provides numerous examples and cases, sample forms, and a school improvement template.

June 9, 2008
Professor Mark Berends has been appointed to the editorial board of the American Educational Research Journal Section on Teaching, Learning, and Human Development. Read More.

May 21, 2008
Preparations are underway for the Peabody Professional Institute’s summer series of short-term programs for school leaders. The Institute for Higher Educational Management kicks off June 8, with a lineup of sessions for charter, independent, and Montessori school leaders to follow in July. Wrapping up the summer will be a week of workshops for school superintendents. As representatives from schools across the nation, selected participants are recognized as Summer Fellows of Peabody College. During their time on campus, they attend lectures and presentations, take part in discussions, and conduct case study analyses in small groups. The goal of the summer institutes is to equip these school leaders with the tools they need to bring greater success to their schools and careers. To learn more, visit the PPI website.

April 1, 2008
Data can help school administrators boost student achievement, support teacher performance and improve parent-school relations, according to a new book by Vanderbilt University education faculty. The book, Leading with Data: Pathways to Improve Your School, was written by Ellen Goldring, professor of education policy and leadership, and Mark Berends, associate professor and director of the National Center on School Choice at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development. It outlines how administrators can and should use data to improve their schools. Read More

March 24, 2008
NCSC researchers will head to the national conference of the American Educational Research Association. The theme of this year’s program is "Research on Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic Responsibility". Center scholars will be involved in panel presentations covering such topics as charter schools, school governance and policy, and supplemental education services.
Read the papers

March 17, 2008
Research associate Marisa Cannata has won the American AERA Division L Outstanding Dissertation of the Year Award. Marisa is post-doctoral fellow in Vanderbilt’s Peabody College of education and human development. Her dissertation, “Where to Teach? Developing a More Comprehensive Framework to Understand Teacher Career Decision,” was completed at Michigan State University and supported by a Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellowship in 2006-07. According to the dissertation award committee chair, “The reviewers thought the work was highly original in its use of theory to explain teacher labor market decisions and in its creative use and analysis of mixed methods data.”
Vanderbilt View

February 22, 2008
Mark Berends is quoted in the Tennessean in an article on block scheduling, which most Metro high schools will implement next year to allow students to earn more course credits and take more classes they’re interested in, and thus—so goes the hope—increase school graduation rates. But according to Berends, what really makes a difference in schools is not how long and often classes meet, but what happens between teachers and students when they’re together.
Read the Article

January 1, 2008
It’s a given that all charter schools are not created equal. So what do we know about New York City charter schools? Stanford University economist and NCSC partner Caroline Hoxby recently published a multi-year study of 42 of 60 NYC public charter schools. The study captures data on absolute test scores, value added performance, lottery in vs. lottery out and social demographics.
Read the report

November 1, 2007
Students at 30 of Philadelphia’s lowest performing schools placed under the direction of for-profit education companies learned more in math, after three and four years, than would have been expected had schools remained under district management. NCSC partner Paul Peterson’s new study released by the Kennedy School of Government’s Program on Education Policy and Governance (PEPG) at Harvard University also found gains in reading scores, but those gains were not different from expected at statistically significant levels.
Read the press release

October 30, 2007
Nashville’s magnet schools are not reaching their desired goal of encouraging de-segregation and academic achievement. NCSC scholars Ellen Goldring and Claire Smrekar discussed these findings at a public forum hosted by the Vanderbilt Center for Nashville Studies at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.
Read the article

October 1, 2007
As perhaps the fastest-growing sector in the school choice movement, charter schools claim to offer a bigger bang for the public education buck. The question is, is it true? According to Charter School Outcomes, a new book from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates featuring some of the leading charter school researchers in the country, it depends.
Read the press release

April 30, 2007
Recent issues of Education Daily and the Chattanooga Times cited NCSC research on school transfer options under No Child Left Behind. Preliminary findings indicate that students who opted to transfer from persistently low-performing schools to higher performing ones had slower achievement growth rates in their new schools than students who stayed in their underperforming schools.
Read the paper "An Empirical Investigation of the No Child Left Behind School Choice Policy and Academic Achievement in a Western State" (Anna Nicotera, Bettie Teasley, and Mark Berends)

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