ESE Research Update

Research from ESE

	Disproportionality: A Look at Special Education and Race in the Commonwealth. NEW! In Massachusetts, African American and Hispanic students are on average about 20 to 30 percent more likely to be identified for special education services than white or Asian students, with especially large differences in emotional, intellectual, and specific learning disabilities. They are also nearly twice as likely to be placed in substantially separate classrooms. This report provides further data on the magnitude of these differences, summarizes research evidence suggesting why differences emerge, and presents information on best practices.
	Commonwealth Pilot Schools Year 1 Evaluation Report. This report examines intermediate outcomes from the first year of the Commonwealth Pilot School program, in which four schools which would otherwise have been designated chronically underperforming had the opportunity to convert to pilot schools with increased autonomy and accountability. In their first year, many of the schools made substantial changes in their staffing, student body size, time in learning, professional development, and governance, with smaller changes to curriculum and instruction. Staff returning to these schools after the change saw changes in capacity and practice, but results varied widely by school. The report also includes lessons learned from the first year of the program.
	Special Education Transportation Pilot Program: A Review of Outcomes. This program, which began in FY06, was designed to test the concept that collaboratives can more efficiently provide transportation services for special education students attending out-of-district schools than the districts themselves. After the third year of the program, a total of 41 new routes with 127 students from 27 districts (17 of whom had never before participated in a regional transportation program) were serving 24 different destinations. Most districts reported that they had seen modest cost savings, and they also cited collaborative expertise and reduced staff time as benefits of the program.
	Health and Risk Behaviors of Massachusetts Youth: 2007 Report. This report summarizes findings from the 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of high school students and Youth Health Survey of middle school students. Key findings include a reduction in many adolescent risk behaviors since 2001, with notable exceptions in nutrition, exercise, and weight, and increases in behaviors that have a protective effect on health, such as having an adult to talk to or participating in community service.

Reports from ESE

	Spring 2008 MCAS results. This document summarizes the statewide results across all of the MCAS tests and grades.
	2008 AYP results. This web page includes a number of spreadsheets showing schools and districts that made AYP and that entered and exited accountability status.
	FY07 expenditures per pupil. This website shows expenditures per pupil for all sources of revenue, statewide and by individual districts, by detailed function code.

Research on Massachusetts Education Policy

	Consequences of MCAS Exit Exams for Struggling Low-Income Urban Students. This research paper shows that among a group of students near the failing/needs improvement cut point in grade 10, just barely failing the MCAS on the first try has no impact on on-time graduation rates for suburban or rural students or for urban students from non-low-income families. Urban low-income students who fail the first test, however, are approximately 8 percentage points less likely to graduate from high school on-time.
	Performance Patterns for Students With Disabilities in Grade 4 Mathematics Education in Massachusetts. This report from the Regional Education Laboratory Northeast analyzes the mathematics performance of grade 4 students with disabilities in Massachusetts across several metrics, by locale-need combination categories, in top-performing schools, and relative to general education students.
	Lost In Transit: Low-Income Students and Massachusetts' Statewide School Choice Program. This policy brief shows that more affluent students and districts have benefited most from Massachusetts' interdistrict school choice policies, because many low-income students do not have access to a nearby district accepting school choice students.