Preface Chapter 1 The challenge Chapter 2 The nature of the evidence: A synthesis of meta-analyses Chapter 3 The argument: Visible teaching and visible learning Chapter 4: The contributions from the student Chapter 5 The contributions from the home Chapter 6 The contributions from the school Chapter 7 The contributions from the teacher Chapter 8 The contributions from the curricula Chapter 9 The contributions from teaching approaches - I Chapter 10 The contributions from teaching approaches - II Chapter 11: Bringing it all together Appendix A: The 800 meta-analyses Appendix B: The meta-analyses by rank order References

Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement

Adding It Up explores how students in pre-K through 8th grade learn mathematics and recommends how teaching, curricula, and teacher education should change to improve mathematics learning during these critical years. The committee identifies five interdependent components of mathematical proficiency and describes how students develop this proficiency. With examples and illustrations, the book presents a portrait of mathematics learning: * Research findings on what children know about numbers by the time they arrive in pre-K and the implications for mathematics instruction. * Details on the processes by which students acquire mathematical proficiency with whole numbers, rational numbers, and integers, as well as beginning algebra, geometry, measurement, and probability and statistics. The committee discusses what is known from research about teaching for mathematics proficiency, focusing on the interactions between teachers and students around educational materials and how teachers develop proficiency in teaching mathematics.

Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics

Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Pp. viii, 282. £3·50, paperback £1. 1970. (Cambridge University Press.)

This study explored whether and how teachers’ mathematical knowledge for teaching contributes to gains in students’ mathematics achievement. The authors used a linear mixed-model methodology in which first and third graders’ mathematical achievement gains over a year were nested within teachers, who in turn were nested within schools. They found that teachers’ mathematical knowledge was significantly related to student achievement gains in both first and third grades after controlling for key student- and teacher-level covariates. This result, while consonant with findings from the educational production function literature, was obtained via a measure focusing on the specialized mathematical knowledge and skills used in teaching mathematics. This finding provides support for policy initiatives designed to improve students’ mathematics achievement by improving teachers’ mathematical knowledge.

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Effects of Teachers’ Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching on Student Achievement:

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Answers In The Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns, And Bachelor's Degree Attainment

Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement

In examining recruitment and retention of teachers in rural areas, David Monk begins by noting the numerous possible characteristics of rural communities--small size, sparse settlement, distance from population concentrations, and an economic reliance on agricultural industries that are increasingly using seasonal and immigrant workers to minimize labor costs. Many, though not all, rural areas, he says, are seriously impoverished. Classes in rural schools are relatively small, and teachers tend to report satisfaction with their work environments and relatively few problems with discipline. But teacher turnover is often high, and hiring can be difficult. Monk observes that rural schools have a below-average share of highly trained teachers. Compensation in rural schools tends to be low, perhaps because of a lower fiscal capacity in rural areas, thus complicating efforts to attract and retain teachers. Several student characteristics, including relatively large shares of students with special needs and with limited English skills and lower shares of students attending college, can also make it difficult to recruit and retain high-quality teachers. Other challenges include meeting the needs of highly mobile children of low-income migrant farm workers. With respect to public policy, Monk asserts a need to focus on a subcategory of what might be called hard-to-staff rural schools rather than to develop a blanket set of policies for all rural schools. In particular, he recommends a focus on such indicators as low teacher qualifications, teaching in fields far removed from the area of training, difficulty in hiring, high turnover, a lack of diversity among teachers in the school, and the presence of migrant farm workers' children. Successful efforts to stimulate economic growth in these areas would be highly beneficial. He also calls attention to the potential for modern telecommunication and computing technologies to offset some of the drawbacks associated with teaching in rural areas.

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Recruiting and Retaining High-Quality Teachers in Rural Areas.

This article begins with a critical review of alternative strategies currently in use to study educational productivity. These unfolding research programs are considered in the light of increasing ...

Education Productivity Research: An Update and Assessment of Its Role in Education Finance Reform

Relationships between high school structural characteristics and curricular offerings are examined in this study using survey data from High School and Beyond. Emphasis is placed on the role played by high school size. The study’s central thesis is that the effects of school size on the curriculum will vary depending on subject area, the character of the course being offered (e.g., advanced versus remedial), and the setting in which the school is located. The influence of other structural features, most notably socioeconomic status (SES), unionization, urban location, and grade configuration, are also examined. Findings are consistent with the basic proposition that the effects of size are differentiated within high schools. The findings have implications for assessments of equality of educational opportunity as well as for the renewed debate over optimal high school size.

Predictors of High School Academic Course Offerings: The Role of School Size

Production research in education has been dominated by attempts to estimate the structural parameters of what has been called the education production function. These estimation attempts are viewed in this article as only one way the production function concept can be drawn upon to inform debates over education policy. After exploring what it means to posit the existence of the education production function, the article critically reviews past estimation efforts and gives examples of how the production function can be used as a source of insight to guide policy-relevant inquiries into education productivity.

David H. Monk

Papers

Subject area preparation of secondary mathematics and science teachers and student achievement

Recruiting and Retaining High-Quality Teachers in Rural Areas.

Education Productivity Research: An Update and Assessment of Its Role in Education Finance Reform

Predictors of High School Academic Course Offerings: The Role of School Size

The Education Production Function: Its Evolving Role in Policy Analysis