Program Announcement: Education Policy, Finance, and Systems CFDA 84.305A

Program Officer:
Dr. David Sweet
(202) 219-1748
David.Sweet@ed.gov

Purpose

The Institute intends for the Education Policy, Finance, and Systems (Policy/Finance) research program to address five goals: (1) exploring malleable factors¹ (e.g., systemic programs, policies, management practices) that are associated with better education outcomes (e.g., high school graduation rates, student achievement), as well as mediators and moderators of the relations between these factors and education outcomes, for the purpose of identifying potential targets of intervention; (2) developing innovative policies and systemic practices that are intended to improve student outcomes either directly or indirectly by improving the teaching and learning environment; (3) evaluating the efficacy of education policies, education finance programs and practices, and systemic programs and practices that are intended to improve student outcomes either directly or indirectly by improving the teaching and learning environment; (4) evaluating the impact of policies, finance programs and practices, and other systemic practices that are implemented at scale and are intended to improve student outcomes either directly or indirectly by improving the teaching and learning environment; and (5) developing practical measures of the organization and operation of schools or school systems and validating such measures against student outcomes or developing and testing cost accounting tools that will enable education administrators to link student-level resources to student-level achievement data.

The long-term outcome of this program will be an array of tools and strategies (e.g., assessments, systems-level programs, policies) that have been documented to be effective for improving education outcomes.

Background

Improving student achievement and educational attainment (e.g., high school graduation, enrollment in postsecondary education) is a national concern. Through the Policy/Finance program, the Institute supports research to improve student learning and achievement by identifying changes in the ways in which schools and districts are organized, managed, and operated that may be directly or indirectly linked to student outcomes. Rather than improving student learning by changing the curricula or instructional approaches, organizational and management approaches are generally designed to change the structure and operation of schools or districts in ways that may improve the overall teaching and learning environment, and indirectly improve student achievement. For example, differences in achievement among schools and districts serving students of similar economic and racial/ethnic backgrounds are likely to reflect, in part, differences in the alignment of components of policy and practice. When these differences occur within states where every school is operating under the same state standards and accountability system, they point to the potential importance of organizational and management variables at the local level in enhancing student learning. The types of projects that are appropriate for this program are illustrated by, but not limited to, the examples provided below.

As part of the Policy/Finance research program, the Institute encourages research to identify ways in which money and resources matter to student learning. For example, how can schools and districts use and allocate resources to improve the performance and capacity of teachers in ways that are tied to student achievement? In districts that serve high proportions of students from low income families or minority groups, for example, how can incentives be structured to recruit and retain highly qualified and experienced teachers in the schools that serve children with the greatest needs (e.g., bonuses for the most skillful teachers and administrators to serve in high-needs schools)?

Little rigorous research has been performed that examines either a direct causal relation or associations between student achievement and various systemic or organizational strategies. For example, the Institute encourages research on the relations between different forms of school governance (e.g., elected versus appointed boards, state or mayoral takeovers) and student achievement, and research on the relations between different forms of school organization and structure (e.g., extended-day versus traditional school day, year-round schooling versus traditional academic year calendar) and student achievement. There is a dearth of rigorous research on how the implementation or effects of specific systemic strategies might vary according to school characteristics (e.g., experience-level or turnover rate of teaching staff, substantial proportions of high-poverty students). Similarly, little work has been conducted to determine the effects on student learning of making different choices in strategies or investments (e.g., smaller classes with less experienced, lower salaried teachers versus larger classes with higher paid, more experienced, and highly skilled teachers). The Institute welcomes proposals to examine the relation between specific strategies (such as alignment of curriculum, assessment, and performance standards) and student outcomes. For example, the Institute encourages research on supplemental education services such as tutoring. What kinds of supplemental education services (one-on-one tutoring, small-group prescriptive skill-building, individualized gap assessment and remediation, small-group drill and practice) are effective for improving student learning? How can these services be aligned with the instructional programs of districts and with state academic, content, and achievement standards to maximize student learning? The Institute recognizes that applicants to the Policy/Finance research program typically propose models that involve multiple steps. For example, an applicant might choose to evaluate a program intended to reduce chronic absenteeism. The model of change for this program might be:

