Damon Clark

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of Florida's test-based retention policy. Under this policy, students who cannot demonstrate adequate reading ability at the end of third grade are retained in third grade and provided with retention-year interventions designed to improve their reading skills. Applying quasi-experimental methods to secondary data from three large Florida school districts, the researchers will answer four questions: (1) What is the effect of being retained ...

A growing number of states require students to pass exit exams in order to graduate from high school. However, a large and vocal group of testing opponents worries that exit exams will harm students, especially disadvantaged students who tend to do poorly on standardized tests. Critics argue that exit exams lower graduation rates by denying diplomas to students who complete all other requirements for a degree, and by inducing some students who fail the exam initially to drop out rather tha...

Supported by a five-year, $10 million grant from the Institute for Education Sciences at the U.S. Department of Education, CALDER is a federally funded National Research and Development Center. The center will harvest state and district administrative data on individual teachers and students for insights into how state and local policies, especially teacher policies, governance policies, and accountability policies affect teachers (e.g., who teaches what students) and students (e.g., academic a