IPR - Events

The Institute for Policy Research
at Northwestern University

Children's Achievement: What Does the
Evidence Say About Teachers, Pre-K Programs,
and Economic Policies?

Speakers:

“Teachers: How Much Difference Do They Make and for Whom?”
by Larry V. Hedges

Larry V. Hedges’s research straddles many fields—in particular those of sociology, psychology, and educational policy. A statistician and educational researcher, he is best known for his work in developing statistical methods for meta-analysis in the social, medical, and biological sciences—a key component of evidence-based social research. Widely published, he has authored six books, including Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis: A Practical Guide to Modern Methods of Meta-Analysis (with I. Olkin) and The Handbook of Research Synthesis (with H. Cooper). Hedges is an elected member of the National Academy of Education, American Statistical Association, American Psychological Association, and Society of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. He is convener of the Campbell Collaboration’s statistics group, which is part of a larger effort to produce an online database of “best practices” in the social sciences and education. He chairs the Technical Advisory Group of the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse, an initiative to give educators and researchers a library of systematic reviews to aid in the development of evidence-based educational policy.

Abstract:

Professor Hedges will discuss some of the findings from the Tennessee class-size experiment, a four-year random assignment experiment, that provides some of the strongest evidence to date about the impact of teacher effects on student achievement. In particular, he will review the finding that the effect variance is much larger for schools with a lower socio-economic status (SES) than in schools with higher SES. Additional findings include substantial differences between teachers in their ability to generate student achievement gains, and teacher effects are larger for children's achievement in mathematics than in reading.

“Pre-K Programs: Which Ones Make a Difference?”
by Thomas D. Cook

Social psychologist Thomas D. Cook conducts research in social science research methodology, program evaluation, whole school reform, and contextual factors that influence adolescent development. Cook has written or edited 10 books, including Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference (with W. R. Shadish and D. T. Campbell) and published numerous articles and book chapters. He received the Myrdal Prize for Science from the Evaluation Research Society in 1982, the Donald Campbell Prize for Innovative Methodology from the Policy Sciences Organization in 1988, and the Distinguished Scientist Award of Division V of the American Psychological Association in 1997. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation and a member of its Committee on the Future of Work. Cook was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2000 and was inducted as the Margaret Mead Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in April 2003. He is a member of the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Head Start Accountability and Educational Performance Measures at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and a member of the Independent Review Panel for the evaluation of Title I in the U.S. Department of Education.

Abstract:

Professor Cook will briefly review some of the experimental evidence about the effectiveness of early childhood interventions. In particular, he will cover the Perry Preschool Project, the Abcederian Project, Head Start, Early Head Start, and Even Start. Professor Cook will address three main questions: (1) What seems to work to increase poorer children's life chances? (2) What implications, if any, does this have for the expansion of preschool services nationally? (3) Which early childhood outcomes should we value most?

“Family Economic Policies: Which Ones Raise Children’s Achievement?”
by Greg J. Duncan

Economist Greg J. Duncan has published extensively on issues of income distribution, child poverty, and welfare dependence. His research also encompasses determinants of child development, methodology, peer effects, residential mobility programs, policy, and health. He is the author or editor of 11 books, including For Better and For Worse: Welfare Reform and the Well-Being of Children and Families (with P. L. Chase-Lansdale), Consequences of Growing up Poor (with J. Brooks-Gunn), and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (with J. P. Shonkoff and D. Phillips). He continues to study neighborhood effects on the development of children and adolescents and other issues involving welfare reform, income distribution, and its consequences for children and adults. He recently completed a book on the New Hope Project, an innovative, random-assignment anti-poverty program in two Milwaukee neighborhoods. Duncan is a member of the interdisciplinary Family and Child Well-Being Research Network of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and a member of the MacArthur Network on the Family and the Economy. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and is president-elect of the Population Association of America.

Abstract:

Although publicly funded education is the nation's primary means for promoting children's achievement, Professor Duncan will show how family policies such as welfare reform can also matter. In reviewing data from seven random-assignment welfare and antipoverty policies, he finds evidence that some of these policies boosted the achievement of children making the transition into primary school. At the same time, however, they also appeared to have negative effects on children making the transition into early adolescence. Professor Duncan will also underscore how earnings supplement policies have more pronounced beneficial effects for younger children than other welfare and employment strategies.