Intervention	Mediator	Student Academic Outcome
Identify chronically absent students Conduct graduated intervention:  * regular student/advisor meetings * increase monitoring * regular parental contact * assign peer tutor/mentor	Increase attendance Increase time in classes Improve student engagement Increase homework completion	Improve grades Improve scores Reduce drop-out rates

In this model, improved academic outcomes is the most distal outcome that the intervention seeks to improve. The Institute requires applicants to obtain measures of student academic outcomes (e.g. grades, test scores). In this example, strong applicants would collect measures of moderators (e.g., prior absence levels, prior achievement), as well as the mediators between the intervention strategy and academic outcomes (e.g. increased attendance, increased time in classes).

Over the past decade, numerous problems have been noted with respect to using per-pupil expenditure data that are aggregated at the district- or school-level for answering questions related to how schools can make better use of their resources to improve student learning (National Research Council 1999). For example, school districts commonly use district-wide averages of teacher salaries in estimating costs for individual schools; district-wide averages tend to hide the disparity across schools within a district. School-level per-pupil expenditure data collapse expenditures across students receiving different services, and when these data are associated with school-level student achievement scores, the data do not enable administrators to make informed decisions about the allocation of resources in ways that are meaningfully linked to student learning.

Under Goal Five (Measurement), the Institute accepts applications to develop and validate cost-accounting tools as well as applications to develop measures of the organization and management of schools or school systems and to validate such measures against student outcomes. For cost-accounting, the Institute is interested in practical cost accounting tools or measurement systems that will allow schools and districts to track student-level resources in ways that will enable administrators to make resource allocation decisions that are tied to student learning outcomes. As noted in the National Research Council (1999) report, "traditional function and object categories that were developed to track revenues and expenditure data for fiscal auditing purposes do not represent a particularly useful lens on educational activity when the focus shifts to what schools strive to do instructionally and how they do it." Researchers are encouraged to develop and test new cost accounting tools or measurement systems that will invent, test, and analyze student or school resource measures to determine productivity. Researchers may build on or modify previous systems, such as those identified by Berne and Stiefel (1997), or develop and test entirely new approaches. Proposed systems should take into account the need for an overall cost accounting tool or measurement system that will enable schools and districts to determine student-level resources for educating students with special needs (including, for example, students from racial, ethnic, and linguistic minority groups who have traditionally underachieved academically, and students with disabilities), and the excess costs of educating students with special needs in specific categories of expenditure. The Institute encourages researchers to work with large districts or consortia of districts to develop cost accounting tools that would enable administrators to analyze the relations between resource allocation and student achievement.

Under Goal Five, the Institute also strongly encourages applications to develop measures of the organization and operation of schools or school systems and validate such measures against student outcomes. The Institute's intent is to provide education leaders and administrators with instruments that will enable school or district staff to assess specific aspects of school organization or management along dimensions that matter to (i.e., are strongly correlated with) student outcomes. As an illustration of the type of instrument the Institute seeks, an applicant might cull from existing research a set of specific practices that have been, or potentially could be, shown to be highly correlated with student achievement outcomes. These practices would need to be operationalized at a relatively specific level. For example, an overarching category might be "maintains a strong teaching and learning environment" and include subcategories such as, academic goals, student progress monitoring, and classroom instruction. Items for each subcategory (e.g., student progress monitoring) would address specific practices or behaviors that are used to meet the objective of that subcategory (e.g., teachers follow an established schedule for monitoring student progress on learning goals; progress monitoring data are used to identify students who are falling behind grade-level expectations; teachers use progress monitoring data to modify instructional programs for individual students). For the Goal Five measurement project, the applicant would propose to develop this instrument and then conduct a study to validate the instrument against relevant school and student academic outcomes.

References

Berne, R., & Stiefel, & L. (1997). Student-level school resource measures. Selected papers in school finance (NCES 97–536). http://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/97536.pdf.

National Research Council. (1999). Improving student learning: A strategic plan for education Research and its utilization. Committee on a Feasibility Study for a Strategic Education Research Program. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.