Below is a plot showing the relationship between the density of students receiving free and reduced lunch and the percent making progress in mathematics in Iowa school districts. Families with limited income are eligible for free and reduced lunch, so it’s a proxy for poverty. The regression line shows the negative relationship between free and […]
k-12 education
Alternatives to Student Testing
Chad Adleman and the folks at Education Sector have recently released a report highlighting the deficiencies of Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) to measure student achievement. AYP is the (in)famous metric employed through No Child Left Behind to see if schools are improving on standardized tests. He concludes AYP is a seldom indicator of other long-term […]
K-12 Expenditures and Enrollment Size
From a working paper by Dan Otto on the economies of scale in Iowa’s K-12 schools: First, expenditures per student generally rise as district sizes fall below about 750 students. Given no additional knowledge about educational processes, it is possible there are economies of scale relative to school district size for these districts. It also […]