Showing papers by "Arkansas Department of Education published in 2014"
TL;DR: Children who had early CHD surgery were less proficient on standardized school assessments, and many received special education, concerning because achievement-test scores at school age are “real-world” predictors of long-term outcomes.
Abstract: Children with early surgery for congenital heart disease (CHD) are known to have impaired neurodevelopment; their performance on school-age achievement tests and their need for special education remains largely unexplored. The study aimed to determine predictors of academic achievement at school age and placement in special education services among early CHD surgery survivors. Children with CHD surgery at <1 year of age from January 1, 1998 to December 31, 2003, at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital were identified. Out-of-state births and infants with known genetic and/or neurologic conditions were excluded. Infants were matched to an Arkansas Department of Education database containing standardized assessments at early school age and special-education codes. Predictors for achieving proficiency in literacy and mathematics and the receipt of special education were determined. Two hundred fifty-six children who attended Arkansas public schools and who had surgery as infants were included; 77.7 % had either school-age achievement-test scores or special-education codes of mental retardation or multiple disabilities. Scores on achievement tests for these children were 7–13 % lower than those of Arkansas students (p < 0.01). They had an eightfold increase in receipt of special education due to multiple disabilities [odds ratio (OR) 10.66, 95 % confidence interval (CI) 4.23–22.35] or mental retardation (OR 4.96, 95 % CI 2.6–8.64). Surgery after the neonatal period was associated with decreased literacy proficiency, and cardiopulmonary bypass during the first surgery was associated with decreased mathematics proficiency. Children who had early CHD surgery were less proficient on standardized school assessments, and many received special education. This is concerning because achievement-test scores at school age are “real-world” predictors of long-term outcomes.
30 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a simultaneous model of retirement, income, and subjective well-being was proposed to estimate the effect of public pensions on subjective wellbeing, while accounting for time effects and unobserved individual effects.
Abstract: Continued improvements in life expectancy and fiscal insolvency of public pensions have led to an increase in pension entitlement ages in several countries, but its consequences for subjective well-being are largely unknown.Financial consequences of retirement complicate the estimation of effects of retirement on subjective well-being as financial circumstances may influence subjective well-being, and therefore, the effects of retirement are likely to be confounded by the change in income. At the same time, unobservable determinants of income are probably related with unobservable determinants of subjective well-being, making income possibly endogenous if used as control in subjective well-being regressions. To address these issues, we estimate a simultaneous model of retirement, income, and subjective well-being while accounting for time effects and unobserved individual effects. Public pension arrangements (replacement rates, eligibility rules for early and full retirement) serve as instrumental variables. We use data from HRS and SHARE for the period 2004-2010.We find that depressive symptoms are negatively related to retirement while life satisfaction is positively related. Remarkably, income does not seem to have a significant effect on depression or life satisfaction. This is in contrast with the correlations in the raw data that show significant relations between income and depression and life satisfaction. This suggests that accounting for the endogeneity of income in equations explaining depression or life satisfaction is important.
2 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of a high-stakes testing and reporting requirement on students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools was investigated in the context of both the school choice and accountability literatures.
Abstract: This article considers the impact of a high-stakes testing and reporting requirement on students using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools. We describe how such a policy was implemented during the course of a previously authorized multi-year evaluation of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which provided us with data on voucher students before and after the reform, as well as on public school students who received no new policy treatment. Our results indicate substantial growth for voucher students in the first high-stakes testing year, particularly in mathematics, and for students with higher levels of earlier academic achievement. We discuss these results in the context of both the school choice and accountability literatures.
1 citations
TL;DR: This paper used simulation methods to examine the extent to which different commonly used teacher-value added estimators accurately capture both the rank correlation between true and estimated teacher effects and the distribution of effective teaching across student characteristics in the presence of classroom composition effects.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the use of teacher value-added estimates to assess the distribution of effective teaching across students of varying socioeconomic disadvantage. We use simulation methods to examine the extent to which different commonly used teacher-value added estimators accurately capture both the rank correlation between true and estimated teacher effects and the distribution of effective teaching across student characteristics in the presence of classroom composition effects. Varying the amount of teacher sorting by student characteristics, the within-teacher variability in classroom composition, and the amount of student learning decay, we compare aggregated residuals, teacher random effects, and teacher fixed effects models estimated in both levels and gains, with and without controls for classroom composition. We find that models estimated in levels more accurately capture the rank correlation between true and estimated teacher effects than models estimated in gains, but levels are not always preferable for recovering the correlation between teacher value-added and student achievement. For recovering that correlation, aggregated residuals models appear preferable when sorting is not present, though fixed effects models perform better in the presence of sorting. Because the true amount of sorting is never known, we recommend that analysts incorporate contextual information into their decisions about model choice.